Could Improving Your Website's Design Drive More Sales?

When did you last put yourself in your prospects' or customers' shoes and took a good, hard look at your company's website?

Would you feel good about buying your own products and/or services based on the design of your site? Would you be comfortable entering your personal information into the website? Too often we dismiss site design as "good enough," without realizing just how much money we're leaving on the table.

The Stanford Web Credibility Project found that 47% of web users base purchase decisions on the look and feel of the website. This implies that nearly half of your customers will buy from you - without necessarily looking elsewhere - as long as your site appears professional and provides essential information clearly and completely.

So how do you make sure your website satisfies that 47% segment? You've gone to the effort and expense of getting their eyeballs to your website with advertising and PR strategies. Think about the boost to your bottom line if you suddenly found it much easier to close the deal with almost half your online prospects.

The 8-Second Window

Usability studies indicate that visitors decide whether to stay on a site within eight seconds of viewing the home or landing page. In this brief moment, customers gather a surprisingly broad range of impressions about company size, trustworthiness, product offering, brand, price and much more.

If a site makes them "anxious," they're prone to move along to a site that looks more professional and trustworthy - even if it means spending a few more dollars. Think about it: How often have you paid a few extra dollars for an item on a trusted, secure site such as Amazon.com, versus the same item at an unknown, unprofessional-looking site?

Small businesses often underestimate the importance of graphic appeal. Websites with unprofessional graphic design elements abound, yet site owners wonder why so many users abandon their site. And it's so clear that professional enhancements can pay off in no time. One graphic designer I know recently tackled an e-commerce site. The resulting redesign nearly doubled page views, purchases and time spent on the website.

If you doubt your website's effectiveness, ask friends or clients to view your site alongside competitor sites. Ask them to search out and buy a particular item. Observe any troubles or frustration. Ask probing, open-ended questions for details about the impression your site creates with users.

Expectations of a Graphic Designer

A skilled graphic designer should be able to:

Incorporate an attractive color palette that engages your target market and appropriately represents your brand. Include attractive photos that - along with informative captions - are large enough to reveal important details. Lay out simple and effective navigation that shows visitors what they can expect to find. Ensure that key calls to action stand out. Optimize graphical elements to load quickly on both PCs and Macs, and with common browsers. Make sure users can tell exactly what your company does and what it can offer in eight seconds or less.

Effective graphic design work is too important to leave to an amateur. Hire a web design specialist (print design is a different skill set) to help get your site right. Make sure the person or agency you select truly understands website usability.

Make the investment in solid graphic design assistance - the quick return on that investment may surprise you.

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Benefits Of Engaging A Professional Web Designer

Anybody who wishes to cement his online presence will need to do so through a website that showcases their product or service or simply tell more about them. Even today, in the age of social media and how it has established itself as a key part of our life, websites are the most preferred and intimate way of keeping in touch with customers and communicating with them in the most effective way. So, if you are an individual with a product that needs communicated or a company that wishes to have an information centre for all its visitors, the smart thing to do is to hire a professional web designer to meet all your website development needs.

Professional Web Designer

The need for hiring a professional website developer comes from the simple fact that, he is an expert at what he does, similar to the proficiency you have gained in running your business or providing the service you provide. Even if you do have the necessary knowledge about web development, building your own website will at best be a distraction, and at worst may take time away from your real work. There really is a case for letting professional web developers take over and do all the necessary web development.

Having arrived at a decision to hire an outsider but a professional web designer to handle all web development activities, the next call to take is if you should go with a web development company or a freelance developer.

Choosing a freelance developer makes sense, especially if you are on a budget and are a small company or an individual. When you compare a company and an individual, you will see that a company has to include the costs that are incurred, called as fixed costs, irrespective of the size of the project which is your website. You may have an intimately designed and elaborately crafted idea for your website or you may have simple, basic website ideas. Either way, a company will charge you a full price simply because they need to offset their costs on to their customers.

Freelancing Pros

A freelance web designer on the other has only his costs to deal with and his costs usually come down to the number of hours he expects to spend on this project. He has no fixed costs or overhead costs to deal with and that means you are getting a lesser price. Also, with a freelance designer, he will be the only person who will be dealing with, from start to finish. This definitely won't be the case in a web development company.

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How To Use A Leaf Vacuum

A leaf vacuum can do wonders to make your yard look better during the fall season. Most people struggle to rake up all of the leaves that fall on their lawn at this time, but this device can provide you with a much simpler way to go about that process. Here is a quick look at how to use a vacuum so you can see just how easy it is.

Most leaf vacuums look like the traditional blowers used for leaves but with bags attached to them. That is essentially all the unit is, but in reverse. Rather than blowing the leaves around on your yard, it sucks them up so you can bag them and dispose of them. The leaves are crushed before they go into the bag so you can fit as much in there as possible.

To use a leaf and lawn vacuum, all you have to do is strap the bag around your body and turn on the device. When you put the hose over a set of leaves, you will be able to get them out of your yard for good. Go over your entire yard until you are satisfied with how clear it is, and then empty the bag of leaves into a trash sack. You can dispose of that bag accordingly.

If you are a smaller person, you may want to invest in a smaller hand-held vacuum because the large ones can be difficult to use after a while. However, may walk-behind are self-propelled which makes using them easier. This will mean that you have to empty the bag more often, but you will be able to use the device more efficiently that way. You can find these vacuums that double as leaf blowers, so look around at some different options you have. If you do enough research, you should be able to find the perfect unit to clean your yard.

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Time For a REDO

The times we are in right now present a myriad or problems that we must face in order to maintain our identity as America.

We have issues with healthcare, immigration, man-made disasters, people in positions of power that seem hell bent on destroying everything we have worked for, other countries trying to pick away at our resolve while destroying our credibility on the world stage, a failing economy primarily due to overspending, and failing resources, and a very lackluster government that appears to lead from the rear. These problems, though they seem insurmountable at face value, can be successfully dealt with, but only on the basis of co-operative effort from all parties.

The need to redo our current status is becoming imminent as evidenced by the growing unrest with a non-responsive government, that appears only to harken to it's own needs rather than that of the people. The propensity with which this administration attempts to divert responsibility for it own inability to deal effectively with any given situation has presented itself on more than one occasion.

It has become increasingly clear that any resolution to the situations affecting the people of the United States will be generated by the people of the United States, not the elected officials that were put into office to effect these solutions. The crowd in Washington is more focused on remaining in office than working on the problems that they were put there to handle.

As a result of their inability to complete the assignment they were hired for, a movement has started across these United States. This movement has been a long time in coming, but I feel that it has nevertheless arrived at the precise time it is needed. The movement has been titled different things that all mean the same, be it called The Grass Roots Initiative, The Tea Party Movement, Return to Normalcy or a myriad of other names it still breaks down to the same thing.

The people of the United States are fed up with the bull out of Washington, and through the Media. As far as Washington is concerned we the people who elected the Elitists have absolutely nothing to say after they get into Office inferring they are untouchable, that imperious view can and will be changed within the framework of the next election.

As for the Media, the ostentatious pontifications of the liberalizations raises an odoriferous positioning that smacks of nothing more than propaganda.

These icons have displaced their mission with the mistaken idea that they will tell us what to believe instead of reporting the news as they are supposed to. This is accomplished by the artful use of misinformation or the blatant use of censorship.

It is incredulous to think that things have gotten so out of hand that the President of the United States of America goes around the world apologizing for the United States to countries that stand in direct opposition to our way of life, and our standards. This is the same President that refused on two public outings to render honors to the Flag of the United States and pay respects to the people killed by a self proclaimed assassin of Allah, but I guess that the "Enlightened way" of doing things (elitism).

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I still take pride in my country, I take pride in the Flag of our country, I take pride in the fact that in this country you can express yourself freely without fear of reprisal. I might not agree with what you say but, I will defend your right to say it.

But, when you cross the line and start degrading my country to other idiots like yourself, you will get my attention.

When you allow another idiot to come to this country and berate our laws and lifestyle, you have really gotten all my attention.

At this point I will do what I can to offset the noxious dribble that emanates from mouth of these ankle biters.

This covers both the politicians and the media. So now that that is in the open let's proceed and join the fray.

Here's to a better country friend!

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Review: Unbridled Injustice

Author: Ellie Boatman

ISBN: 1598000586

It was Charles Dickens who stated in his famous novel Oliver Twist, "the law is an ass," and perhaps in some instances we would have to agree with him. However, what is even more alarming is when judges are bigger asses when they exhibit judicial bias or they abuse their wide discretionary powers that is accorded to them within the family court system. They may even, in certain instances, look the other way when there is a question of attorney ethics. All of this leads to a violation of due process that every citizen is entitled to under our democratic legal system. Such denial of justice was experienced by Ellie Boatman Conger, principal protagonist in Ellie Boatman's debut novel, Unbridled Injustice.

Many authors have turned to fiction to provide a beacon of enlightenment in understanding bitter struggles during dark times, and Boatman is no exception, as she uses this genre very effectively in narrating how one woman from Kentucky had been wronged by the judicial system.

Set against Lexington Kentucky's equestrian community, the novel tells the story of Ellie, who after vacationing for a week in Florida with close friends, arrives home at the airport only to be greeted with a divorce petition from her husband Roy. This comes as quite a shock to a woman who believed that life could not be sweeter. After all, she had three great children, a successful husband, a gorgeous home and farm that included several prized ponies, and the respect of her hometown social community.

However, all is not as it appears and as Ellie asserts, "sometimes our lives are like sleepwalking. When we finally awaken we have no idea where we are and even less how we managed to get there."

Shortly after receiving the divorce petition, Ellie finds herself embroiled in very nasty and costly judicial proceedings that could mean the loss of custody of her children to her husband. To further aggravate this frightful situation, Ellie regrettably engages a young and inexperienced attorney, who was not too swift on his feet and consequently is outmaneuvered by the unethical tactics and devious behavior of his opponent, who uses every trick in the book to make life miserable for Ellie. Adding a little more drama into the narrative is the grotesque possibility of child molestation that is ignored by a judge, who has her own agenda, and a lazy social worker assigned to the case.

For a first time author, Boatman shows a great deal of confidence in her story- telling abilities, although at times the pony show scenes wear a bit thin, slowing down the pace of the novel. Nonetheless, this hard-hitting narrative is a page turner not only because of its plot, but also the strong message it conveys. Conger gets top marks for her clarity and richness of voice, all of which contribute to the reader's ease in empathizing with Ellie's anger and despair, as she fights the sometimes unfairness of the judicial system in order to gain the custody of her children. In the end, does justice prevail?

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The Importance of Caravan Insurance

When you buy insurance for your car, you are protecting yourself in case your auto gets into an accident or in case it's ever vandalised or stolen. And even if there is a fire, you want to know that you will be paid so that you can get a new car or at least have your current one repaired. Why, then, would anyone want to question getting the proper insurance for a caravan? It seems as though people would want to get the proper cover on such valuable property. Sadly, however, people look at buying insurance for a caravan akin to buying a lottery ticket. However, you never know when the worst scenario might happen. Therefore, it's better to get the proper insurance coverage for your caravan just in case.

Peace of Mind: It's true that most people who buy an insurance policy for their caravans never file a claim. However, buying the proper insurance cover will give you peace of mind, and that is very important. While you never want to sit there and contemplate the worst things that could ever happen, you also know that the universe is a crazy place and that anything can happen. Someone could swerve from out of nowhere and slam into your caravan, it could get stolen, or some kids might think it's a good idea to break into it and have a party. And what if those kids get hurt while inside your caravan? They could sue you if you didn't have the proper liability cover. Those are all very important reasons to get insurance for your caravan, even if you don't use it very much.

Using Your Caravan: People use caravans for a variety of reasons. They may use it as a trailer, they may sleep in it or they may even go camping in it. Some caravans are so advanced that they are literally like homes away from home. When you own a caravan, you are investing in a very important piece of property. With a caravan, you can take your family on a long road trip, or you can visit somewhere you never have without having to worry about staying at a hotel. With your caravan, you can go anywhere and save money. But if you don't have the proper insurance cover, you are putting your investment at risk.

Finding the Lowest Rates: By now you should be convinced that caravan insurance is extremely important. But you can't just contact an insurance company and expect to get the lowest rates possible. You must know what to do in order to get those low rates. You can lower your rate by showing insurance companies your flawless driving record, by giving them proof that you park your caravan in a safe place when it's not in use, and by purchasing your policy online. Other than that, make sure you get the proper coverage for fire, theft, vandalism or anything that may go wrong so that you can have the proper caravan insurance for your valuable investment.

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