A few days ago Firefox 3.5 became officially available for download. The web browser world is constantly changing to it is important that you constantly check your business website to make sure that it is up-to-date and compatible with the latest web browsers.

That can be very difficult to do since there are so many different operating systems and each operating system has its own browser version. You may have a PC, but that means you are not able to test your browser on a Mac OSX Safari browser.

Well there is a great way to test your website’s compatibility using a free webtool called Browsershots.

Browsershots.org – Check browser compatibility accross multiple browsers from different OS’s.

Here’s two other websites that can help you test your website to make sure it is up-to-date.

Web Page Analyzer – Free website performance tool and web page speed analysis.

CSS Validation Service – Check your CSS and HTML documents with style sheets

If you haven’t downloaded Firefox 3.5 yet, we highly encourage you to do so. It’s a great browser and it will make your web surfing experience much better. Download Firefox here.

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Managing and optimizing your own website is a full time job. There are a lot of different monitoring points that you must keep a close eye on in order to fully understand how your visitors are reacting to your web design.

The most commonly known website analytics are visits and pageviews. These two stats are very different and each play a critical role in the visitor trending on your site.

For example, in the screenshot above, we can see that this website has a moderate number of visitors, but what’s even more important is the ratio of visits to pageviews.

So on average, each visitor typically views multiple pages before they leave the site. This is a great indicator that the information on this website is engaging since each visitor typically clicks several times during each visit.

But that’s just one way of verifying the visitor interaction. Another important metric is bounce rate.

While typically you want to see your charts trending upwards, this is one of the few graphics you want to see as low as possible because it describes the frequency of people leaving your site with no interaction. In other words, if you find that your site has a high bounce rate percentage, then it tells you that your visitors are not finding your site to be relevent, engaging, or it’s just plain confusing.

In the example shown above, you can see that the bounce rate is below 30%, so less than 1/3 of the visitors “bounce.” While each website is different, if you can drop your bounce rate percentage below 50% your business is more likely to see an increase in online conversions.

Do you have any questions about website analytics? Leave a comment below. We’ll answer all your analytical concerns! Or you can ask us on Twitter.

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Building the perfect SEM keyword structure is very important, but an effective landing page is essential to getting conversions. Here’s a short list of 7 solid tips to an effective landing page.

1. Multiple Landing Pages. Theme each landing page based on a tight group of closely linked topics. You may offer healthcare services, but each service needs its own dedicated discussion. You wouldn’t want to send people that are looking for a flu shot to the same page as people that are looking for back surgery.

2. Multiple Call to Action. People like to scan. I doubt you read every word of this blog post, so that’s why I’ve bolded the key points that I want to bring to your attention. Don’t hide the next steps at the bottom of your page, put some colorful (risk free) buttons at strategic places on your blog. Rather than telling them to “Buy Now”, offer them a “Free Quote”.

3. Folder and Filenames. Use the landing page URL to your advantage. Google Adwords will allow 1,024 characters for your destination URL. Put some keywords in your URL. Not only does it help your quality score, but your visitors will recognize the keywords in your URL and it will reinforce that this page is exactly what they were searching for.

4. Meta and Alt Tags. Put meta tags and alt tags on your landing page. Make sure the keyword meta tags contain your keyword as well as the description tag. Each graphic should also have an alt tag with keywords.

5. Truthworthy. If you are asking for their personal information put a link to your privacy policy. Make sure they know you will never give, rent, or sell their email address to anyone. Third party seals like Hacker Safe, Secured by SSL, BBBOnLine, VeriSign, or eTrust are always a good idea for ecommerce sites.

6. Clean and Tidy. As stated above, people don’t read everything, they like to scan. So make sure your content is scannable. Use headings, subheadings, and bolded words to break up the uniform paragraphs.

7. Follow up. Congratulations! You got a user to fill out a form, but don’t let it end there. Thank them, send a confirmation email, and point them to more points of interest like your company blog, a special offer, or other products that might interest them.

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When it comes to developing a new website there are many different levels of engagement. Let’s take a look at the differences between a custom website, a custom template, and a basic template website.

Custom Website

• Website design based on guidelines and feature requests from the client.
• Unique design created just for your business. No other website will look the same.
• Search engine optimized so that it will show up in search engine results.
• Custom websites look more professional since it is created by experts.
• Timeframe for a custom web design can be between 1 to 2 months.
• The price is based on many different factors, but you can expect to pay between $15,000 to $25,000 (or more if you need to develop a corporate identity).

Custom Template Website

• A website designed by a professional web designer for a specific industry.
• Contains common website features, but custom requests are limited.
• A website that is originally created custom for a specific industry by firms that have insight into that field, but then is sold to multiple people. Most of the time no other website will look exactly the same, in their particular geographic area.
• Some basic search engine optimization.
• Custom templates look professional, but not as unique as a full custom website.
• Timeframe for a customized template is about 2 weeks to 1 month.
• The cost for a customized template website can we between $2,500 to $5,500 dollars.

Template Website

• A themed website created to be resold to multiple businesses for many different industries.
• It is not unique or original. Other companies on the internet will have the same design.
• Website graphics and logos are based on a theme and are very generic.
• A hired web designer will still have to add text, pictures, and logos to a template website.
• Timeframe for a template website is about 1 to 2 weeks.
• The template itself will cost you around $60 dollars, but the time for a web designer to tweak the template could cost anywhere between $500 to $1000 dollars.

Let’s take a look at an example of a custom website, a customized template, and a basic template website.

This is an example of a custom website design we designed for our client, Elta. Elta.net is an ecommerce website with dynamic product navigation, store locator, and searchable database of products.

This is an example of a custom template website designed specifically for the healthcare industry. This specific example features a media player, BMI calculator, and multiple contact forms.

This is an example of a template website. A website template package comes with the html website layout and themed graphic, but you will still need the tools and coding knowledge to put the content and company information on the template.

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