Short & Sharp

Before You decide to have a Website?

Ask yourself these questions. What can a website do for your business? Do you agree that a website is both a business and marketing tool? Are you aware that you are able to know if your website has visitors?

How Would You Know if your Site is Attracting the Right Audience?

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors that leave your website (or “bounce” back to the search results or referring website) after viewing only one page on your site. A low bounce rate indicates you are doing the right thing. You are giving people the answer they are looking for. But again it depends on your company's goals and what kind of site you have. 12 Reasons Your Website Can Have A High Bounce Rate.

Have You Recommended Something to Anyone Lately?

Word of mouth takes time and should not be your first marketing strategy.

Word of mouth is in-person sharing aka recommendation. It's a marketing strategy paid with your time.

Doesn't SEO take forever?

Minimum 6 months. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) does indeed take time. Rankings don't happen overnight, and anyone that says otherwise is likely selling "snake oil". While your website site may make perfect sense to you, the search engines may not understand what the website is all about. Building a website with Best Practices aka SEO is the best way to ensure consistent traffic that is accurate and reliable.

What is a Singapore Website?

sg is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Singapore. Unlike other top-level domains, sg is geographically sensitive. Only local addresses can register for sg domains.

Second-level domains:

.com.sg – Commercial entities

.net.sg – Network providers and info-com operators

.org.sg – Organizations in the Registry of Societies

.gov.sg – Government entities

.edu.sg – Educational institutions

.per.sg – Personal domain names

.sg – Open to all with a valid Singapore postal address

.新加坡 – for Chinese websites

.சிங்கப்பூர் – for Tamil websites

Source: SigNic, Wikipedia

B2B website vs B2C website.

B2B (business-to-business) website should contain more information and images. An expert selling solutions to another expert. Put more time on the desktop version while not neglecting the mobile version. Do not flood the mobile version with the same amount of content as the desktop version though.

B2C (business-to-consumer) websites should not contain information that doesn't promote purchases. Easy-to-understand content with clear call-to-action buttons to facilitate purchases. Consumers tense to be emotional and usually act on impulse, focusing on the mobile version will be your best bet.

What is eCommerce?

Once you view eCommerce as commerce on demand, you will realize that it is not simply a digitized retail. It is an ultra-dynamic commerce environment liberated through digitization.

A Domain Name, What is it?

It can be viewed as an identity that connects you to your potential customers. Customers can follow the link to your website and quickly understand your business. It is not just a domain name, it is a quick "door" for customers to your business.

A Breather, Corona Virus has brought to Businesses.

The effects of the pandemic have brought similar effects of war. The supply chains are disrupted, the value of commodities is threatened and people and businesses are lost.

Fortunately, it is not a war. Businesses especially are brought to an abrupt standstill. Because it is not a war, the government can focus on dish out supports and incentives to keep the economy afloat.

This has presented a unique opportunity for businesses to sit down, take a breather and ask themselves; what customer needs have I solved. Can the business model be carried out online?

What happens after you have published your site?

1. Help Google find your pages.
   "Ensure that all pages on the site can be reached by a link from another findable page." Which simply means that your pages are related to one another.

Submit your site map using Google Search Console.

2. Help Google Understand your pages.
   Ensure that your <title> elements and alt attributes are descriptive, specific, and accurate.

Design your site to have a clear conceptual page hierarchy.

3. Help Visitors to your pages.
   Optimise your page loading times. Fast sites make users happy and improve the overall quality of the web (especially for those users with slow Internet connections). Google recommends that you use tools like PageSpeed Insights and Webpagetest.org to test the performance of your page.

Design your site for all device types and sizes, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Use the mobile-friendly testing tool to test how well your pages work on mobile devices, and get feedback on what needs to be fixed.

Ensure that your site appears correctly in different browsers.

Reference: Google Support

Is Responsive the Answer to the Multi-screen Approach?

Yes and no. Although a responsive site solved the display issue, it cannot address the interaction problem. Most of the sites simply convert a desktop view into a mobile device view. And when a visitor is with a device visiting your site, he would want to call you. Make your you have that Click-to-Call button visible on the mobile page.

Content First or Design First?

When you have a good story, would you not pay attention to the book cover? Proper paragraphing is part of the expectation for a good write-up. Isn't this design? Therefore, the design supports the content.