Website Habitat» Easton

Make Your Business Website More Powerful in 1 Simple Step

Easton — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:09:19 +0000

What’s the fundamental reason that you have a website for your business? Or, if you don’t have a business website yet, why might you really want one?

Your answer was probably, “to promote my business to get more clients (customers).” And that is a powerful reason. Having a strong sense of purpose with your professional website is a key part of your success, whether it’s a coaching website, a massage therapist website or any other kind of business site.

But just having a reason is, in and of itself, simply not enough. Watch the video below to find out why!

The 1 Step You Must Always Take to Make Your Professional Website Truly Powerful

Here’s what really adds power to your website. Once you get people to your site, you want to motivate them to take an action. That’s Key #6 of our 7 Keys to a Successful Business Website report.

So here’s the step you need to take to increase your visitor’s motivation.

You must make a clear, compelling call to action on every page of your website.

The Preacher Who Forgot

Once upon a time, a nervous young preacher stepped to the pulpit in front of a large congregation for the first time. His voice was strong and his knowledge of the doctrine was extensive, but he was prone to forgetfulness.

The sermon was like many the congregation had heard before. The preacher began with a moving story, continued with a careful explanation of its meaning, and completed his remarks with a summary of the points he had covered. He walked away from the pulpit relieved, for he was sure he had remembered to say it all this time.

After the meeting ended, an elderly man shuffled up to the preacher, who was finishing saying his “thank you’s” and “have a good week’s” to the church-goers.

“You forgot,” said the man, reaching out his wrinkly hand.

“I forgot?” asked the preacher, extending his. “Ah yes – I forgot to testify at the end there, didn’t I?” He always tried to remember to hammer home his sermons with a personal declaration of his faith, but perhaps it had slipped his mind today.

As they shook hands, the lesson of a lifetime was shared.

“No, you did that just fine, my son. What you forgot was the exhortation.”

Never again did a soul leave that church without hearing a heartfelt sermon that closed with a fervent invitation to do something about what had been taught.

Get a FREE 10-Minute Video Evaluation of Your Business Website – Sign Up Now

How to Make a Clear, Compelling Call to Action on Your Business Website

Don’t let your website be like the forgetful preacher. Visitors will stream in and out of your website all day … so are you doing all you can to get them to take action that leads to healthy growth for your business? Here’s how.

Step 1: Determine Your Primary Action. For each page of your website, this is the number one thing you want people to do on that page. If you’re a professional coach or healer, for example, this might be getting them to call you on the phone.

Step 2: Tell Your Visitors What You Want Them to Do – And How. Be extremely clear – not just clear enough so that people can understand, but clear enough so that no one can misunderstand. “Call us today at 123-456-7890 to discuss XYZ” is much better than “contact us today!”

Step 3: Reward People For Doing What You Want Them To Do. Every parent knows – okay, every parent should know this. In general, people keep doing things that they get rewarded for doing, and they stop doing things that don’t reward them. On the Web, rewards can take the form of content (something new to look at/listen to), time (like free phone consultations) or even physical objects (DVDs in the mail, free product samples, etc.). Be creative and try to offer rewards that match the needs and wants of your target audience.

Get a FREE 10-Minute Video Evaluation of Your Business Website – Sign Up Now

Want free help with making your website more powerful?

Fill out the form below and you’ll receive a free 10-minute video evaluation of your professional website. In the video, a Website Habitat staff member will personally look at your website and give you tips specifically for your site. You’ll actually be able to watch as we go through your website making suggestions and giving you valuable feedback.

There’s no obligation whatsoever. All you have to do is fill out the form below to order your free website evaluation today.

Please tell your friends about this offer as well – they might enjoy some free advice too! Click the sharing buttons below to send this to your Twitter, StumbleUpon, Delicious or Facebook accounts.

What ways have you found to make your website’s calls to action more clear and compelling?

49 Website Design Aspects You Shouldn’t Overlook

Easton — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:13:50 +0000

Here are 49 facets of your website design that you should never take for granted. Evaluate each item carefully and write down any relevant statistics, observations, ideas or questions. We hope you find this checklist useful!

Want a better website? Order one of our website packages today and save yourself some stress. Just read on to see what design aspects you don’t want to overlook…

The Big Picture: Major Web Design Aspects

1. Eye-pleasing
2. Unique
3. Simple
4. Organized
5. Appropriate
6. Easy to read
7. Easy to navigate
8. Easy to distinguish links from text

Accessibility: How Does Your Website Really Look?

9. Looks same in various browsers
10. Looks same at different resolutions
11. Mobile version looks good

Errors and Broken Stuff

12. No broken links
13. No code errors
14. No missing alt text/placeholders

The Stuff at the Top

15. Memorable favicon
16. Appropriately-sized masthead
17. Eye-pleasing masthead
18. Relevant masthead
19. Appropriately-sized logo
20. Resizable logo
21. Eye-pleasing logo
22. Relevant logo
23. Logo works without color

Does Your Website Work Without … ?

24. Website works without images
25. Website works without CSS

Will They Remember You?

26. Appropriately-sized website title
27. Memorable website title
28. Descriptive website title
29. Memorable tagline
30. Descriptive tagline

Searches and Subscriptions

31. Visible search box
32. Obvious search box
33. Useful search box
34. Visible feed/email subscription options

Articles and Excerpts

35. Visible article headlines
36. Appropriate number/size of article excerpts on homepage
37. Appropriate number/size of article excerpts on archive pages

Social Media and Commenting

38. Visible social media sharing options
39. Relevant social media sharing options
40. Appealing social media sharing options
41. Visible article comment area
42. Easy to publish a comment
43. Easy to browse comments/trackbacks/pingbacks/tweetbacks

What’s on the Side?

44. Organized sidebar(s)
45. Useful sidebar elements

What’s on the Bottom?

46. Organized footer
47. Useful footer elements

Feed Me, Seymour! Feed Me!

48. Feed displays correctly
49. Useful feed elements

adapted from my Blog Improvement Checklist

Why Headway 1.5 is the Mightiest WordPress Theme Ever Made

Easton — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:37:16 +0000

How mighty is your WordPress theme?

Watch the video below and see how easy it is to use the new Headway 1.5 WordPress theme to make visual changes to your WordPress-powered website.

Then think to yourself – can I do that?

Well, yes – you can! Dawud was a tester during the development of Headway 1.5. He, along with many others, gave constant feedback to the Headway developers to make the theme as simple and easy to use as possible. What came from it is that Headway is made for people who want a theme that they can easily change the layout, structure and colors of their site pages with a few mouse drags and clicks. This is truly revolutionary.

Here at Website Habitat, we pride ourselves on service and offering the best possible business website designs for our clients at an affordable price.

And now, you can order any Website Habitat design package and get Headway installed at no extra cost.

You heard that right. Instead of paying $164 for a developer’s license to have access to what you see in the video above, you can have your own website running on Headway without paying a dime for it. Just let us know you want Headway when you order and we’ll install it.

What Makes Headway the Mightiest of All WordPress Themes?

Simply put, no other WP theme on the planet lets you change your website’s layout and color scheme on the fly, right in front of you. With any other theme, you have to either make changes directly in the code, or go through dialogs in your admin area, and then click “save.” And then you have to click over to another tab or window to see your website, hit “refresh” and hope that the changes you made will look good. And not break stuff.

With Headway, you have control over how your text looks, where you images and navigation buttons go – almost anything you want to do, Headway makes it easy as pie to do.

But What About Other WP Themes?

At Website Habitat, we’re not beholden to any single theme for WordPress. We know that there are hundreds upon hundreds of fantastic free and premium (paid) WP themes – and if another one ever leapfrogs Headway, we’ll be happy to let you know. But we wanted you to know that this incredible platform can be yours at no extra cost if you just say the word.

Have you tried Headway yet? Do you think there’s a mightier theme out there for WordPress? If so, we’d love to hear about it. And we’d love to design your business website today.

Small Business Web Design: 78 of the Best Resources

Easton — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:58:06 +0000

We are always looking for the best resources available around the web to help our clients create the best, most effective websites for their businesses and coaching practices.

So here are 78 of the finest resources available for website design for small businesses, your healing practice or your coaching practice. If you know any resources that belong on this list, please share them by leaving a comment below!