The Change Creative
You may have designed the best website in the world, but it may not benefit you or your business at all unless you have a great web host, too. With all of the options that are available, it can be difficult to figure out what web hosting service will meet your needs. There are several different characteristics that you should look for when you are choosing the best web host for your website.
Broken links can really effect the integrity of your website so it is vitally important you find them before your visitors and search engine bots do! Although it may seem like a minor point you would be mistaken because if you just leave them it makes your business look totally unreliable if you can’t even get the basics right. In this post I will tell you how to avoid the embarrassing broken links from effecting your users experience.
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When a website user cannot find a page they are looking for they arrive at what is called an error 404 page. These pages are not often designed well but can make the experience of reaching a broken link that slightly more forgiving if it is at least pretty. Here is one I designed for MigSolv Data Centre Specialists.
Think about the company’s brand, what would represent their identity in an imaginative way?
As your website grows you may notice more and more link errors appearing, its natural so don’t worry, if you have over 1000 pages and blog posts there are naturally going to be broken links (i.e. if a visitor bookmarks a particular page they liked) but it still doesn’t look great for visitors.
A way to defuse arriving at an error page is to redirect the lost soul back to the homepage so they can navigate to the desired page they were looking for. To do this you will need to follow these instructions.
1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard and on the left hand side options select Appearance > editor.
2. Navigate to the 404.php file of your live theme.
3. Replace the content with that below
You can download the file and replace it for your 404 file if you have access to your back end, or alternatively open it copy and paste the code into your 404.php section on the appearance editor dashboard.
Download 404 file here
Integrity is a broken links checker for Mac OS and it is the one that I particularly use. It is straight forward and gives you heaps of broken link information.
Download it here : –
http://integrity.en.softonic.com/mac
Link checker 6 is a broken links checker for PC, i’ve not actually used this one yet but the reviews on it look good.
Download it here : –
http://wummel.github.io/linkchecker/
If you don’t want to download a program that is okay this Online broken link checker will help you find and correct all the links that aren’t working correctly.
Follow this link below :
http://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/
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If you find any other broken link tools or you have your own tips please feel free to comment in the box below.
I have been asked to redevelop a website as it is not being as effective at creating leads or conversions to the level that they would like. In this post I discuss 5 points of research on how to create great website menu bars.
In life no one likes someone who talks about themselves, everyone is more interested in their own life. In their achievements & in their problems and drawing your visitors attention should start by thinking what your customers want from your site? The old rule when websites where first made was to always put Home at the start so its easy to locate & then the About Link..this has changed. I would now recommend putting the About section near the end of the menu as people are less interested in you and your background and more interested in what you can do for them!
What is the point in a services tab? Saying you have services is all very good but it isn’t specific enough, how is anyone going to know what you can provide them without visit that specific page? It isn’t just to be more specific but you must also reenforce your marketing message to the visitor. BE creative with your choice of words not just your images.
The contact feature may be considered to be one of the most important feature of any website so making sure it is clear and easily accessible at all times. Why not even have a button that is always on screen to ask for an instant quote for your product? One step further, if you have the team available have a live chat feature to give your potential leads more options for making an enquiry.
Look at my website for a simple example. My contact page is always available ( top right corner) to you no matter where you are on the site.
Being social is very important in the modern world. Being an active participant on social media sites shows you are a company that stays in touch with the latest technology, value your customers current opinions and keep abreast of what is happening amongst your industry. I usually keep the social media icons in the footer of a website but ocassionlly in a sidebar. Some websites include it in their menu for easy access. Any of these three options are fine.
So you have a home page, about page, “something” other than services tab & a contact tab but do you blog? What is a blog? Well you are reading a blog right now! Why blog? Well for three main reasons : –
Don’t forget to create an RSS Feed for your regular fans ( wordpress creates this automatically as it was developed for blogging purposes just use www.yourdomain.com/feed or alternatively set up a feedburner account so you can see exactly how many fans you currently have subscribed to your account! ).
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Have you got some more ideas about what works well on website menus? Please share this post with your social circle using the buttons below and discuss the article in the comment box below.
