There is very little point in just putting a website up and then forgetting about it. Tempting as that may be, all you’re really doing is paying for an overpriced business card.

Websites are finicky creatures, and they thrive on flattery and attention. To work best for you, your website needs to be updated regularly, refreshed occasionally, and generally pandered to, nurtured and coddled. As the strongest marketing tool your business can have, it’s worth putting the time, effort and (occasional) tears into looking after it properly.

So, how do you know if you’re doing it wrong, and woefully neglecting your once-beautiful site?

1. You can’t update your website yourself

If you need to email your web developer for every single little change or update to your site, then it’s well past time for you to reassess your approach.

The majority of modern sites are built using a Content Management System (CMS), the most popular one being WordPress. The huge advantage to having your site built using a CMS, is that it gives you control over your own content and updates.

A good developer will tailor the CMS to your needs, and supply you with documentation on how to use it. Like all new skills, the initial learning curve may be a bit daunting, but it really is important that you keep your site active and evolving.

Of course, if you have deep pockets you can pay someone else to do this for you, but it needs to be a regular occurence and is likely to get expensive in the long-term.

2. Your site is not visible on Search Engines

You need new customers and clients to find you, right? Making your website SEO friendly isn’t necessarily rocket science, but it does require effort. Using a CMS (see above), will put you way ahead of the game –  a site that is regularly updated is given more priority with Google.

The easiest way to up your SEO game is to add regular content to your site, and one of the easiest ways to do this is through a blog. Depending on your business, you could also add new testimonials, update product listings, and tweak your website copy.

The key is to regularly do something, to keep your site fresh and ensure it gets noticed by the search engines.

3. Awful website design

If your site looks like it was put together by an old buddy of yours, back in the 90s…it may be time to reevaluate.

A contemporary site design gives confidence to your visitors that you are on top of your game, professional and profitable enough to invest in your brand.

Added bonus: current design trends will take into account useability and functionality from the perspective of your visitors. In other words, a design refresh should (if done properly) give you a site that is easy to navigate.

If you want your visitors to stick around, then you need to consider their needs.

4. Your website doesn’t represent your business correctly

Your website is part of your sales and marketing team, in fact it’s arguably the hardest working member of your entire organisation. If it doesn’t convey what you do, how you do it, your business philosophy and the image and message of your company, then it’s not doing its job properly.

Fortunately, if your website isn’t representing you properly, you don’t need to sack it. You may just need to advise it on how to present itself in a more flattering light.

A website design refresh is a lot less awkward then a one-on-one with the guy who comes to work with ketchup on his suit.

5. There’s no social media integration

You don’t need to be everywhere all the time on social media, but it is best if you’re around the place in some capacity. Make it easy for visitors to your site to connect with you where you’re hanging out and give them the opportunity to get to know you.

Don’t forget to use easy share and like buttons on your blog posts. If you use a CMS, there are easy plugins to add share buttons to your site (we use Flare, although there are plenty of other options available).

6. No calls to action on your site

Think about what you want visitors to your website to do. Do you want them to purchase your product? Enquire about your services? Sign up to your newsletter?

Now visit your own website as if you are your own ideal customer. Is it easy for them to find what you hope they are looking for?

If not, you need to reassess your Call to Actions. And if you don’t have any, then you very quickly need to work out how to incorporate some.

7. Slow site loading time

You can have ground-breaking design, awesome content, effective call to actions and brilliant web copy. None of this is going to do an iota to help your business, if your site takes forever to load.

Pictures, graphics, and other forms of content start really start to weigh your site down and make it chug along.

You can run a quick check to see how your site is performing - and don’t forget to run this check at a few different times of day as well as during the week. The internet has its own peak hours, and you want to make sure your site is working well even during the busy times.

If the results are bad, you will need to find the culprits and make some changes to optimise your graphics and content.

8. It’s hard to navigate on a phone or tablet

Mobile optimisation – your site has to be responsive for different devices. No arguing around this one.

Your prospects, clients, partners and customers are increasingly navigating the web through their mobile devices. Your site needs to be able to play well  with them, or you will be losing important opportunities.

While checking your site on different devices, make sure to check it on different browsers too. The internet keeps moving the goalposts, and your site that once looked lovely on Internet Explorer 5 years ago, may not be playing so well these days.

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The post Are you paying enough attention to your website’s needs? appeared first on Two10 Solutions.

You do need to delve into the code behind the scenes, but the beauty of Weeby templates is that their editor shows you the update as soon as you make the change. So even if you don’t really understand CSS, with some trial and error you can quickly work it out.

Step 1: Find the CSS code to edit your Weebly website

We’re going to use one of the pre-defined Weebly templates as our example to work on. Click on the Design tab and then click on Edit HTML/CSS.

You will see a screen displaying all the HTML and CSS code that is driving your website template. Don’t worry if you don’t understand how it all looks, we will only be interested in changing a couple of small things to update your website background.

Step 2: Upload your new background image

Click on the Add new file button and browse to the image that you want to use as your background. For our example, we’ve named our image “new-background.jpg”

The editor will put your image into the existing list in alphabetical order. If you click on it, you will then get a preview of the image, as well as the option to rename or even delete it.

We’ve gone with some striking polka dots to make sure you can see the difference!

Step 3: Upate the code

This is the bit you may find scary, but don’t be. It’s really very easy!

Go back to the main-style.css section and scroll through the code until you find a body { } tag. The templates are all set up slightly differently, and so the code is not identical from one to the next. However, what you are looking for will look something like this:

body {

background-color: #301515

background: url(body-bg-red.png);

font-family: Lato, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

font-size: 13px;

color: #666666;

margin: 0;

padding: 0 0 50px;

}

The part that interests us is the background url element. Simply replace the name of your new image file and it will update the background of your entire website. So, for our example, we have changed the code to read:

 background: url(new-background.jpg);

And now our site has polkadots as the background!

Step 4: Image size

One last thing to bear in mind is the size of the image you upload. If you want 1 single image across the entire background of your site, make sure you size it correctly for the website.

The background image size should be a maximum of 481px by 320px. A smaller image size would also work, but you might have to experiment to get it just right.

If you do use a smaller image, and you want it to repeat across the background (which is what we have done with our polka dots up there), then you just need to add repeat or no-repeat to the code.

background: url(body-bg-red.png) repeat; – this will repeat your image as a pattern across the background.

background: url(body-bg-red.png) no-repeat; – this will show just 1 instance of your background image.

Step 5: Save and close to return to your website

The editor will have given you a preview of how your new background looks as soon as you update the code.

If you’re happy, hit the Save button in the right corner. If you think you’ve mucked it up, hit the Cancel button and none of your changes will have been actually applied to your website.

If you would like some help with your website design, we work with clients across many platforms including design for Weebly websites.

The post How to add a custom background to your Weebly website appeared first on Two10 Solutions.

Our tutorial, how to change your website background, shows you how to upload a background image across your site.

Another question that has been asked of us, however, was how to change the background of the banner at the top of the page. Let’s look at an example.

Webpage before changing banner background

Webpage after changing banner background

We’ve taken an existing Weebly template and made the background blue. You can see that the banner at the top works independently to the rest of the background.What if you don’t want your banner to be a big rectangle at the top? You don’t have to be constrained by that design aesthetic, although it is a neat and common choice for many business owners.

Create your background image

Replace existing image

If you would like some help with your website design, we can work with you on the platform of your choice and preference.

The post Weebly tutorial: how to change the banner background appeared first on Two10 Solutions.

A website is a tool, and as with any tool there is no definitive ‘perfect’ option for everyone. When choosing how to build your website, it can be hard to work out which route to take.

A Weebly website won’t be for everyone and certainly not for every business, but as an affordable alternative to bespoke web development, it may be an option worth considering.

Want more information? Here are some pros and cons for using the Weebly builder for your template project. – See more at: https://twotensolutions.com/1/post/2013/04/is-a-weebly-website-right-for-your-business.html#sthash.QUnXhzXu.dpuf

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