FAQs Page – Why Include it in Your Website?

Extended Support to Customers

By providing the answers to common issues users face, FAQs page is an extension of the support that every service provider wishes to give to the customers and satisfy them.

Helps Users Reach a Decision

Again by providing the information generally sought by the users, the page aids the decision making. This is because they are able to sort most of their queries using this page. Thus, it helps increase conversions.

Saves Users’ Time

The absence of this page will require the users to contact the owner even to enquire about a small thing and it may happen that they may not do it as some other site has answered their queries through its FAQs page. Therefore, to save their time and offer them instant information they would like to know, it is advisable to have an informative FAQs page.

Despite the above mentioned advantages, webmasters don’t pay much attention to this page and as a result, most of the FAQS pages that we find on the sites are not up to the mark. Here therefore, we are going to mention some ways to increase the attractiveness of the page and make it more effective.

Effective FAQs Page – How to Achieve this Goal?

Keep the Focus on Information

Given the basic purpose of the page is to provide an answer to the users; it is the right practice to keep entire concentration on information rather than design. The design should be appealing but not such that it diverts the attention from the questions.

Select the Questions with Users in Mind

Don’t put in questions that you would like to answer. Instead think from the users’ angle, figure out the questions and place them in the page along with suitable & short answers.

Categorize the Questions

A user may not be interested in every question. In this regard, categorization of questions helps in reaching the desired question and its answer. However, the categorization should be meaningful and not just done for the heck of it.

Provide the Option to Search

Having too many questions on the FAQs page can prove troublesome for the visitors and they may end up finding the question itself and go back unsatisfied. To avoid such a question, provide them a search option with which they can easily and quickly locate the question and get the answer.

Make Questions Clickable

Again, if the questions are too many, then it is wiser to put them together and make them clickable so that users can click on them to reach answers. The advantage of this is, users will be able to see all the questions and then can view the answers by clicking on them one by one or straightaway going to those they would like to have information on.

Last but not the least, lets users find FAQs easily

An obscure FAQs page will not do any benefit no matter how efficiently it can cater to users information needs. Therefore, it is highly important to make sure that it catches the attention of the users fast.

Thus in order to utilize the benefits of FAQs page, it is essential to design it in the right fashion. We hope that this brief information sheds some light and acquaints the readers with the benefits of having this page on the site as well as how to make it better.

We also look forward that our readers share their ideas as well.

What is the future of Web?

The future of Web lies in following 9 components.

1. Latest Web Development Standards
2. Portability
3. Social Media
4. Content Management Systems
5. Applications
6. Cloud Computing
7. Dynamic User Interface
8. Security
9. Stay up-to-date
10. Favor Open Source

Let us have a look why you need to follow above listed components.

Latest Web Development Standards

HTML5 and CSS3 are the latest trends. You can just ease up your work with both of them. Following are the benefits of using HTML5 and CSS3: -

• Fast Streaming of Media Files
  The latest <video> and <audio> tags allow uploading the multimedia files to your Website without the need of getting embedding code from third-party hosts. These files will stream instantly and users can play them on supported browsers regardless of slow Internet Connection speed. In addition, all mobile and tablet browsers can play your Media files including those which are not supporting Flash.
• Drawing
  The <canvas> tag allows the developers integrating JavaScript codes very easily to draw dynamic animations, graphics, and diagrams on-the-fly.
• Geo-location
  Before HTML5, the Web developers have to write big lines of scripting code to access the geo-location of the visitors or subscribers. HTML5 ease up this work for you with its native geo-location features.
• Animation
  CSS3 allows one to create the 2D and 3D animations on your Website. Unlike Flash, these animations are lightweight and loads up instantly. You can also use the images to create the slideshow. Thus there is no need to get dependent upon Web Albums Sites for it.

Portability

The World Wide Web is becoming popular and its population is increasing rapidly. It is noteworthy that a large amount of population is accessing Internet through their portable devices like mobile and tablets. Number of Mobile Internet users is estimated to reach 134 million till 2013. Mobile/Tablet users open the Websites in their portable browsers. If a Website does not look good as per their screen size, they often leave it or close it instantly regardless of its usability and popularity. This is the reason all big brands and banks are coming up with the mobile version of their Websites.

It is the correct time to make your Website compatible with mobile devices and tablets. You can use Wireless Markup Language (WML) to convert your existing Website into a mobile version. Have a mobile version today and get more visitors.

Social Media

Everyone likes to be social, especially while being online. If you have not added the Social Media features to your Website then it means you are not providing good and optimum user experience. Each person likes to be special. You can make the visitors special by allowing them to login at your Website, liking the posts, leaving comments, reviews, opinions, see what their friends liked/recommended, chat with others, and so on.

Add the exciting options like Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, Facebook Like, Facebook Comments, Google Comments, Twitter Profile, Identi.ca, Google Ratings & Reviews etc. on your Website. And see a difference in visitors’ mood, their visits and Websites’ ranking.

Content Management System

Stop coding manually to create a Website, manage your content, and write manual code for future technologies integration! You can just use an online Content Management System either free or paid. The best options till date are Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla etc. These CMSs can setup your Website in minutes and allow you doing further modifications.

Applications

Applications, add-ons, extensions, and Mobile Apps are everywhere. Almost everyone likes them. The Mobile Apps allow users to browse quickly through the provided content. The Apps load much faster than the mobile version of your Website. If you’re running a blog then you can create a Mobile App showing the RSS updates. Similarly, you can create add-ons for the browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and widgets for Opera. The tools to create Mobile Apps and Browser extensions are available for free. If you do not want to develop on your own, then you can search the market for the same.

Cloud Computing

If your Website is getting heavy traffic then you must handle it correctly. The dedicated cloud Web hosting is cheaper than other traditional methods and allows handling of massive traffic even at peak loads. You must adopt cloud-based programming techniques for developing your Website and software for it. This will not only save resources and reduce expenses but also give you ample amount of time to focus on other projects.

Dynamic User Interface

A must have feature for the future-enabled Website. The user interface must be dynamic and faster. Make use of Spry Tabbed Panels in your Website. Microsoft has developed the Metro UI based on it, take a peek at Microsoft.com.

Security

Keep your Website secured against any future threats. Make use of secure shell access, secure FTP, and HTTPS for your Website. If you’re running an e-commerce Website then obtain a certification from trusted verifiers like VeriSign, Thawte, PayPal, eBay, Microsoft, McAfee, Google Checkout etc.

Stay up-to-date

Each update of any software/hardware brings several fixes, security patches and improvements. If you are not using up-to-date techniques, software and hardware then it means you’re staying behind in the technology race and your products are not secured anymore. Update your application software, CMS, antivirus, FTP client, subscriptions, and Web standard periodically.

Favor Open Source

Do you think if an application is free then it has limited features? This is not true in all cases. The software registered under GNU Public License is available for free and trusted to use. See each browser such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome; Opera etc. are available for free. Are you not using these browsers? Yes, because you trust them. Make use of open-source standards to develop your Website like PHP, MySQL, HTML5, CSS3, and CMS like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla etc.

One should adopt a framework to achieve the latest Web and Technology standards to run with the time and stay ahead in the race of life and work. We suggest you to adopt latest web and technology standards that suit your needs and prepare your Website to perform well as more developments will continue to happen in the web world.

Here are some important tips to customize your website for profitable holiday season.

Increase Server capacity

Make sure your website has proper amount of bandwidth to handle heavy traffic during busy holiday season.

Update Product Catalog and Inventory

Update product catalog and inventory levels accurately so that the customers can know about new products and their availability status.

Enhance Product Descriptions

Enhance product information to include in-depth descriptions, pictures, videos, reviews and price comparisons. This will help customer to confidently choose a best product for purchase.

Make Easy Navigation

Organize and sort products by price, reviews, brand, person etc., in this way customers can easily and quickly locate what they want.

Set Holiday Deadlines

Update your website with holiday timelines so as to let customers know about the cutoff dates for orders to be purchased, shipped, and delivered.

Offer Special Promotions

Offer best promotions like product discounts, free shipping, refunds and gift wrapping in order to build customer loyalty and repeat business.

Use Holiday Themes

Use holiday graphics and images in your website to make customers feel the spirit of holidays. Hopefully, this will get customers in a buying mood.

Update Return Policy

Make sure that your return policy is crystal clear and prominent for customers. If needed, you can extend return policy during holidays to increase revenue.

Offer Gift cards Or Certificates

Gift cards are a quick option for customers and last minute shoppers.  Make sure to prominently display the gift card in homepage and other strategic places as a featured product to increase sales.

Offer Flexible Payment Modes

Offer variety of payment modes to allow convenience for the customers. Options like debit and credit cards, PayPal and other modes work well.

Maximize Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads

Optimize and maximize PPC Ads such as Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter during holiday season to invite more customers.

Share With Social Media

Use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to share new products, sales, promotions etc. with potential and existing customers.

Update Contact Information

Provide complete and clear contact information like e-mail, phone numbers, online chat, address, etc. This will help in building customer’s trust and confidence to buy products.

Test the Website

Test the website for technical and usability issues. Check whether all the hyperlinks, tabs, and fields are working properly. Make sure that all the pages have fast loading times and is easy to navigate and understand.

Domain name registration is the first step to start your website. Like naming a newborn child, your website too requires a name to be known and referred to on web. Domain name registration is about identifying your website on the net.

In this article, we provide a few important guidelines, which one should keep in mind while registering a new Domain name.

1. It should not be as easy to confuse it with any other popular domain name, but at the same time, it should be unique and easy to remember and most importantly relevant to your line of business and avoid long and hyphenated domains which are not good because they add to confusion. Moreover, people rarely remember them, so keep it short, simple and easy to type.
2. Keep your target audience in mind: Before you pick a domain name you should know your target audience, and what you intend to offer them.
3. Prefer dot-com: using a .com version of a URL is better than other versions, but if you’re serving only a particular area or specific country, then a country specific domain is better.
4. Protect your brand name: Register your name with multiple extensions in order to avoid competitors using your name with different extension. For example, domain name such as propertysensex.com when registering multiple extensions like propertysensex.net and propertysensex.org, this can help you capture a wider audience. When visitors arrive at the alternate extension domains, you can redirect them to your website.
5. Keyword: Try to use major keywords in your domain (keywords which potential customers are likely to use to search your line of business).
6. Descriptive Domain Names: A visitor may intend to visit johntravels.com, but mistakenly type jhontravels.com instead. By anticipating these typing errors and registering them as domain names, you can catch visitors before they are led by a competitor who may use the same strategy to lure your visitors to their own site.
7. Domain Registration Term: it’s always better to book a domain for 2 to 5 years, than for a short period say one year. Search engines may view a long-term domain name commitment favorably when indexing your site.
8. Private Domain Registration: private domain registration is more of a necessity than a luxury; still many continue to neglect this critical component of domain name registration. For a small monthly fee, private domain registration can keep your personal contact information out of the WHOIS database, where it is available to the public through a simple domain search.
9. Secure Your Domain Name Registration: By locking your domain name, you protect it from both unauthorized activity and human errors. When your domain is protected, a third party cannot transfer your domain to a different registrar without your consent. By locking domain name you also prevent possible accidental changes to your domain name servers, which can disrupt your website and business email.
10. Register both the full name and its abbreviation.
If your chosen name is quite long; register both its full version, as well as its abbreviation. Many big firms failed to do this and have seen the consequences of this oversight. An example is Reliance Industries which only registered www.ril.com but not www.reliance.com or www.relianceindustries.com
11. It should not be totally different from the website theme for e.g. Fairtilizer.com sound like a website related to fertilizers but it’s a music website.
12. Avoid copyright infringement.
13. Avoid using numbers in domain name
14. Always choose a reputed registrar for your domain

Domain Name Registrar:
Domain names can be purchased from a variety of domain name registrars.

Table1: Top Domain Registrars in USA

Table2: Top Domain Registrars by Total Domains
06/29/2009 – 07/20/2009

Source: http://www.webhosting.info/registrars/fastest-growing-registrars/global/

Configuring the Domain Name

After registering the domain names, you need to provide the IP address for the name servers you want the domain name to point to. You can contact your hosting company support department and they will assist you. You need IP addresses from your hosting company and edit the same into domain DNS section in your domain control panel.

Domain-related Magazines and Weblogs
http://www.domaineditorial.com/
http://blog.domaintools.com/
http://www.dailydomainer.com/

Domain Tools
http://www.dnsstuff.com/
http://www.domaintools.com/

We would be glad to hear any comments and views about this article.