Friday, February 23, 2007

Online Catalogs – What Are They?

Online catalogs are often associated with library records and materials. But today catalogs are not only helpful inside the library. They are being used in the promotion of the company’s products and services. In fact as the technology continues to advance, more and more features are integrated in the catalog format.

Online catalogs are being used now to serve as a display of what you’re offering to customers. It’s like a store which sells your services online. Because it’s online, it’s fast and easy to access.

Essentially, an online catalog is an automated catalog wherein you can find all the information about the products of the company. However, people sometimes give no attention to how their catalogs look like. In this regard, planning for the online catalog is very important. Its success will result in a great boost to your sales.

You can improve your online catalog by following these basic tips.

First and foremost, analyze your sales. Check if how many customers shop at your store. If you’re not successful in securing the interest of customers at the point of purchase, then something is wrong. There are various causes of this dilemma. One reason is customers think that your products are not suited to their requirements. Another reason is that your catalog is not pleasing to the eye. These letdowns can be easily solved if you only take time to analyze what you are selling to the customers and what specific needs do they have.

Then, increase your sales. Improve your selling strategies. This can be done by making sure that the online catalog is presented with a very good logical organization. The products should be presented in a very clear, negotiable manner. You can add impact to your catalog by using well-made graphics or images next to the text. The description for each product should be easy to understand so that the potential customers would immediately know what you’re trying to tell them even at a glance.

In addition, if you’re looking for some catalog print solutions, the online catalog printing is the right service to go for. It’s a form of catalog printing service which makes it easier for you to produce catalogs, whether in offset or digital.

Catalogs are considered as a great marketing piece. They offer an efficient and creative way of introducing your offerings to your target market. No matter what kind of catalog you’re looking for, there are some online catalog printing services that are available. They can be used to meet your printing needs when it comes to catalog creation. But if you want a hassle-free way of highlighting your company products and services, online catalogs will really fit in the job.

Helpful Hints for Designing Print Catalogs

Is it hard to create a catalog?

Do you think you can’t cope with your catalog print jobs? Well not anymore for there are different catalog printing services at hand. The printing services can be accessed without much effort for you can find them all online.

But if you don’t have any clue on how to print catalogs and what kind of catalog should you produce, you can take a look at these basic rules in catalog design.

Catalog design is the center of attraction in a catalog. In view of that it’s of the essence that you take time to think about all the elements that make up a good catalog design.

Check out these helpful hints in designing a catalog:

1. Make sure to place a best-selling product at the upper right section of the catalog. This is very important for the reason that customers easily see that section whenever they stare at the catalog. But also bear in mind that it’s not usually the strongest product that ate pleasing to the eye. In this case, you can put a product in the catalog that will best catch the attention of the customers.

2. Clear and simple typeface should be used. The catalog should be easy to read and easy to understand. It should immediately get your word out at first glance. But there are also some instances wherein some selling point s of the catalog should be in bolder or bigger typeface.

3. Create an order form for the catalog. It’s very advantageous that the catalog you make has an order form with it. Why is it advantageous? Well simple because order forms are part of direct mailing. You can immediately have orders from the customers which is not possible with magazines and brochures. Catalogs with order forms are proven tools to in increase the orders of customers.

4. Think about the layout of the catalog. It should be consisted of well-designed icons, good typography and special spreads. This is of the essence for enhancing the corporate image you want to project to your target customers. Use your creativity to make the catalog look more interesting. It should eliminate the monotony of your catalog design. It’s vital that you know how to make your customers pause and see your catalog.

5. Go for the standard form of catalog. It’s more cost effective to make catalogs in standard format rather than in special forms. But it’s undeniable that sometimes an out-of-the-ordinary catalog can easily get the interest of customers.

6. Four color is the best choice. A catalog printed in four color is more compelling than the two color print. Four color printed catalog is more effective when it comes catching the eye of prospects. As a result, you’re able to produce more sales.

Advantages of Search Engine Optimization

Some people tend to miss out that the advantages of search engine optimization are visible to all people.

There are really some people who are willing to spend money on doing a search engine optimization but to some other people it is very difficult for them to shell out some cash for it unless of course they would know the real advantages of search engine optimization to their business. Investments that are being done for the search engine optimization will then in fact give great return to your businesses.

The most important advantage of search engine optimization is that it can deliver your business website among the top ranked sites in the Web. Definitely you’ll be having a great deal of doing business from the major search engines if you ranked at the top 10 or top 20 of the search engine results. Most of the users browse and look for the necessary information they needed on the first page of the search engines result, so if your business website is ranked on the top, so users would easily find you website.

Indeed, entrepreneurs can earn lots of money from online marketing. Now, if you happen to purchase advertising space on Google AdWords that charge per click, you will spend only ten cents for each visitor to your website. But the problem in here is that when it takes about a hundred clicks before you get a sale and the price of your products is $10 per piece, then you didn’t get any profit at all. Pay per click marketing strategies can cost a lot of money. Another advantage of search engine optimization is that even over months or years, it is affordable.

The major search engines just recently, originated a campaign in giving priority to those who have original and unique content and quality incoming links. Search engine optimization by creating unique content has the advantage of attracting lot of users and visitors to your website and can also build link recognition to your website. And this will absolutely increase sales. Creating and having unique content would help your website to be on the top rank and of course lot of visitors would like to visit you website again and again since they can get valuable information on your website.

One more advantage of search engine optimization is improving your ability to sell products. Since if you made and write articles about the essentials of using that certain product, and how it can help people, so then you are giving the users or readers the information which can lead to the reader’s decision. The article will help readers to come up of buying the products that you are selling.

Yes, indeed, there are lots of ways to advertise a website, but the search engines have the widest targeted audience and it provides affordability.

So if you truly wanted your business to be known and successful, start optimizing your website. Yes, it will take time and effort, but as soon as you are rank on the top, then the time and effort you have done, soon paid off, and definitely, you will see that it is worth it. Since being on the top rank will provide you visibility and popularity and lots of profits.

Download Unlimited Music – Useful Tips You Need To Know

Many have joined the crowd to download unlimited music for their MP3 players. Compact disc (CD) sales have declined by more than 19% since the onset of 2001 while online music sales are climbing to new highs each year. According to a report from the International Federation of Phonographic Industry, the revenues for digital music sales have tripled to hit above the $1 billion mark in 2005. This situation is not about to change anytime, with iTunes accounting for over 85% of song downloads in the same year. It was also then that online music sales accounted for an estimated 6% of all record company sales. You are on the right track if you too want to download unlimited music online.

Well, for anyone to download unlimited music seems easy but it is not if you don’t have any inkling of what to look out for in an excellent and honest download site. There are things you should be assessing to screen out the good ones. There are many scam sites that masquerade as legitimate download sites. In fact, some even offer online music for free. What they do is offer you a download client which is a package of malware that constantly flashes advertisements of their sponsors before your face. Not only is that annoying, you could be exposing your computer to unnecessary risk of adware, spyware and virus attacks.

Here are some handy tips to find a good music download site where you can download unlimited music.

1. Selection of Music Genre

Make sure that this site allows you to download unlimited music of your favourite genre. You can contact the site and find out if they offer the music of your choice. Alternatively, if you are the lazy kind like most of us, simply pick one which has a wide selection.

2. Check the Terms and Conditions

Browse through the terms and conditions to make sure you can download unlimited music legally. Read through and see if there is any abnormality.

3. Download Speed

Downloading speed determines whether a site is well-established. Good sites maintain their websites well, and ensure that they can support high downloading speeds even when thousands to millions of users are downloading music simultaneously from different parts of the world. A site that is often overloaded speaks of how low their server resources are. If it is not willing to invest in excellent service quality, flee from it.

4. Customer Feedback

Positive customer feedback is a good indicator of the health of the website. It also suggests professionalism and satisfaction guarantee.

5. Payment or Charges

There are download sites that offer monthly subscription for their service, and others that offer a flat fee for yearly, two-year or lifetime membership. Take your pick but if I were you, the choice is obvious. 6. Music or Song Download Limit

Download sites that put a limit to the number of music download used to be common. Nowadays, there are several membership sites that give you access to download unlimited music once you purchase their memberships. There is absolutely no limit. 7. Safe Downloading Environment

Be sure to stick with a site where you really can download unlimited music safely. There are horrid stories about how some poor folks got their data wiped out by viruses when they download music at certain sites.

Training your workforce to deliver top quality web design assignments

They say that the web design industry is a knowledge based business and I could not say it enough times to my team. Quite obviously a business which is knowledge based depends heavily, if not entirely on…yes, what you know. Today, more than ever, knowledge is power and this is particularly true of the web design industry. So what kind of training is required for a sound web design business company?

Start with the beginning. If you’ve decided to offer a comprehensive range of web design services you need web developers and web designers. Web developers are the guys who do the coding…the hard and tedious stuff, if you don’t like this sort of thing. Many web developers have attended web development training courses while many others have taught themselves web design and coding. Personally, I find the self taught web developers more creative and competent. Let’s say that the motivation is there to start with. So, to establish your web design business, you need a few good coders, whether they do php, asp or other web based programming language.

You also need some good web designers. First impressions count and sell products. No matter how good and smart your code, you need a good web design, the right look and feel to attract your customers and get the sales. True, some web designers are more gifted and talented than others. But do take time to review and share good web designs with your team. What better way to improve your in house web design skills than to go over some well designed web sites and learn by observing. Study each line, each shape and colour of the web design. Web design is about details. Train your guys to look for details in a web design. The thickness of a border, the right icons in the right place can make all the difference.

Quality training is another vital element of the training programme. Train your web designers to understand your web design customers expectations. Develop an eye for details. Customers get very nervous when their web site is going live. They believe that the minute the web design is published online the whole world is scrutinising it. So web design customers are very intolerant to quality flaws in a web design. Training is vital. Have a quality checklist and train your web designer to spot the obvious mistakes like broken links, misspelling, misalignment in the web design. Once a web design is complete, the web designer must go over the web site with the checklist and tick each item on the web site. While this sounds obvious and simple, you cannot underestimate training.

All this training takes time and if your web design production is busy and deadlines are tight, it will not get done. Yet, training is vital to your web design business. I recommend setting a date each month when training is done. You know which date it is each month so you can plan your production accordingly. Make time for your web designers to get together once a month and share their web design knowledge and tips to the team. Web design techniques are progressing constantly and web designers can find whole online libraries full of the latest resources. Encourage your web design team to go online, learn the latest web design trends and provide a set up with a date, time and place for a regular training to take place.