Online shopping is convenient, in that you can shop around, find the best prices, and have your packages delivered right to your doorstep without ever having to leave the comfort of your own home. But getting a great deal online involves more than just getting the lowest price. You’ll want to be sure that products arrive on time, that quality is what you expected, that items include a proper warranty, and that there is a way for you to return products or get support with any questions or issues you have. Apply these tips to improve the security of your shopping experience.

1. Always place orders from a secure connection

If your computer isn’t protected from potentially malicious software, your financial information and passwords are at risk of being stolen (and everything else you store on your computer or do online). If you’re shopping online while using a wireless network, it needs to be encrypted so someone who is lurking outside the house can’t collect your information. Avoid making any financial transactions when using a public network, as you may not know if it’s compromised.

2. Know the merchant and their reputation

If you already know the store, shopping their online store is very safe. You can always walk into the local store for help if there’s a problem, and if you know others who have had consistently positive experiences with the online store, you can be reassured of the site’s quality. If you don’t know the store, it may still be the best bet; you just need to take a few more precautions. Conduct your own background check by looking at sites dedicated to reviewing e-stores. If the store isn’t reviewed or does not have favourable reviews, don’t order from their website.

3. Avoid offers that seem “too good to be true”

Any online store that promises too much at too low a price is suspicious. If the price is too low, then the likelihood that it is a scam is high. Also, consider whether the merchant came by the items legally, if you will ever receive the items you paid for, whether the items are actually the brand shown or a cheap substitute, if the item will work, if you will be able to return damaged on arrival goods. Disreputable online stores may run an absurdly low price offer and then claim the item is out of stock, to try to sell you something else in a classic “bait and switch” scam.

4. Ask for Terms and Conditions.

It is important to ask for necessary terms selling and after sales terms and conditions, such as; return, warranty, shipping etc.

5. Don’t use an e-store that requires more information than necessary to make the sale.

Expect to provide some method of payment, shipping address, telephone number, and email address, but if the merchant requests other information, walk away. You never want to give them your bank account information, BVN, IDs, Passport information, drivers licence among others. Some companies ask questions about your interests, but these should always be optional and you should be cautious about providing the information.

6. Need to create a password for the site? – make it unique.

You will often be asked to create an account with a password when you make a purchase. Usually, you can choose not to do this, and unless you will use the e-store frequently, don’t create an account. If you do want an account, try to use a unique and strong password.

7. Is the site secure?

Before entering any personal or credit card info onto a shopping site look to see if the web address on the page begins with “https:”, not “http:” That little ’s’ tells you the website is secure and encrypted to protect your information.

8. Always Pay to  Company (Corporate) Account of a Regular Bank

It is safer to pay to  Company (Corporate) account of a regular physical bank than to personal accounts or accounts opened with some online banking companies. If you are paying using an online payment gateway, ensure the payment gateway is that of a reputable company. Also ensure you are paying to an account consistent with the vendor’s business name.

9. Do not be Deceived by payment on delivery offer.

Payment on delivery has been to many a safer way to shop since they will see the product they want to buy before making payment. However, the. story if no more the same with the high rate of fraudulent middle-men who pose as actual vendors to scam unsuspecting buyers and sometimes even attempt to drag innocent and reputable vendors into trouble. Do further investigations. Ask questions, In some cases, try to verify the company and payment details with the delivery person. If they don’t know, ask them to contact the vendor that sent them to ensure the account details you are about to send money to is the correct one. Ensure the account details are consistent with the company identity.

10. Beware of Brand impostors and impersonators.

Search for other businesses with similar social handle. The rate of brand impersonators is currently on the rise. Just before you start to transact, search the social media for other accounts that may have similar name just be sure you are even about to transact with the genuine vendor and not an impostor. Sometimes, this impostors change the handle of the account with just little alterations and use the original contents of the genuine vendors, including pictures, images, and even put their addresses and original active images from gotten the vendor’s page. However, paying attention to these details will help you avoid falling into the hands of online shopping scammers.

As we put the past two a long time behind us, we cast our vision forward to the challenges of a shinning modern year, counting figuring out what we’ll have to be succeed. We are riding the tall peak of the data age, and IT rules preeminent, finding its way into each range of society.

The quick approach of modern advances coupled with the widespread reality has turned the job market on its head and revamped the rules of the diversion. So, on the off chance that you want to own the high-tech, data-centric world of 2024, you would like to ace the proper specialized aptitudes. “But there are so numerous skills,” you say. “How can we tell which ones to center on?

Let’s burrow into the best specialized abilities you would like for 2024. We’ll begin by characterizing specialized aptitudes and why they’re basic. A while later, we’ll list the foremost wanted abilities and tell you how to make strides your ability set.

What Are Technical Skills?

On the off chance that you’re inquiring “what are specialized skills?” These abilities are regularly “hard skills,” which you secure through preparing or instruction and utilize to achieve a given task. Most experts got to have a few degree of specialized ability information, much obliged to the nature of today’s work environment.

Consider how frequently things like social media, e-mail, cloud-based applications like Microsoft Office, bank cards and standardized identification scanners, and remote gadgets pop up in our ordinary lives, either at work or at domestic. It looks like no one can explore through today’s high-tech working world without having at slightest a few simple tech aptitudes.

The trap is to know more than fair the uncovered least and gotten to be a tech ability powerhouse that scouts all over will pine for.

Technical Skills Examples:

1. Programming
2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
3. Data Analysis
4. Machine Learning
5. Cybersecurity
6. Web Development
7. Cloud Computing
8. Mobile App Development
9. Software Testing
10. Network Administration
11. computer Aided Design (CAD) Software
12. Project Management Tools
13. Graphic Design Software
14. Database Management
15. DevOps Tools
16. Electrical Engineering
17. Robotics
18. Biotechnology
19. Statistical Analysis
20. Blockchain Technology

Source: simplilearn

Just as an attractive storefront is important for a brick-and-mortar business, a well-optimized  website is also important for an online business. A substandard appearance will scare off potential customers and drive them away before they even see your product.

Keep in mind that users tend to make instant judgments about a website’s trustworthiness in just 15 seconds based on the site’s design and content. If you’re a small business, or any other type of business, you can’t afford to turn potential customers away at first glance.

A well-designed website conveys professionalism. An attractive, thoughtful layout and well-presented information can do wonders for your website, including an 84% increase in time spent and a 132% increase in annual sales. Here are some practical web design tips to help you impress your visitors, earn their loyalty, and grow your business.

1. Start with strategy

For most customers, your website is often the first point of contact with your brand. It sets the tone for future interactions, so it needs to reflect your company’s values ​​and connect with your customers. The first step is to focus on your target audience. Thoroughly research what this audience is like in terms of demographics, what their interests are, and what kind of content they respond to.
You can use this information to design your ideal customer journey and influence that customer journey through the design of your small business website.
You may also want to consider how potential customers come to your website, whether through search, recommendations, email, etc.
This ensures continuity of communication and ensures a seamless customer experience from start to finish.

2. Establish a consistent brand identity

A consistent design language helps build and strengthen your brand identity for your visitors. This includes her website elements such as colors, fonts, logo, and layout. Different viewers often identify with different types of her web designs. If you’re a small business, you can use this to create a website that appeals to potential customers. Color in particular has a strong impact on recognition and can increase brand awareness by 80%. When used in conjunction with fonts, you can create a unique identity that reflects the personality of both your brand and its customers.

3. Insert space

A good web design tip is to add white space to your layouts. It may seem a little counterintuitive, but white space can greatly improve the user experience and make your website easier to read.
Once you understand most of the elements on the page, add some visual breaks to help your visitors process the information. You can also keep your website clutter-free so users aren’t overwhelmed with content. Strategically placed white space, when placed properly, can draw attention to your unique selling points, product design, CTAs, and other elements you want people to notice.

4. Simplify navigation

Navigation optimization is one of the most underrated small business web design tips. If your visitors can’t quickly find what they’re looking for on your website, they’ll leave your site. Consider how category, subcategory, product, and service pages are designed. Do you follow a logical structure that allows users to quickly search to find the information they need? Ideally, category pages should appear in the main navigation bar, and the rest of your site structure should follow this. Consider adding breadcrumb navigation in addition to sticky navigation menus so users can reflect on their journey.

5. Optimize for mobile

One of the most important things you can do as a small business is make sure your web design is optimized for mobile and other non-desktop devices. More than half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. Over 73% of people will abandon a website if it is not responsive to the device they are viewing it on. Google indexes the mobile version of your website first. Not having this can affect your SEO and search rankings. There are many things you can do to make your small business website design mobile-friendly. First, optimize your content for mobile devices. Make your product images the focal point and use as little above-the-fold text as possible. Make sure users don’t have to scroll to find her CTA. You might also want to consider navigation.
This is more difficult for smaller devices. Consider adding a collapsible “hamburger menu” to save screen space .

6. Fix SEO .

No matter how well-designed your website is, it won’t help your small business if it can’t be found.
Over 53% of all website traffic comes from organic search. Optimizing your website for search engines is not only important, it’s also essential for business growth. Good SEO best practices include using keywords throughout your web copy to make it clear to Google and other search engines what your website is about. Make sure the keywords you choose are relevant to your target audience. You can find keywords using tools like Google’s Keyword Planner,  Ah refs, and SEMrush.
You can also research your competitors to see what types of keywords and web designs other small businesses are using. Other ways to improve SEO include optimizing your web page headings and metadata, as well as addressing technical details such as: B. Using XML sitemaps and schema markup.

7. Improving page loading speed

How fast your website loads can have a big impact on your business. When page load speed increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, the likelihood that a user will bounce from the page increases by 32%. Customers generally have less patience with confusing websites. It is also an important factor in search rankings as it affects the user experience. In a competitive digital environment, you want to do everything you can to ensure a longer customer journey. This is part of small business web design because elements on the page, such as the size of images and video files, can affect how fast the page loads. You can compress images and optimize videos to take up less space. Other ways to make your website load faster include resolving hosting issues and using a content delivery network (CDN).

8. Put contact details and CTAs above the fold

A useful tip when designing a small business website is to make sure your users have quick and easy access to your contact information at any time. Ideally, this information should be visible above the fold on her website. This is the part of the page that visitors can see without scrolling.
Contact information typically includes a business address, email address, phone number, and social links. Most businesses choose to place his call-to-action (CTA) on most of their websites and redirect to the contact page. Her CTA button, which resides on every page (header, etc.), is a good way to make sure customers can always find it. Don’t be afraid to get creative with your CTAs too.
There’s no need to stick to traditional “buy now” or “learn more” options. Small businesses can experiment with their web designs to include catchy prompts such as “For a treat,” “Check it out,” or even “Hurry!” Get it while supplies last!

9.Personalize your user experience (UX)

User experience can make or break a website. UX refers to a user’s overall experience when browsing a website, including usability. Everything about the design of a small business’s website impacts the user experience, including fonts, color schemes, content, navigation, checkout, and support features. It’s critical that businesses not just provide a “good” user experience, but a personalized experience. This includes using available information such as web behavior, location, demographics, and user journeys to personalize website functionality. These features include product recommendations, optimized content, offers, and more.

This article explains why you need to update your website regularly.

To understand if your website needs an update or redesign, look to technology. Internet technology is a rapidly evolving and constantly changing field. The goal of every new technology stack is to make your website better is faster, simpler, lighter and more secure.
And by updating your website to adopt these new technologies (at least those relevant to your business), you can always provide your users with the best possible service and use to understand if your website needs an update or redesign, look to technology. Internet technology is a rapidly evolving and constantly changing field.
The goal of every new technology stack is to make your website better is faster, simpler, lighter and more secure.
And by updating your website to adopt these new technologies (at least those relevant to your business), you can always provide your users with the best possible service and user experience, resulting in a better It brings good reputation and good profits.

2: Rebranding

Websites can also be improved and updated through rebranding. It may seem obvious, but we want to point out that even if you make minimal changes to your brand, your website will need to be updated to reflect those changes.

This helps, among other things, to draw the visitor’s attention to these changes. This becomes even more important when making changes to your business strategy.
Your website is the face of your brand and the first thing potential customers notice. It is important that this face always matches your company.

3: Follow design trends

Design trends change so often that some niches find it appealing to look dated, but just old isn’t the same as outdated or retro.
If you aren’t always aware of design trends, you’ll quickly lose customers. Alternatively, you may be unable to attract new customers, which could be even worse depending on your business.

On the other hand, redesigning your website from time to time to suit your business when there are trends relevant to your business can attract new customers who “drop in”.

Design trends aren’t just about color themes and shapes. Global tastes are changing in this direction, but website design is not alone. For example, in recent years we have moved towards becoming more organized in our lives, and this is reflected in web design .Cleaner and clearer  websites are very much on trend. Additionally, Motion UI is gaining a growing following.
To follow these trends, you need to be careful and be smart about not overdoing it. If done correctly, a modern website design can help you attract new customers.

4: Improve loading speed

One of the main problems in our daily life is that there is not enough time to do everything.
No one stays on a website that takes too long to load. In fact, slow loading speeds are the main cause of high bounce rates.
Many factors affect page loading speed. One of them, of course, is how the site is coded.
If you look at the latest trends in web development technology, you’ll see that many of them are aimed at making pages load faster.
Updating your website with new technology will reduce your site’s bounce rate and improve your Google rankings. But technology isn’t the only thing that can slow down your website. Outdated themes are one of the main reasons why your website is slow. Other causes include a cluttered user interface, too many unnecessary or unoptimized links, and large image or video files.

5: Ensure data safety

Today, data security is everything. Your personal and financial information is often digitized and stored on a website’s servers. For example, your medical history may be stored on your healthcare provider’s server. Outdated security measures are ineffective against modern hacking attacks, and in some cases he can render even year-old technology obsolete. Hacked servers can be used for spam.

Moreover, without the latest data protection measures in place, the user data contained therein can be compromised and even stolen.
Regularly updating your website and content management system (CMS) is a must, and if your website uses custom security, make sure it meets the latest standards.

6: Provide flexibility

If your website currently doesn’t have a mobile version, you can simply throw it away. According to Statista, more than half (54.4%) of all website traffic was generated on mobile in 2021. Indeed, in some countries this number will be even lower. But in other regions it is even higher. This trend led to what is now called mobile-first website development. As the name suggests, these are websites that were first created for mobile devices and later adapted for desktop browsers.

Even if you have a separate mobile app, you need to adapt your website to mobile screens.
Otherwise, there is a huge risk of losing potential customers. If your business has been up and running for a few years, and your website has been built for a few years, you should optimize it for mobile as soon as possible. Older websites may not display properly on mobile devices because mobile optimization was not possible with older technology.

7: Improve your search engine rankings

When should you update your website’s SEO settings?
Major changes to Google’s search engine algorithm occur about every six months, so you can start tracking them. However, you can make small changes to Google’s algorithms at any time. In some cases, iterations may occur every few weeks. A storm may be preceded by months of calm.

Changes in search algorithms can affect a website’s ranking in search results. Therefore, it is important to update your website regularly if you want to rank higher than your competitors.
Additionally, it is difficult to meet all the new demands of search engines when using older technology.

What is the actual content? How often should you update your website’s content? Well, the answer depends on the type of business you run.
However, most search engines rank frequently updated websites higher.

At the same time, when considering the importance of updating your website’s content, it is important to consider the quality of your content and your SEO strategy.
Poor quality web content that is updated regularly can be detrimental to both visitors and search engines. For example, Google’s Panda algorithm (now integrated into Google’s core search algorithm) uses keyword stuffing (overloading text with keywords that match the correct one context) to reduce web It is well known that it can lower your site’s ranking.
Low quality or repetitive content.

8: Add integrations

You can now integrate many third-party plugins and web apps into your website to   improve performance and engage your users. More appear every year. One of the main reasons to redesign your website is to add plugins like this. Here are some examples of possible integrations:

Adding plugins can also mean updating the code, design, and technology to make your website work. However, if you want to stay ahead of (or at least keep up with) your competitors, this may be a necessary step.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marketing is about reaching people who are interested in buying your product. What better way to reach these people than by advertising on the most popular search engine? Among Google’s other invaluable marketing tools, such as Google Analytics and Google Trends, Google Ads is an extremely effective method of online advertising.

With Google Ads, businesses can reach anyone who uses Google to search for information, products, and services online. Google Ads can bring you a large audience searching for the products or services you offer. If you’re not currently using Google Ads, read ahead to learn more about this powerful marketing tool at your disposal.

 

What is Google Ads?
Almost any time you see an ad ranking a business’s landing page as the first (or second, or third) search result on a Google search, it’s not just a result of Good SEO; the company may be running a Google Ads campaign.

With Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), you pay to show Google ads for your business to customers who search for relevant terms in Google Search and Maps. Google Ads is a vital digital marketing tool for any business that wants to get meaningful advertising content from their target audience.

With Google Ads, you only pay for real, measurable results, like website clicks and business calls. This structure is called a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. You can set a monthly advertising spending limit for your Google Ads campaign that Google automatically tracks, and you can choose to make your target audience global or local.

 

Why should you use Google Ads?
Here are some of the benefits of using Google Ads in your digital marketing strategy.

1. It increases the number of leads and customers.
Google Ads is one of the best lead generation tools. If your campaigns are set up correctly, they have the ability to send highly targeted leads to your website, signup form, or other online product.

Google Ads allows you to focus on people searching for what your business has to offer. This means you can continuously refine your searches so that only people who want to buy your products or services are redirected to your website through the platform.

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2. It’s a flexible marketing platform.

Anyone who uses Google Ads regularly will tell you that it’s an extremely flexible marketing tool. It’s suitable for all kinds and sizes of organizations. You can literally turn internet traffic on and off using this system. It is also compatible with a wide range of other marketing platforms and software systems.

You can easily customize campaigns to focus on specific types of online users. For example, you can target people by location, the type of device they’re using and the Google-owned website they’re accessing (e.g., Google search, Google Maps, YouTube).

You can also set your own budget for specific areas of a campaign. For example, you could set daily budgets and limits on the amount you’re willing to spend on clicks for specific keywords.

 

3. You get a high return on investment.
Unlike other marketing strategies, Google Ads only charges for ads that people click on. After optimizing your Google Ads campaigns, you can achieve high ROI, which may not be possible with other marketing strategies.

However, this takes time and you need to determine which approach is right for you and your business. To have a clearer idea of ​​what will get you the best results, you need to continuously test and monitor your campaigns. Google Ads is perfect for this because it’s transparent and the information you need is always available.

Once you find areas of your campaign that deliver a good ROI, you should focus your efforts and budget on those areas. If a campaign or parts of a campaign are costing you money without delivering results, get rid of them. Invest these savings in successful campaigns and campaigns that you will test in the future.

 

4. You see results quickly and transparently.
Google Ads is famous for providing quick and easy results and reporting on your campaigns.

It’s easy to analyze your campaign progress because the dashboard gives you all the information related to each campaign, such as ads clicked, keywords entered by website visitors, and click cost.

These features make Google Ads an extremely transparent and intuitive system.

 

5. It takes advantage of a huge source of high-quality traffic.
Due to Google’s market dominance and huge customer base, the search giant can send businesses a huge amount of traffic every day, if those businesses have the budget to do so.

Google prides itself on displaying relevant content and ads, and the company continues to develop and improve its search engine algorithms to produce the most relevant search results and ads. . This has a positive impact for businesses that advertise through Google Ads, as these ads send high-quality leads and visitors to your website, online store, sign-up form, or your business’s other online resources. People sent to you by Google are more likely than people from other sources to become customers, sign up for mailing lists, request information, or take the action you want them to take.

6. You learn more about your market.
It’s important to get into the mind of your ideal customer. Understanding your audience makes it much easier for you to deal with customers and find out what they want.

However, this is extremely difficult to achieve. Traditional methods, such as questionnaires and interviews, yield limited results.

On the other hand, Google Ads provides insights into customer habits and requirements that business owners of an earlier generation could only dream of. Some of the valuable data that Google Ads allows you to collect about your customers includes the keywords they use to find your site, their location, the device they use, and when and the day they searched.

You can use this information to improve your products and services and refine your marketing efforts so you don’t waste advertising dollars on people who aren’t interested in what you have to offer.

Google Ads is one of the most powerful advertising tools ever created. It processes millions of searches from people every day and then provides business owners with a unique opportunity to convert many of those people into leads and customers.

Many businesses are discouraged from spending on Google Ads, especially if they are unfamiliar with how the platform works. However, if you’re smart about your online advertising strategy, the rewards from Google Ads can be huge.

Source: business.com