Latest Events With Our Overhauled Website
On January 1st, 2010 I put our new web site online for STOK.COM and many of you who visit regularly have noticed the change. I thank you for your feedback and the comments I have received about the improvements, what works and what doesn't.This new site is based on a lot of research I have done and will continue to do. I find it so interesting that I will be blogging about it from time to time on these pages. These discussions may help you with your website and help improve your business as well. It all has to do with improving your Search Engine Report Position (SERP) so you come up higher in the search reports, and focusing on how well the web site itself works for your visitors.
Prior to putting this new site online my statistics reports indicated that most visitors came and left without clicking past the home page. It's interesting to note with this new site since January 1st that most of you still clicked to the product-summary page, which is nothing more than a list of our products for sale. That used to be all on our home page. But based on your feedback, I understand that existing customers go there because they just need to review a product they already knew of previously and just want to review it again for present consideration.
I see that many new visitors, on the other hand, chose the other paths that are new to the site. At least the new site draws people in to the decision-making pages that are helpful to them.
I use Google Analytics to track the path through the site. It's all anonymous. I don't know who is who, and that's not important anyway.
Many have asked who did the programming of the site. I do the programming myself and I write in raw HTML. I like it that way because it gives me full control over every aspect. I test all pages by reviewing at first with Mozilla Firefox as that is my web browser of choice. But then I need to test every page under MS Internet Explorer (IE) as well as Apple's Safari. Apple has done a great job in making Safari work as well as Firefox. But IE always gives me trouble. Pages that work under the other two browsers sometimes display strangely under IE. One reason for that is that IE is not as forgiving for coding errors. But Microsoft also has not been keeping up with the latest HTML 4.01 Transitional web programming standards.
Those of you who have been around for a while may remember that Microsoft originally missed the oncoming Internet. While all the rest of us were writing code for web browsing and search, Microsoft released the first version of Windows 95 totally without any Internet interface. Then quickly had to add the function as an afterthought.
Well, that's all for now. Wish me luck with the new site. But more importantly, I wish you luck with it as well. I hope it helps bring you the information you need to make the right decision with all the communications aspects of your business.
Glenn Stok, President of Stok Software, Inc. (STOK.COM)