Archive for Web Infos
05.16.08
Posted in Web Infos at 2:56 am by admin
Do you often wonder how to develop your site so it doesn’t scream
“small business amateur”. Business owners, not just sole-proprietors,
are notorious for skimping on professional web site development. Often
the result is that their site is cheap looking and compels visitors to
run or in this case, click in the opposite direction. Shouldn’t we know
better by now? Even if your site gets some sales, why settle? A
business owner should be constantly improving or he or she could run
the risk of getting left behind by their savvier competitors.
Below are ten important questions to ask before launching your new site?
- Does your site load quickly?
- Does your site include a call-to-action?
- Do you make customer service easy?
- Do you have relevant and useful content?
- Is your site simple, and easy to follow?
- Is your site’s navigation simple?
- Is your site visually effective, different?
- Is your content and links regularly updated?
- Do images complement or weigh down your message?
- Is the text easy to read and the paragraphs short?
The great thing about this checklist is that it can be used to evaluate
your site after a professional has designed it. Or it can also be used
to evaluate the work in a designer’s portfolio before you decide to
hire him.
There are many different web sites that are dedicated to enhancing the
look of the web. Be sure to check them out. Remember, you’re not in
this alone. Many of these sites contain forums where you can request
other visitors to evaluate the look of your site. You can also find
various examples and templates to help you get started. An example of a
helpful web development site is http://webmonkey.com. Of course, a
brief search in your favorite search engine should produce thousands of
results containing other helpful sites.
Once your site meets these guidelines you can release it with
confidence. Your newfound confidence, combined with your
marketing efforts your site will be an invariable tool to help increase
profits and learn more about your target market. Of course, as you
learn more, you’ll have to update the site and go through the checklist
again!
Copyright © 2005-2006 Rhonda Winn - All Rights Reserved. Rhonda Winn started her new media design and marketing firm, Cypher Signature Design Group, in 2000. Her company is a full service firm specializing in web design and development. You can join her small business and e-commerce newsletter and gain access to free e-books by visiting http://smallbizstartupkit.com.
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04.18.08
Posted in Web Infos at 11:50 am by admin
If you’ve a website but not making a lot of profit
from it, cheer up because I have 10 website sales
secrets that can help you maximize your sales
and profits, starting now:
1. Tell people the point or focus of your web site.
Explain to them what things they can do or which
goals they can accomplish while visiting your site.
2. Make your visitors feel comfortable at your web
site. Give them your main business address, your
visitors may not trust you if you’re using a P.O. box.
3. Include a FAQ on your web site or via e-mail
on an autoresponder. This will give your customers
an extra convenience without having to contact you.
4. Buy advertising space on discussion board web
sites. They are usually arranged by subject; that
makes them highly targeted.
5. Start a free e-mail newsletter to create your own
opt in list. Create a title that grabs readers attention.
Submit it to free e-zine directories on the internet.
6. Record all your new promotion ideas into an idea
journal, good or bad. Sometimes you can combine
ideas to create new ones to increase your sales.
7. Convert your web site and free e-mail newsletter
into different languages. This will increase your over-
all target market.
8. Make your classified ads stand out in a crowd.
Use all capitol letters in the headline, divide letters
with extra spaces, add in text symbols, etc.
9. Remember your customer is always right, even
if they are not. Resolve all conflicts quickly and
painlessly. They are the lifeblood of your business.
10. Create a bond with your visitors by bringing up
likes or dislikes you have in common with them in
your ad copy. Just make sure you do your research.
May these website sales secrets help you to make
a lot of money and succeed.
Warmly,
I-key Benney, CEO
I-key, a Millionaire CEO from New York City is the creator of “Mscsrrr: Millionaire Secret Cash System”, (day trading), program which has helped thousands of ordinary people from all over the world to attain financial security and shining success during the past 2 yrs.
Mscsrrr Millionaire Secret Cash System helps you to generate $1,500+/Week for life, from home or office, part time or full time. No large investment or hassles. Win $1000-$2000 free “cash”…
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04.14.08
Posted in Web Infos at 9:34 pm by admin
Beyond Appearance: Every design has a “sales” potential.
Think about it, why do some websites sell better than others?
While every site needs to be visually attractive and pleasing to
the eye, effectiveness of the web site to perform for the
company is what the goal of the web site should be. The key to
effective web design is to convert visitors of your web site
into buyers of what ever your selling (products, information,
ideas, etc.) Even though we always need to keep in mind
important SEO and Marketing strategies when creating content
rich pages, we ALWAYS need to keep the visitor in mind to “close
the deal”.
Rule I. Sacrifice Beauty for Effectiveness: While we want
the website to stand out on a visual level, we need to realize
that there are many factors to making a website a success on the
internet. Before we add a ton of great looking graphics we need
to ask ourselves if this is hindering the overall effect we are
trying to create with the viewer. Would we be better off using
text links to allow for better site navigation and usability?
Most times the answer is at least partially YES! Text not only
makes the page load faster, it also allows non conventional web
browsers to navigate the site more effectively. For instance,
when a search engine “spiders” (crawls through) your site, it
could care less about graphics and goes right for the text links.
Rule II. Less Is More: Unless a site is quick and easy to
use it will be a barrier rather than an open invitation to
users. Current usability standards suggest users spend on
average less than 2 minutes on a website. The key to engaging
visitors must therefore be simplicity over complexity. Keep in
mind that when using the word “simplicity” I am not talking
about getting rid of all of your content, in fact words are the
lest amount of problems. All pages should still have over 250
words on them to properly get your point across and for SEO
purposes. However less graphics, less flash and other memory
hogs need to be reconsidered. That’s why you need to live by the
axiom that less is more - less clutter, fewer barriers. Let’s
look at a few ways to obtain the results of this axiom:
A) Make pages easy to read and engulf. It’s a well documented
fact now amongst designers that people rarely read pages online
- they “speed read”. Therefore, if the information they need is
not easy to access they move on rapidly. Using easy navigation
techniques like proper heading placement will allow users to
access the information they find valuable from you faster.
Proper use of white space and overall spacing should be a must
in a webs design. Clearly differentiate thoughts with space and
borders making accessibility priority.
B) Follow Standards: When it comes to labeling headings, tags
and navigation links. It’s imperative to follow industry
standards that have evolved on the internet. Not only will it
bring a sense of familiarity to the user, but also comply with
search engines and internet browsers.
C) Layout, Graphics and Colors: The web makes it easy for
designers to do some amazing things with graphics and colors.
The first portion of your site is similar to opening a letter
sent in an envelope. When you remove the letter that is folded
in three sections, you will see the top third of the page first.
Designs with a dramatic color can make compelling choices for
setting a mood, however reading on a computer screen demands
contrast, otherwise the web viewer will be dizzied by vision
fatigue. You do not want to irritate or tire your visitors in
any way to keep them reading on or coming back. Striking
graphics can be real eye-catching for viewers; however
successful internet marketers are pretty much agree that you
should avoid flash graphics as much as possible. Another
important factor to consider is that not all colors are viewed
the same way on all monitors, so here we revert to the KISS
policy of keeping it simple.
D) Copy Basics: You may not realize this but many of the
successful internet marketing businesses already figured out
that design and layout of the website should be as much of a
marketing decision as the ad copy on the website is. People feel
comfortable with words. Words are found and analyzed by the
search engines. Most importantly, words are what drive sales and
build confidence among web users. This has been true in other
forms of media long before the internet was born.
I will touch on all of these aspects and more in future
articles, but this is a great starting point when embarking on
your new web presence or a guide to recreating your current
site.
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04.07.08
Posted in Web Infos at 3:29 pm by admin
Designing your website means you have to be creative, plan out exactly what you want visitors to see, and then turn these ideas into a design or relay them to a design firm so they can do the job for you. However, the problem with this is you might be coming up with a lot of ideas that are not going to work for you when it comes to the design on your web page. Do some research first about what a good design includes and what a bad design includes. Then, you might be better able to design a great website. Consider the following suggestions before you start coming up with design ideas so you will be sure to leave this out.
Tip #1 - Don’t Distract
For some reason, many webmasters think it is a great idea to put a background picture of whatever their subject matter is and then put the text on top of it. All this does is create a very confusing mess because people cannot see the picture for the text and cannot read the text for the picture. Don’t let this problem arise on your website. If you want to include graphics do so separately from the text, simple as that. When it is separate, people are able to read what you have to say and see the photos you post.
Tip #2 - Know Your Colors
Colors have positive and negative effects on people’s psychological interpretations of what you are presenting. Because of this, you should evaluate your product and what you want people to think when they see your product and use the colors accordingly. Keep your audience in mind as well because men and women perceive colors different, so you might use one set of colors if you are marketing to mostly men, another if you are marketing mostly to women, and so on and so forth. There is plenty information on the use of color and how you can make it positively impact your website and visitors impressions rather than the other way around.
Tip #3 - No Hidden Text
No matter how important it is to you to get listed in the search engines do not think that including hidden text on the background of your website, or anywhere for that matter, is going to get you a better ranking. All that using hidden text will do is ensure the search engines won’t index you and that you will probably blacklisted forever because of your actions. This is exactly the opposite of what you want to accomplish so be sure to steer clear of anything that might risk your standings with the search engines.
Michael Turner reveals his foolproof way to increase website traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it free right now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/
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04.04.08
Posted in Web Infos at 9:07 am by admin
This article may come as a surprise to you.
Especially since it is written by a web designer. Let me explain……
Rescue Your Web Site from Boring Words and Poor Design.
The difference between a successful website design and a site that brings in zero or very little business is not how nice the graphics are, not the colors you choose. It’s not the flashy animation, and it’s not your precious company logo.
I’m not saying to remove these elements. Some of them are important. But they’re mostly ego-driven. They are “me” messages, and have absolutely nothing to do with what you want your visitor to do.
And what is that you ask? The answer is of course. You want your visitors to buy something.
People who are considering doing business with you are only interested in one thing; “What’s In It For Me?”
One of the first steps toward a successful website is writing copy that tells the reader what’s in it for him, in a style that is easy to read.
Make More Cash
Study any website that makes money and I promise you’ll see the following copy elements in place:
In the main body copy, the text color is always black with a white background, making it easy to read. This should be obvious, but it’s amazing how many websites out there do not follow this very basic guideline.
Testimonials, and other secondary elements commonly use a contrasting font such as courier, courier new. The background in light blue, beige, or yellow shade to make it stand apart from the white background of the main body copy.
Verdana is the most widely used font for your body copy. This font was actually developed for use in the web. Times New Roman, Arial, and Georgiana are also popular. Never use more than two different font faces in your sales copy.
The use of yellow highlights, italics and bold font-style for emphasis.
Headlines and Subheads are usually a contrasting color from the black body text. A shade of red, dark green and dark blue are good colors. However, do not use more than three or four different colors.
Sentence and paragraph font size is commonly between 8pt. and 12pt. Never smaller than that, and never bigger.
Headlines and sub headlines usually between 14pt. and 18pt.
Paragraphs never justified. Most common is left-margin with no indent.
How To Write Successful Headlines
In your sales copy you need an attention-grabbing headline and a compelling sales message full of benefits, clearly describing what your product or service is all about.
Legendary copywriter Ted Nicholas author of 14 best-selling books including “Magic Words That Bring You Riches” has these excellent tips on writing headlines
“Start with a well thought out headline.”
“Five times as many people read the headline as the body copy. It makes sense, therefore, to spend the major portion of your effort on headlines.”
“A good headline motivates action by stirring an emotion”
“Write as many as 250 headlines before settling on one”
13 Proven Headline Words
Announcing…
Secrets of…
New…
Now…
Amazing…
Facts you…
Breakthrough…
At Last…
Advice to…
The truth of…
Free…
How would…
How to…
How To Write Attention-Grabbing First Sentences
Joe Sugarman (of blu-blocker sunglass fame) and author of best-selling book “Advertising Secrets of the Written Word” has these tips on writing first sentences;
“Keep it short, sweet and almost incomplete.”
For example:
It’s easy.
It had to happen.
It’s time.
It’s crazy.
The sole purpose of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence.
How To Write Attention-Grabbing Ending Sentences
“You must plant seeds of curiosity for the reader.” “At the end of a paragraph offer a reason to read the next paragraph.”
Using sentences such as…..
But there’s more.
So read on.
But I didn’t stop there.
Let me explain.
Now here comes the good part.
These tips represent just the tip of the iceberg on breathing new life into your half-dead web site.
We’ll cover all of the other necessary elements in future articles. Stay tuned.
I hope that you have found this information to be helpful in your pursuit of excellence. Thank you for reading.
Regards,
Dave Peterson
About The Author
Dave is not only a Professional Website Designer. He also incorporates exciting state-of-the-art marketing strategies and expertise that help clients put more cash in there pockets. Providing great value to his clients.
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