August 28, 2008 at 1:08 pm · Filed under Web_Design
When a visitor comes to your site, he wants to look around and see
what you have that will be useful to him. Average time he spends on your
site might be different and depends on the reason why he came to your
site.
What ever your visitors intentions are you should be able to present
your web site services and products before them. If you don’t take
care of few simple things, that might affect your visitors stay
on your web site and inturn your sales and profits.
Remember… The longer your visitor stays, more chances of seeing your
products and more will be the sales.
Here are few web design tips that usually be neglected by newbie
webmasters:
1. Consistent Layout:
Take care of maitaining uniformity through out your web site.
=Font size
=Font colors
=Link colors
=Table width
=logo
=List of links in the same order
When I see ‘Verdana, Arial, Times New Roman’ on all same page what will
be my first opinion? its a Newbie Web site…
If you don’t know about Layouts, check out other web sites how they
are doing. Spend little time on your web site layout planning.
2. Navigation:
Keep good navigation on your web site. Your visitor should go to
any page of your site to other page with ease. If you have lot of
products then keep links to main pages of site from where visitor can
go to your product pages.
Talking about navigation, check all your links whether they are working
and for typos. If you keep good navigation on your pages with out links
working… No good at all.
A tip in creating navigation system: You can use SSI (Server Side Includes)
to include one footer.txt on all your pages. So if you change the links
in that footer.txt, changes apply to all of your web pages.
More about this you can read here:
http://www.webmasters-central.com/wd/ssi-content.shtml
3. Sales pages with Headings and Subheadings:
Headings and Subheadings convey most important aspects of your products
to your visitor. People most of the time or at first glance of your
product page, they just scroll down once to get the whole idea. So keeping
headings and subheadings attracts the visitors attention and tells the most
important features and benefits of your product.
4. Order page secrets:
OK… Your visitor decides to buy your product. So is there anything you
can do to encourage him to buy your product?
On the Order page -
= Keep a picture of your product on your order page.
= List out the benefits of your product
= State any free bonuses he will get with the purchase
= Display any discount or promotional code you have
= DON’T keep any external links to other web sites
5. Protect your Downloads:
Yes… This is the age of Software products and Instant Downloads. Protect
your downloads from software pirates.
There are so many scripts and methods to protect your downloads. Scripts
that were designed to go with Clickbank, Paypal or iBill or any other
creditcard processing system.
http://www.webmasters-central.com/Server_side_Coding/CGI_and_Perl/Password_Protection/index.shtml
Make sure you buy the scripts that protects your thankyou pages,
members areas, link protection which cloacks your product file urls.
Radhika Venkata (c)
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Tags: internet marketing, user friendly website, web design, web development, web site designinternet marketing, user friendly website, web design, web development, web site designShare This
August 27, 2008 at 11:13 am · Filed under Web_Design
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.
Todd Levi is the owner of http://www.LeviSolutions.com. He specializes in effective web design, hosting and marketing strategies. With over 5 years of experience online he has dedicated himself to enriching the web with qaulity. He also has helps others do the same thing by focusing his efforts in his online blog at http://seo-marketing.levisolutions.com
Tags: content rich, sales copy, search engine optimization, simplicity, web design, web pagescontent rich, sales copy, search engine optimization, simplicity, web design, web pagesShare This
August 26, 2008 at 11:02 am · Filed under Web_Design
Today, there are literally millions of options to choose. A business website can be free of cost to thousands of dollars. The project process can range from a few hours to several months. Most importantly, your business image may appear poorly amateur or, preferrably, very professional. With this wide spectrum of results, how do you determine which web design company is right for you? To ease this search, below are 20 questions to ask web design companies. It will separate the real result-getters from the rest.
- How many years have you been building websites? Usually, a company with more years of experience is preferred over the other. However, a more relevant question is whether the company is still technologically up-to-date and designing websites according to tomorrow’s standards.
- What is the largest project you have worked on and why? A company with well known clients generally is more credible.
- Where can I see samples of your previous work? A company with an online portfolio is able to display past projects to the public.
- What industries have you created websites for? A company that is familiar with your industry can be very beneficial.
- How do you measure success of your websites? Some measure it by the website design. Others measure it by the amount of incoming traffic. It all depends on what the client wants out of the website.
- Do you have a formal project process? A company that has developed a process will be more organized and easier to follow.
- What do the clients have to provide? Usually clients will have to provide the text, images, and feedback. If the client cannot provide these, ask if the web design company offer services to buy stock photos and copywriting.
- How do we communicate about this project? Communicating by email is usually more convenient and more effective, however, a client can address their needs better by telephone.
- Do I own the code after completion of the project? Make sure the answer is YES. You paid for the codes therefore you should own it.
- How long will it take? A typical small business website takes up to a month. It usually depends on how involved the client is.
- How much will my project cost? There is usually a base package. For example: A five page website costs $1,000. Additional pages costs $100 each.
- What is the payment structure? There is usually a down payment of 33%. Another 33% is due usually during development phase. Final payment is due when the website goes live online.
- What softwares do you use? Companies that use softwares such as Dreamweaver, Frontpage, GoLive, or in-house application tend to complete the project faster. However, hand-coded websites tend to have cleaner codes. This is not all too important but it is nice know.
- Are your codes clean and according to open standards? A clean-coded website loads up quicker. Also, clean-coded websites are more portable if you ever decide to switch to another web design company in the future.
- What browsers do you test the websites on? Testing should be done at minimum on the following browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Netscape.
- I want Flash animation. Can you provide that? Flash animation can add an extra edge to a website. Too much will hurt.
- Do you provide hosting? Companies that can provide this will usually give you a discount for having them design your website.
- Do I have to host my website with you? The answer should be NO. If their web hosting ever becomes unreliable, you should have the right to have your website hosted elsewhere.
- Are you able to create online shopping carts? If you plan to do e-commerce in the future, a web design company should have the resources to provide this service.
- How will my website be maintained? Ask for web maintenance plans if you don’t want to deal with the codes. If you want to cut down on cost, ask if the website is compatible Macromedia Contribute.
Ly Nguyen is a web producer at Bicdream Studio, a web design firm devoted to creative web strategies. For additional FREE resources, visit http://www.bicdream.com/resources
Tags: web design company, web design questions, web designerweb design company, web design questions, web designerShare This
