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Has Your Design Firm Run Amuck With Your Web Site?
What's happening to good web site design? Somehow we creative types at interactive and traditional ad agencies have run amuck - we're building web sites that may dazzle the senses, but don't really communicate much about our client's business or products and services! 1. Somehow I don't think anyone has a burning desire to spend 30-60 seconds on the Index page of a web site while another fancy Flash animation loads, complete with snazzy graphics, audio, and way cool cutting edge graphics - not!! People want to get real information, not razzle-dazzle graphics showing how great a developer is using the latest whiz bang technology! 2. I thought Frames went out of style like adding a .com to your company's name. Apparently not, as there are still lots of web sites using Frames - forcing users to see a web site with mix and match (bad) graphics, odd menus and just a plain ugly interface. 3. I some times wonder if some of my fellow design geeks all own Adobe stock, or they are just trying to make sure HTML disappears as a content standard. The last thing many people want is to sit and watch as their 56 kbps dial up struggles with opening a doc in Adobe's proprietary PDF format - many click off and are gone to the next web site. Content should be offered in HTML or Word format, both of which open instantly - no, I don't own any Microsoft shares! 4. Another popular time waster appears to be designing web sites that require people to list all of their contact points, including first born children, their dog's pedigree - etc. Registration forms should be short and no more than 4-5 entries that just require fundamental contact information. 5. What's the value in running contests, games and other technology-enabled multimedia content on a web site? Recent studies have indicated most of the online user community isn't interested in a web site that drives branding - they simply want information about a company's goods and services. 6. The web is a wonderful medium for customer acquisition but it also works as a valuable tool for building dialogue with customers - approx 75% of the online community does not mind filling out short forms that ask them questions about goods and services, or providing feedback. More sites should ask people for their opinions and reviews - they don't mind sharing them and these comments provide valuable insight. 7. Content is still one of, if not the most important variables in good web site design. Today's savvy surfer doesn't want content presented in book form; they want short paragraphs with lots of white space, not long textual columns in a type font that forces anyone over 30 (perish the thought there are people on the web over 30) to put on their glasses and squint at the screen. 8. We marketing types jumped on the community bandwagon 12-18 months back - you couldn't read an article about web site marketing unless "community" wasn't included as a buzzword du jour! Well, times have changed, or maybe we all came to our senses - today's web user wants baseline information they don't want to chat with other users via web site or read about shared interests - give them information in "content bytes' and let AOL worry about building a community! About The Author Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com Lee@intelective.com
10 Things All Webmasters Should Know
Geared Up with a website and lots of energy to make a mark online? Spare some time and go through this. You'll be glad you did. If you don't already, this is something you MUST know!1. Maintain an easy to follow Navigational system throughout your website.2. Do not use frames unless it's really important. Visitors detest getting stuck up in frames and Search Engines find it difficult to index websites with frames.3. Avoid using scrollbars horizontally. There is nothing more annoying than having to scroll both vertically and horizontally at all screen lengths.4. A full Flash Website may look very appealing, but that's the last thing your visitors are going to wait for to load. Instead try embedding Flash on your pages to get the same look.5. To minimize download time, use tables with different back...
10 Nifty Ways To Prolong Your Visitors At Your Website
Increasing the length of time a visitor is on your website will dramatically improve your conversion to sales. Use these ten points to check you are prolonging to stay of your visitors.1. Offer a free ebook that's published right on your web site. They would have to stay at your web site to read it.2. Give your visitors a different free bonus for each link they click-through on your web site. Example: "If you click on this link you'll get a FREE course!"3. Make your content into a story format. They will want to keep reading to find out what happens at the end of the story.4. Offer a search option on your web site. People will stay longer because it gives them the option of searching through your web site using keywords.5. Provide a chat room on your web site. They will wan...
Web Copywriting: The Psychology Of Scarcity, Less Is More If You Want Faster Sales
Countdown to Armageddon - at least you'd think so judging from some of the garish copy and blaring headlines screaming at you from so many websites.At the opposite extreme though, you've some sites which don't even have a single decent headline anywhere that captures visitors attention, let alone leads them into captivating copywriting that'll get them a sale.Although it's true to say human emotion hasn't changed in the last 10 years online, the consumer and buyer reactions have undoubtedly become far more sophisticated over the past decade. Further, with something like 43% of all web shopping carts being abandoned at the point of sale it's crucial we understand and react proactively to this new buyer sophistication.In short, todays online buyers are both pretty wired and wised up. Unless you understand t...
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Attention Grabbing Web Design Will Kill Your Sale!
In the of-line marketing world it is all about trying to get the attention of the potential consumer to a commercial message.The primary goal is to get noticed by the public.It doesn't matter if it is for radio, TV, magazines, newspapers or posters.It all comes down to getting noticed.On the Web this doesn't work!The reason for this is that on the web, the net surfer is actively searching and looking for information from this gigantic data repository... |  |
| Love At First Site: Giving Your Website Visitors The Right Impression
Think of the people who visit your site as blind dates. When youopen the door, your blind date usually knows whether they areattracted to you within the first minute. How do they know? Easy.By how you look, what you say, and how you treat them. If youopen the door wearing the same clothes you wore in 1987, say,"Wow, from my friend's description, I thought you would be a lotbetter looking," and sneeze in your dates face, not only will younever get a second date, your date will run for his/her life.The same rules apply to your website. When people do a search forsomething they want to buy, they usually have many sites tochoose from.... | |
| Web Crimes: How To Avoid Common Website Design Mistakes
Thinking about designing your own website? Think again about adding any of these "features"?1. Animated gifs. You know the ones: the dancing baby, the rotating email sign. No matter what you chose, nothing screams out "amateur" quite like an animated gif. Next!2. ... | |
| Custom Icons For Your Specific Brand
Developing a software application is not easy at all; apart from the effective creation of the application you'll have to think of other things as well, like: making the software easy to work with, giving it a unique and appealing look, making it better than other software, etc. Apart from the qualities of the application, these little things are the ones that promote your software application among the end users. If the application is easy to use, has a friendly user interface, the look of the program is unique yet not too flashy a lot more people will want to have it and use it. On the other hand, we should be careful about the overall look of the entire application because if it looks too different or it is too striking, many of the new users will be reserved in trying it. The reticence might be coming fro... | |
| Online Advertising: 10 Tricky Secrets To Keep Visitors Glued To Your Website And Increase Sales
It is common sense.The more time people spend at your web site, themore likely they will know more about your productsand services.The more time they know about your products and services, the more the chances of them buying from you will increase.Below are ten online advertising powerful ways tokeep visitors at your web site longer.1. Provide your web site visitors with content theycan't read anywhere else. People will stay longer atyour web site to read the original content.2. Remind your web site visitors they can print outyour content. They may browse around your onlinestore while it's printing.3. Offer your web site visitors a freebie if they takethe time to fill out your online survey. They'll be atthe site longer and might buy something after... | |
| Breathe New Life Into Your Half-dead Website By Using Words That Sell
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 ... | |
| Effective Website Design
In this era of ultra-sophisticated internet marketing and web design, there is no excuse for an e-business to suffer with an ineffective website. Whether your goal is to ... | |
| Event Planning Must Include An Event Website
As part of your event planning you should seriously consider registering a special event domain. That should in fact be the first step for your planning of any event.Whatever it is: - your big wedding event - any other big family event - a festival - a course / training event - a celebration event in your local community - an international seminar or conference event - a campaign event / promotion event - a school class event.It is much easier to find a proper domain name for an event website than for a permanent website.In many cases you can use the formula: www.EVENTNAME2005.com or ...Net or with a national domain like ...co.ukYou can use the formula: w... | |
| Why Dot-coms Fail - A Webmasters Perspective
Everyday we hear that another company goes out of business.When and why does a dot-com become a dot-bomb?After checking few dozen defunct companies, I think the main reasons for dot-coms failure are:- Poor business plan. In the last years, a lot of investment capital was spent on poorly planned companies that clearly couldn't reach profitability.
- Poor company promotion. This applies both offline and online. Two newspaper ads and word of mouth are not enough.
- Poor financial management. Fancy offices, free food, does it ring a bell?
- Poor Human Resources management. With lots of...
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