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The blink of an eye! That’s how long it takes a visitor to assess the overall look of your website. Research has recently shown that a site visitor will decide whether or not they like your website in 1/20th of a second. That’s less than the time it takes to blink! And in less than 10 seconds they decide to stay at your website or leave!
The report, published in the latest issue of Behaviour and Information Technology journal, claims that “if the first impression is negative, you’ll probably drive people off. It really is just a physiological response," Gitte Lindgaard told Reuters. What the report does not conclude, is what actually makes a successful, aesthetically pleasing website, but only how much time it would take for a visitor to make that decision.
In the 6 years we have been developing websites, we have had the ability to test many different styles and looks of websites. We have also studied successful sites, to find out what the secret really is. What we found out is astonishing. Ready?
There is no secret! That’s right, there is no single, right way to build a website. There are however many “wrong” ways to avoid.
The real secret of a good website, is to eliminate anything that drives your visitors away. And how does one do this you ask? By understanding your target market. That’s the real trick in designing a website that is successful, and more importantly a home page that will retain your visitors.
Too many times new website owners think they need every bell and whistle available. They tend to pack their home page with too many components that are simply “eye-candy” and have no real value to the viewer. Others strip their site down and all you see is miles and miles of content, and no appealing graphics to get excited about.
What is needed is a site with the right balance of graphics and content. By “right”, we mean whatever is most pleasing to your target audience. If you are trying to attract elementary school children, then having a bunch of flashy images, bright colors, and huge fonts would more than likely pull them in. However, if you are attracting Fortune 500 companies those strategies would be a sure turn off.
I like to think of a website as a house. Take your house for example. You probably have a nicely colored front door, and possibly a wreath or other decoration (even just a fancy door knocker) hanging on that door. Chances are you have some sort of welcome mat that you spent time picking out just to give your visitor’s a welcoming place to wipe their feet. You keep the area around your front door clean and tidy. Your front door is welcoming and warm, making your visitors feel like they want to come in, that they want to see more.
In the same way, your home page is the front door to your website. This is the page that you should spend the most time constructing, because if visitors don’t move beyond it then the other pages won’t matter! You want this page to be eye-catching (but not overwhelming), easy to navigate (but not boring), and have the right amount of content to grab the attention of your visitor.
Let’s start with the visual appeal of your home page.
First and foremost you should have a professionally designed logo. Your company name displayed in plain Arial text just won’t cut it for most of your visitors. A nicely designed logo is the first part of establishing credibility with your visitor, and as such should be shown prominently at the top of your website.
Along with a memorable logo, your website should incorporate colors that your audience will respond to. For an explanation on selecting colors, please see our “Color Theory” article at http://www.nicmedia.com/color_theory.htm.
Graphic images are also important to help the viewer relate to your website. Professional photographs can easily accomplish this and still be affordable. There are numerous stock photography houses that provide high resolution images for very affordable prices, or you can hire your own photographer for custom work.
When using images of people, keep it down to earth. Research indicates that while viewers like to see attractive people in their own age group, they should not necessarily be identifiable as models. It’s more important that the images portray someone relatable that looks like them or “real” in their eyes rather than made up.
Your home page should be organized so that visitors quickly understand what they can accomplish. The typical website has logo on top (in a banner sometimes called a masthead), along with navigation either horizontally across top or vertically along the left hand side. Yes, this may seem old and boring, but it’s what visitors have come to expect and rely on. When that gets changed too much they don’t feel comfortable and tend to back away.
Navigation is the key to the flow of your website. Your navigation should have links that can be easily identified. Home, About Us, Our Products, Our Services, Contact Us – yes those are names we’ve seen a hundred times and we think we’d like to fluff that up – but don’t forget that is what your visitor is looking for. Remember, newspapers are written on an 8th grade level in order for the majority of it’s readers to be able to read and understand, and that same principal should apply to your navigation and entire website.
Make sure that your navigation flow makes sense for your viewer, ordering your pages with the most important pages listed first followed by the lesser important or least likely to be viewed pages. This helps assure you get your audience to the meat of your website quickly. To avoid confusion, consistency is key, so whatever navigation you use on your home page should be carried on throughout the remainder of your website.
Last but not least, is content. Content has to be rich and exciting enough to draw your visitor in, and short enough to grab their attention! Research suggests that the average reader can read approximately forty words in ten seconds.
The paragraph above is exactly 40 words. If you only have 10 seconds to pull your viewer in, that’s roughly the amount of content they can take in during that amount of time.
People tend to scan websites rather than read them entirely, so adjust to this fact. Use eye-catching headlines, bolding, bullet points, anything to break up the monotony of a plain paragraph and draw attention to the stuff that is most relevant for them to see. Plenty of white space helps to pull the reader’s eye along through the content of the page. Faced with a large block of text, our eyes tend to skip past it.
In short, you really have no choice but to make your website’s homepage an attention-grabber. Let your visitor know right away they are in the right place, that you have THE answer to their problem, that your company is credible, and that your site is easy to navigate.
Once they find the basic components that are expected they will be drawn in to more of your content and navigate deeper into your website. That’s the foundation for a solid call to action so your website achieves it’s goal. Remember, you only have a second!
About The Author: Angela Nielsen is President of NIC Media Group, an award-winning web development company located in southern California. To find out more about Angela Nielsen or NIC Media Group visit http://www.nicmedia.com. Copyright 2006 by Angela Nielsen. Professional editing provided by http://www.sharpediting.com
Source:www.webmasterinfoandcontent.com
Word of mouth advertising creates an awareness campaign where your business information travels from person to person, creating a world wind of awareness. For a new business start-up, word of mouth marketing is often the best and most effective advertising method.
Newspaper print and classified ads can get very expensive, and have lost much of their effectiveness with the popularity of the internet in the past decade. New business owners can't even consider radio or television advertising as a viable option. What is left for a home business or small start-up to do to spread the word about their enterprise?
Here are some steps that you can take to start a viral word of mouth marketing campaign about your business:
Acquaintances: Approach your friends, family and neighbors initially, followed by contacting other people you know in your community and beyond. To begin your campaign, you may take a broad approach to spread your information; ultimately streamlining your message to your target market.
Networking: Both online and off, networking is the backbone of the word of mouth marketing. You need to have a large network to build a database of prospective customers. Find forums and other groups where your target market ‘hang out.’
Website: It’s the Internet age. Establish your website with good, focused keywords to get favorable results from the search engines. Also, keep your website, user-friendly with easy navigation and complete updated information about everything regarding your business.
Freebies: Everyone loves to get something free. Create a free report or ebook related to your idea or product and give it away to potential customers, asking them to give the item to their friends and family as well.
Mailers: You can use email or postcards or pamphlets about your business to inform your acquaintances prior to calling them.
Word of mouth advertising has stood the test of time and is effective for every business. There are simple, affordable methods of starting a viral marketing campaign that will spread like wild fire. By putting into place some or all of the ideas mentioned above, you can create a world of advertising for your business.
About The Author: Sherry Frewerd publishes ‘Website Building Mom’ http://websitebuildingmom.com where you can find free information, reports and ebooks created to help you build a professional, money-making website.Reprint Article Headlines – The Reader Is Secondary
By Glenn Murray
Source:www.webmasterinfoandcontent.com
A great headline can be the difference between having your free reprint article published once (on your own website…) and having it published hundreds, if not thousands, of times all over the Internet.
Sure, the content has to be worthwhile; it has to be helpful, informative, and not just a sales spiel. And there’s no denying that a well written article can be very compelling. But if your headline doesn’t cut it, the article won’t stand a chance. The best article in the world will never see the light of day without an effective headline.
Now, more than ever, article submissions need a good headline. But it’s not just the reader you have to worry about. In fact, the reader is secondary! When it comes to reprint article headlines, your main focus should be the publisher.
You may think the requirements of a good headline haven’t changed over the years, but they have. Unlike headlines for traditional newspapers, magazines, etc., which target only the reader, online article submission headlines target first the publisher, then the reader.
So how do you write a headline for an online publisher? Here’s a few tips…
1) State your domain
No matter what your business, you can be sure that potential publishers of your article are inundated with information every day. Imagine hypothetical ‘Publisher Pete’. He’s the webmaster of a high PR site. He receives hundreds of article submissions every day. Additionally, he farms article submission sites (aka ‘article banks’, ‘article submit sites’, ‘free-reprint sites’) for articles on a regular basis. Because so many of the article submissions he sees are spam or unrelated, Publisher Pete is quick to dismiss anything that isn’t obviously – and immediately – relevant to his website. So make sure your headline signals the general subject area of the article submission, not just the exact topic.
2) State your argument
Every website has an agenda. Whether it’s to sell, persuade, or inform, there’s always an angle. When our friend Publisher Pete looks for free reprint content for his website, he wants something that complements his agenda. If he’s selling chemical garden fertilizers, he doesn’t want an article about the evils of chemical fertilizer. Nor does he want an article espousing the virtues of organic fertilizer. He wants an article promoting the value of chemical garden fertilizer. If that’s what your article is about, make sure the headline lets him know.
3) Don’t make empty promises
Sensationalized headlines may work in traditional media, but they’re not so effective in online article submissions. Few things frustrate an online publisher more than being lured in by a promising headline which turns out to be nothing more than hot air. For publishers who take the time to carefully filter content before publishing, empty headlines are nothing more than time-wasters. For publishers who are a little less meticulous, empty headlines result in a site which is characterized by disjointed, contradictory, low-quality content. Either way, the publisher isn’t impressed, so make sure the headline of your article is relevant to (and validated by) the body of your article.
4) Put yourself in the publisher’s shoes
Always think about ways to make the publisher’s job easier. It’s as simple as that. Brainstorm 5, 10, 20 headlines, then put yourself in the publisher’s position and ask which one you’d choose. That’s the best headline for your article submission.
5) Think about your publisher’s readers
Publishers want articles that readers will open. But remember, your publisher’s website may cater to an entirely different type of reader to your website. Whenever you find yourself thinking about your secondary audience (the reader), make sure you’re thinking about the publisher’s readers – not your own. That settled, you can go on to focus on regular audience-headline considerations such as making the headline attention-getting, targeted, and benefit driven.
Conclusion
With the emergence of article submission as a great way to generate a high search engine ranking, and the associated proliferation of article submission spam, the right headline is more important than ever. The important thing to remember is that you’re faced with a gatekeeper, and you need to address their needs first.
By following all the publisher-focused tips above, you’ll not only see your article published many more times, you’ll also see it published on more relevant websites. This will help both your ranking (because links from relevant sites are always the best) and your click-thru traffic (because the audience will be more relevant).
Happy headlining!
About the Author: * Glenn Murray is a director of PublishHub and Divine Write. He is a renowned SEO copywriter and an article submission specialist. For more information, please visit http://www.publishhub.com or http://www.divinewrite.com. Glenn can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn.murray@publishhub.com
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Dave Chase in his column at iMedia "Sugarshots: The Big Picture" expounded on the virtues of Open-Source Marketing Plan. In his article, Dave explained the main ideas came from James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations."
This author’s open-source marketing plan, as announced on June 29, 2005, is mainly for small and medium-sized businesses. By keeping it simple, this author hoped it can be useful to businesses with a limited budget, can get "more bang for the buck".
The objective is to gain 3000+ inbound links within one year by sending:-
A. 48 free-reprint articles in one year.
B. 4 free e-books in one year.
C. 4 free software similar to corporate gifts or freebies
D. 6 press releases in one year.
Getting many inbound links is vital as a hits generator - sources for new visitors. Sometimes, internet users on reading the articles, e-books or using the freebies may visit the originating site directly.
The site www.seecrets.biz started in early May 2005 with one article. In the following two months, ten articles were submitted and two press releases were issued. All these are available at this author’s site with the dates concerned.
After two months, over 300 inbound links were obtained. It is difficult to be accurate because Google does not list back-links from sites with PageRank of less than three. During the first few weeks, counting was easy when the number was less than 100.
The results from the Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines on July 9, 2005 at 0800GMT are as follows (the figures within the brackets represent the total competing pages):
"Seecrets" got 1(7570), 1(1040) and 1(3681).
"Stan seecrets" got 4(338), 1(215) and 1(737).
"Joe Nogood" got 4(694000), 8(1330) and 1(2447).
"Rebrand software" got NR(84000), 15(88800) and 11(31124).
"Open source marketing plan" got NR(26.7million), 10(5.2million) and 12(1million).
"Open source marketing plan" got 3&4, 6&7 and 2 through the Press Release sites.
(Please note that "NR" means not ranked in the top 20.).
The first three keywords (seecrets, stan seecrets and joe nogood) are important to this author’s site’s brand.
The keywords (joe nogood, rebrand software and open source marketing plan) were only introduced in late June 2005. The last two are relevant to the site’s activities.
These are the preliminary results. Readers can always inspect this author’s website and decide that no unfair or illegal methods were used. Knowledgeable readers should be able to see the meta-tags with ease.
This author’s take
Whether these results are good or not, it is up to the readers to decide. It can be a useful guide for website owners to improve upon and hopefully report back to the Internet community.
This is the first step of a long journey. There will be more mountains to climb, battles to fight, obstacles to overcome and so forth. This author is satisfied that the chosen brand has taken root. Whether this root can grow to support a giant redwood tree or just a bush that will wither away in the next few years, is yet to be seen.
This author wishes to thank the fine people behind rushprnews.com, isnare.com, ezinearticles.com, bloggeroff.com and many others for making this tumultuous journey for this techie-turned-Internet writer, a smoother one.
The Joe Nogood Gift Store Story – Joe runs for Political Office (Episode 2)
[Author’s note: Joe Nogood and JoeNoGood.com are fictional. It is an experiment to portray current events and issues (where angels fear to tread) in a lighthearted perhaps entertaining manner. Below is a conversation between Joe and his longtime buddy, Stan.]
Joe: Let’s go and visit DMV.
Stan: DMV? You’ve just renewed your driving license last week.
Joe: Not the Department of Motor Vehicles, you dummy. The Drunkards of Mountain View – they’re so fixated on brandy, burgundy, booze stuff (referring to their search algorithms’ names). They are drunk with their own success.
Stan: What name will they use for their next algorithm?
Joe: BS.
Stan: But, BS is an organic matter. What has that got to do with booze?
Joe: Ah, the Danes use plenty of that stuff to make methane gas. By using genetically modified bacteria, you can use this BS stuff to make ethane gas, the precursor of ethanol – pure 200-proof alcohol.
Stan: Why visit these drunkards then?
Joe: All their rankings stuff are BS. Somehow, they managed to convince the whole world and make a lot of money in the process. They may provide a few pointers on how to be President.
Stan: President?
Joe: By using DMV in our pages, DMV is related to roads and being a middle-of-the-road candidate, we’ll occupy all top 100 rankings for all our web pages. Joe I. Nogood is running for President with the slogan "I NoGood".
Stan (thinking to himself): Joe has a way of making the irrelevant, relevant. Just maybe, Joe will make a great President. Maybe.
[To be continued]
Stan Seecrets Postulate:
Where we originate is the same – our mothers’ womb.
Where we are heading is the same – six-feet under.
In between, we communicate. (Inspired by George Santayana, Spanish-born American philosopher - There is no cure for birth or death save to enjoy the interval).
About the Author: The author, Stan Seecrets, is a veteran software developer with 25+ years experience at http://www.seecrets.biz which specializes in digital asset protection and total website management. You can send your views or criticism by e-mail to Stan at seecrets.biz. © Copyright 2005, Stan Seecrets. All rights reserved
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