A website is a handy and trendy marketing tool for business. For a good website, the visual web design must be attractive and must be able to grab the attention of a large number of visitors.
Web designing is an art and has to be done with interest and involvement. When done with involvement, the user-friendly feature will automatically get incorporated in the design. Stunning web design with good programming and marketing strategies will greatly increase the visibility of the website to the Internet browsers.
From this introduction it can be easily understood that web design is the key aspect of a website. For designing a user-friendly website here are a few tips which I gained through my experience in web designing. These useful tips, when implemented, will yield good user-friendly web designs.
Here we go.
1). What does the website convey?
Your answer to the question will lead you all the way to a good and meaningful web design. For designing a website, one should have a theme. On getting to know more of what the website is about, as a designer or as a Webmaster, it will be easy for you to design accordingly.
2). Planning for the web design
Planning makes work proceed smoothly. The first step in planning is research. Surf through the web to find sites similar to yours. Do a simple yet meaningful research to understand the pulse of the visitors. On doing so, your first impression will always be the best one.
3). Setting theme and layout
After your research and planning, the vital part of your web design is the collection of assets. The first step will be theme selection and webpage layout. There are personal websites, informational websites, ecommerce websites and service providing websites. It is all in the hands of a designer to select a matching theme to satisfy the need and implement it attractively.
4). Web Page Design
Neat and informative web pages are the most visited pages on the net. To design such a web page, the important elements to be taken note of are the header, footer, text area and the navigational area. Avoid using animated/flashy headers and navigational icons. Use a uniform header and footer to give a professional look to the website. These, when designed with care and when followed, will result in good web design.
5). Site Map and Navigation
In web designing, the term navigation is very much apropos with user-friendly. Navigation within the website should be very clear and easy. Always try to implement normal links for moving around, and avoid animated buttons. The column to the right of the webpage should have good navigational links. The site map is another important and easy way for finding web pages in the website. So, never forget these as these are the principal tips to be remembered while designing.
6). Usage of images and text
Web designing is all about expressing the ideas of the business to people. For it to be a success, use of correct images for communicating the content of the website to the visitors is a must. The text in the webpage must be search engine optimized and must convey the message clearly.
7). Page Size and Download Time
After placing the images, links and the text, the complete page should not exceed 30 KB. This size will ensure that the page is downloaded quickly, within 5 to 6 seconds. This time is crucial time because either it may bring visitors or divert them to another website of the same type.
The above are a few important tips to be considered while designing a website. You can follow them or modify them to suit your need. But the fact is that designing is about presenting the information in an elegant, decorative and user-friendly way.
About the Author:John Williams - Dot Com Infoway Ltd., a professional Web Development Services company delivers web design services for all your needs. They specialize in complete website development solutions with expertise in Web Application Development services to global clientele.
Let me begin these blog entries with a sobering prediction.If your business does not have an effective website on the internet, you will not survive the current economic downturn!Why do I make such a direr prediction?
Because the present economic recession is not the usual ebb and flow of economic cycles!Yes, it has some of the typical ingredients of other economic slowdowns.More importantly, we are at the dividing line between the old economy and the newer global economy now driven by the internet and computerization.
When the economy turns upward some time in 2010, we will not return to the old economic model.Many of the jobs that have been lost will never return.Businesses that disappear will never return.Let me share with you a simple example.
Our two year old refrigerator stopped working.I called the GE customer service center.They set up a service appointment for the next day.I would be called 30 minutes before the technician arrived.
At 7:30 am, I received a pre-recorded computer call telling me I was the next person to be serviced.Thirty minutes later the service man arrived with his lap top.He discovered the problem was the refrigerator’s mother board.He unscrewed four screws and replaced the mother board with a new self contained mother board.Total time–20 minutes.He registered this repair on my GE file on his computer.
I asked his business location.He said he worked out of his home.Using computers, GE organizes his work schedule, including directions.They keep him automatically supplied with the parts he needs via Federal Express.
GE used to have a service center in town but they no longer need a building, staff, phones, or any of the expense of having a building.
Here’s a major business that has discovered an entire new business model that does not rely on real estate, staff expenses, etc.It uses a new model based on self contained parts, computerization, the internet and a home based delivery system.Better service with far less expense!
What You Will Find in this Series of Blog Entries
In these series of blog entries I will show you five ways you can use your website to generate more profits for your business and reduce costs.You will recognize some of these ways; others may be new to you.These are only the tip of the new economy’s iceberg.If you don’t have a website, get one.If your current website is not using these five tools, start using them. Your survival depends on it.As always I appreciate your comments and ideas on this topic.
1.How to Use Your Website to Save Money!
Before we look at how a website can gets new sales leads, let me demonstrate how to use your website to improve your business operations and save business expenses.Here are a few suggestions:
Communications. Email replaces the standard and more costly posted communications. You can use email to thank customers, confirm orders and a variety of other tasks you now do with slower, paper and mail. Email can be done automatically and inexpensively.What a time and money saver!
Distribution of materials. PDF and other web documents replace the more costly document processing. Once a document is typed or scanned, it can be placed on your website.Others access the materials from your website as they need it.You have just eliminated copying costs.
Outsourcing. Web businesses can do your accounting, your payroll, your taxes, and manage the internet security of your business all from remote websites. Everything is done electronically. It is done cheaper and more efficiently than hiring additional staff to do these functions.
Online scheduling. A neighbor recently went on line at 10:00 PM to contact his car garage. He set up an appointment with a specific car mechanic for the next day. Within minutes he received an email confirmation on the exact appointment he wanted—at his car garage! This scheduling was done automatically.How can you do scheduling on line to save your current appointment “costs”?
Windshield time. On line repairs to telephones, TV, computers and other electronic machines can now be done from remote sites eliminating the expense of professional windshield time. I recently had trouble with my computer operating system. The technician
who fixed it was in Florida. He simply took control of my computer and made the fixes from thousands of miles away.
Online payments. The entire online payment process, once feared is now more stable, secure and user friendly. The banking industry has it entire business on line, including electronic deposits of physical checks. Online payments get money into your account faster to help your cash flow.
Customer documents. Guarantees, warranties, installation instructions and other important documents that once required massive printing costs are now available on line at a fraction of the costs. While this saves your business money, the greatest value is in the 24/7 customer access. Customers love it.
Business education. Professionals can attend seminars on line, take classes on line and have immediate access to worldwide expertise, along with access to any information needed to perform their job. How much could you save tapping into this method of professional education?
Customer processes. Applications for services such as mortgages, or any type of service can now be done online, eliminating paper work and the need for additional staff.
The next generation of integration will combine voice, data, video and security into one business function. Experts tell us we are only beginning to see how the internet changes the way we do business.
Your first question should not be how many leads will my website provide?It should be “How can I use the power of the internet and my website to make my business operations more efficient and effective?”Your website can cut expenses and improve your efficiency.
I invite you to print this page … grab a cup of what pleases ya … and work your way through the money pages on your most important campaigns…
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1 - Is Your Headline Supported On These Four Pillars?
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Does it arouse relevant curiosity? Does it make a simple, easily understood, ultra compelling promise?
Does it trigger the dominant motivating emotion you’ve identified in your research? Does it imply proof of promise?
Big secret: Your headline is the ad for your web page, NOT necessarily the ad for your product. Give people a reason to read other than to find out whether they may want to buy your product. Promise them great things if they’ll just STOP and consume your web page.
With this in mind, I normally write 25 headlines before I begin the body of the page. Then I’ll pick half a dozen or so that I think will work and test them. The best of the rest, I use as subheads sprinkled throughout the page to propel readership, and draw skimmers and skippers back into the copy as they move down the page.
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2 - Does Your Headline Have The Look?
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I most often find that headlines work best when they are centered on the page presenting a balanced appearance in terms of the shape they create. Sometimes encasing them in quotation marks can also serve to grab more attention.
Brevity is desirable. If there are words you can remove from your headline without weakening it, remove them. Where you break lines is also important …
You want maximum impact and momentum when your prospect collides with your headline. Anything that can enhance immediate comprehension will help your conversion.
Each line of your main headline should contain a kernel of thought.
Right way:
Grow Up To 1436% Richer
In A World Gone Mad!
Wrong way:
Grow Up To 1436% Richer In
A World Gone Mad!
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3 - Is Your Opening Provocative?
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Does it trip the reader, interrupting the internal turbulence of the day? Does it cut through the noise and enter the conversation your prospect has been having with himself about the area of concern you want to help him with?
Each line of your work must serve to ’sell’ the reader on continued reading, especially at the beginning. Again curiosity, emotion, and relevant promise rule the day. If you can just get him to read those first couple of hundred words you’re on your way …
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4 - Are You FAB Balanced?
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Does your web page paint a picture of your prospect’s future life as a result of his purchase … and the emotional pay off it represents? Does it pledge the realization of positive feelings, and/or the relief of negative ones? Those are the true benefits of your product.
But it’s equally important to show how those outcomes are achieved with concise descriptions of the features and advantages that will deliver them.
If you want more sales, strike a balance between benefits (what your product does for your prospect, both physically and emotionally), advantages (how it’s better than other alternatives), and features (what it is).
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5 - Are You Triggering The Buying Emotion?
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Are you demonstrating your personal belief in what you are selling? Will your message quicken the reader’s pulse?
While you may want to put your reader in pain momentarily, the bulk of your page should be upbeat, positive, and full of inspired energy. Is there a sense of WOW to it?
Human beings are hardwired for empathy. They will bond with you if you display empathy for them. And they will naturally empathize with you as well, vibrating sympathetically with the emotions you display.
Confident excitement is the buying emotion. And it’s triggered by YOUR enthusiasm.
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6 - Is Your Body Copy Highly Readable?
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Remember simple is best. Keep sentences short. Use a plain 10-point to 12-point font. Paragraphs no more than a few lines. Words that are comfortable, familiar, and specific to the audience you are targeting. Inject subheads to break up text.
Highlight important points.
Avoid presenting naked facts and arguments wherever possible.
Weave them into the context of a story. Explain what they mean to your reader.
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7 - Do You Have High YOU density?
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Remember to use the words YOU, YOUR, and extensions thereof to the hilt. Your reader is auto translating to ME and MINE.
But don’t take this wisdom too literally …
It’s perfectly fine to tell stories in the first or third person. Naturally there will be a preponderance of the words “I” or “he” or” she” in such stories. That’s OK, as long as your reader can relate strongly to the story’s hero, projecting him or herself into that person’s shoes. In many situations, this is, in fact, the best way to tell your sales story.
“We” is also not always a dirty word in sales copy …
It is dirty when the copy is all about the seller, as in, “We believe the only thing that never goes out of style is service. We’ve been providing great service in the Gotham City area for over 50 years.”
That’s a bad use of “we”. But when you use this word to symbolize a group that unites the buyer and the seller in a common cause, opinion, or belief, as in, “We investors are fed up!” it’s one of the most powerful pronouns you can use.
The key is to keep the reader squarely in the action at all times.
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8 - Are you speaking intimately?
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Can you get a strong sense of personality when you review your web page after being away from it for a while? Visualize yourself writing a personal letter to a friend, someone you care about deeply.
Never write to a crowd. Build relationships one at a time.
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9 - Are you inspiring the reader’s imagination?
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The sub-conscious mind has difficulty distinguishing between vividly painted word pictures and reality.
Daydreams enchant. And emotions flow in their wake.
When you have emotion, you have desire. When you have desire, you have suggestibility. When you have suggestibility, you can direct action.
Spark your reader’s creative imagination by associating the promise of what you’re selling to things he’s already familiar with.
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10 - Do you offer proof?
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Specific testimonials, success stories, case studies and other examples of social proof are essential.
Describing the mechanism that makes your product work — proof of process — is equally important.
An outrageous, ballsy guarantee is another form of proof.
It proves your product does what you say it does. How else could you offer such a guarantee and stay in business? A really good one creates the perception that risk is not just removed. It’s actually reversed!
Use visual proofs wherever possible. Show physical products in action. Show before and after pictures for intangibles.
Seeing is believing.
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11 - Is your offer irresistible?
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People are greedy. And they like to procrastinate. Are you piling on reasons to act now — additional bonuses, discounts, etc. — that may not be available if your prospects return to your web page at a later date?
Are you using the power of contrast — showing how your product delivers the same results as alternatives costing much more …
while comparing its price to trivial items?
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12 - Do you close like this?
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Don’t pussyfoot around when it comes time to ask for the sale.
If you believe in your product, and you stand behind it (as evidenced by your brass balls guarantee), then for heaven’s sake don’t be shy about telling people how to get it.
Tell your prospects explicitly what to do, and they’ll do it.
Big tip: When you close, use future tense language that assumes the sale. For example: “When your electric nose hair trimmer arrives, here’s all you do …”
And don’t forget that some people will be ready to buy sooner, some later. So ask for the order multiple times. As soon as the basic story is out (usually about half way down the page) I start asking for the order, again and again and again.
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13 - And finally, do you use this P.S. trick?
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For some reason, the P.S. at the bottom of the page gets read a lot. Make it stop your reader in his tracks, like a deer in the headlights!
Associate positive outcomes with taking the desired action, and negative ones with delay or inaction. (You may even want to plant a bomb for the sneaky Petes who scroll down to the P.S. without reading your web page. Simply insert a curiosity-inducing sentence such as: “The horrible things I told you about in this letter could easily happen to you.”)
Finally, restate your guarantee and ask for the sale one last time.
So there you have it, my baker’s dozen. Use ‘em with finesse on all of your sales pages, and watch your business grow!
Until next time, Good Selling!
Best Regards,
Daniel Levis
Selling to Human Nature
5482 25th Side Road, RR#1Utopia, ON LOM 1T0
Canada
P.S., Don’t be shy about forwarding this edition of SHN to a friend, they’ll thank you for it.
All they need do is send a blank email to daniellevis-248557@autocontactor.com to subscribe.
Building an email mailing list - and mailing to it regularly - is one of the most effective strategies for boosting website traffic and sales. Whether you send your subscribers editorial information about your industry or niche, or send out mailings with information alerting them to new or updated products, discounts, and special offers, your email newsletter can start delivering traffic and sales within minutes of the time you send it. The more names on your mailing list, the more traffic and sales you’ll generate.
And, that’s the rub. Acquiring email addresses for a mailing list is a challenge for many small businesses. Most don’t know how to legally get email addresses to mail to. Others, who have acquired a reasonable sized mailing list over time, find that many of the older email addresses on their list are now undeliverable. Job changes, a move to a new geographical location, change of ISPs, marriages (name changes for women), and other factors cause individuals to abandon email addresses and acquire new ones.
Email acquisition, therefore, needs to be an ongoing effort. Here are several proven strategies you can use to build your email list.
1. Be sure you have an email sign up form on every page on your website. Remember, not every visitor will find their way to your home page.
2. Let visitors know what benefits you’ll get by subscribing to your email list.
3. Create a newsletter archive on your website. Post all past newsletters on the site.
4. In addition to the signup boxes on individual pages on your website, create a web page dedicated to acquiring subscriptions. That page should have the signup form, benefits for signing up, testimonials and links to newsletter archives.
5. Include a link to your free newsletter in the author’s resource box in articles you submit to article distribution sites. Be sure the link leads to the dedicated newsletter sign up page on your website.
6. Include a link to subscribe to your newsletter in the signature line you use when you participate in email discussion lists.
7. At trade shows, hand out flyers or business cards that direct people to a page on your website where they can subscribe to your newsletter.
8. Consider using a popup to remind people to subscribe to your newsletter. If you use DHTML to generate the popup it won’t be blocked by popup blockers. Although you may think a lot of people dislike popups, they do work. In fact, a popup advertising your newsletter on your website can double or triple the number of signups.
9. Look for co-registration opportunities. If you can find partners who reach the same audience you reach but aren’t direct competitors, cross-promote each other’s newsletters with links on the email subscription thank you pages.
10. Include forward to friend links when you mail your newsletter.
11. Add an email list opt-in box in forms visitors have to complete before getting access to white papers or free ebooks you publish.
12. Include a link to your email subscription page in press releases you send out.
