2011-12
5

SEO – What’s All the Fuss About?

Category: SEO Web Development | Comments Off

You would have to be hidden under the proverbial “rock” to not hear about SEO. Regardless of whether or not you are an internet user or just a casual surfer, the word SEO pretty much sticks out on most marketing and online businesses like a sore thumb. The truth is however, that even though plenty of people have heard the phrase and see it daily, few actually know what it’s about. That’s probably also one of the reasons why plenty of people are still wondering what all the fuss is about.

If you are one of these people then here’s an idea for you to ponder, one that might give you a better insight into the SEO craze. A typical search engine, such as Google has to go through millions of websites and if they are going to be able to accurately rank each site against the other they need to have some sort of criteria. The criteria they use, is based on a huge variety of factors. In the case of SEO, a web marketing company (or whoever is doing your SEO) makes your website criteria friendly and that’s really all that SEO is.

The reason of course, why there’s such a huge fuss about increasing your rankings is that you get your website at top of the search. Get actual professionals to do this for you and move your ranking up. Try looking at online resources for example, or learning from others by research phrases like “iContact review” or something to that effect. At the end of the day these resources will be a huge help.

2011-11
30

Designing Your Post

Category: Web 2.0 Design | Comments Off

Many people think that sites need to have killer graphics to convert well. But this is actually far from true. Often it is the simplest of designs that works the best. Ones with fewer distractions. Webs.com is a site that knows this only too well. Let’s use the Lalaloopsy page on there as an example. This is using one of their many template designs and it is as simple as it comes.

But they are doing this for a reason.

They offer up very simple designs in order to keep conversions high for their ads and for the links that members may put on the site. If the sites were full of lots of killer graphics and were heavy on design elements then they would make less money on their platform.

Don’t believe that you always have to get a paid logo and a site that looks amazing. If you take a look at most popular Web 2.0 sites then they all have one thing in common. The best ones that convert the best are also the simplest.

They offer a total bare bones and no frills approach to design. If you are going to design a simple logo for your Web 2.0 page then just keep it simple and follow some of the advice in the video below. You want to keep it simple.

2011-11
24

3 Steps to an Awesome Website Landing Page

Category: Web Design Help | Comments Off

Building landing pages is a fine art. One that might seem easy on the outside, but once you’re deep in the trenches it’s not so easy. I want to give you 3 steps that you can use to help create an effective landing page for either your next website you create or for clients. All you need is a printer, marker and a bit of time.

Let’s get started.

For an example we’re going to use a fictional test market “best wrinkle cream“. I choose this market because I know it’s competitive and if you follow along when reading this you’ll be sure to find some great landing pages to examine.

1 – Find some landing pages: Before I sit down with Photoshop, Dreamweaver or even my wordprocessor to write some copy for a landing page I always see what my competitors are doing. For our example marketing I’d go to Google and search for ‘best wrinkle cream’. I’d then take 2-3 paid ads and print of their landing page and 2-3 (usually the top ranking sites) and print of their landing pages. 

2 – Examine, Critique and Circle: There is no perfect landing page but there are perfect elements. Take those pages you printed off in step one and now spread em out on your dining room table or large desk. You want them all side by side so you can examine them all. Take maybe 15-20 minutes and make a check mark with your market beside elements you like (i.e. headlines, bullet points, graphics, calls to action) and make an X beside stuff you don’t like. 

The key here is to pick out the elements you believe to be effective that your competitors are already using and we’re going to integrate that into our own landing page design in step 3. 

For our example market you might circle stuff about benefits of particular wrinkle creams, buttons for free trials or images of women that are the right demographic for the products target customers.

3 – Let’s Build a Page: Alright armed with your sample pages of what you do and don’t like from your competitors you’re all set to start designing your own landing page. This will take time but remember building something that works and is worthwhile takes time.

Incorporate the visual elements you liked (i.e. images, buttons, colors) into your layout. When writing your copy focus on the bullet points and such you liked from your competitors sites. 

If done right this exercise will yield you an excellent first draft of a landing page to test out.