Archive for the ‘Design and Content’ Category

Top 4 Factors of an Attractive Website

June 27th, 2011 | Comments Off
Posted by admin under Design and Content

The top four factors of an attractive website include the color, pictures, layout, and whiteness or space.  An unattractive website can run a visitor off in a fraction of a second and they might have money to spend with the intention of buying a lot of products.  An attractive website will ensure a visitor is comfortable and they will come back.

Color means everything on a business website or any website attempting to attract customers.  If you want people to stick around then you need to think about the website colors.  If you use a bright orange or yellow color that is so bright it hurts the eyes of the visitor to even try to read the words on the pages, they will leave the site and not even try.  Many users turned off by a color of web pages will not even stick around to see what the site is all about.  It is not common for users to hate the way a site looks by the colors, but remain regular visitors.

Pictures make a world of difference on a website and they are important.  Web users are visual and they expect pictures.  Visitors of websites selling edge protectors expect to see photos of corrugated cardboard edge protectors.  If you don’t have photos of corrugated cardboard edge protectors, then they don’t know what the edge protectors look like. Photos are vital because when you are selling anything from corrugated cardboard edge protectors, edge protectors, and even candles, you must give a visual.  People don’t visit the web to read a book.  The Internet is for people who are interesting in seeing things and being interactive.  An attractive site to a shopper provides a good mix of content and photos so the visual shopper can be happy with what they are going to get.  Ensure your photos are not blurry, too dim, and very clear for the visitor to see and they are relevant to the products or services your business offers.

The layout of a site can determine the attractiveness of it.  If the site is laid out in a strange way then it can seem confusing and frustrating to a visitor.  If a visitor is trying to choose the fragile shipment protection option but the fragile shipment protection option doesn’t work, or they cannot find the fragile shipment protection option on the page, they may just get frustrated and leave instead of make a purchase.  There is a standard expectation for web pages you should consider when you design the overall layout.  Even though you might want to be creative with your web pages be sure that the pages remain attractive to the visitors.

Because visitors are visual and do not come to the web to read a book, you must include enough white space or space on the pages.  Do not provide too much text.  If you have informational content the visitor must read that is pages and pages long, provide a downloadable file they can read on their own time.  Too much text makes web pages unattractive and visitors will leave.

Attractive sites are those that do not strain a users eyes and are pleasing to view subtly.  Don’t run off your visitors because your site is irritatingly ugly.

Getting Your Bargains Online

March 15th, 2011 | Comments Off
Posted by admin under Design and Content

For a long time, and even to some extent today, people often prefer to shop at a traditional brick and mortar store as opposed to online. Part of that is due to the fact that some people like to touch and feel a purchase before they actual buy something. Things like cute clothes and diaper bags and cool baby clothes look nice on line. The truth is that with the modern electronics. Just about anything that you see on line should look identical when seen in person as long as the photo has not been doctored up to make it look more appealing.

That does eliminate some of the trepidation that people have about on line shopping. The biggest variable will be in the type of the fabrics that the cute baby clothes are made out of and the actual cut or fir of the cute clothes. The diaper bags are pretty much going to be the same and the material is not going to come in to play here.

The nicest thing about on line shopping, as everyone knows is the ability to do your shopping on your schedule and not on that of someone else. You can do it when it is convenient to you and your life style and not when it is best for the store to be open. That means that you can bargain hunt at four in the morning when you simply can not sleep.

The biggest down side is that if you don’t do your homework and get something that is not exactly what you were after, you generally have to pay return shipping. That means that you might well pay shipping both ways. Depending on the cost of the item, that might not be a feasible thing to do and can certainly take the bargain out of the shopping.  The bigger retailers will mostly let you return items in store but not some of them. If you get a defective product, most online vendors will allow you to return the item for an exchange on them. Again this is the rule but nothing is hard and set in stone so make sure that you verify all of this with them before you even place your order so that you can be assured that you truly get a bargain while shopping online rather than getting the bum end of the deal.

Bargains on line are available all over the world and in the event that you are not one hundred percent sure of your purchase, it is advisable to check the item out locally before making an online buy. Most things that are available for sale on the Internet are also available at your local stores so checking it out in advance of the purchase can cut back on a lot of issues and actually maintain that bargain.

Everyone loves to find a bargain. That feeling of getting a great buy never fades or dims or diminishes over time. That is why auctions and dollar stores are so popular.

What to do When Your Website is Causing Your Online Business to Fail

July 21st, 2009 | Comments Off
Posted by admin under Design and Content

It is very common for a company site to be so poor that no one purchases the products or can even find it on the search engines to even click on the website.  Businesses fail on the web every day and there are things that you can do to make sure that you are not one of them.  In most cases, companies that failed on the net had a problem that caused them to fail.  It could have even been so simple to fix or repair too.  Here are a few things that you might look at if you think your site may be the reason that you are not doing too well.

The content on your website may be a factor if you are not getting any hits on your site or customers coming to see you.  If you sell vintage clothing then you need to have plenty of content for every product.  You may have women looking for vintage dresses or a specific item.  If you only have photos and no words then your site may not be showing in the search engines.  Content is very important.  This includes item descriptions for men’s vintage clothing and every category of attire that you offer. You should provide product descriptions, short paragraphs about the business and your mission, and even information about the company.  There is a balance with content and it needs to be useful to the customer but also to you so it works with the search engines to help you be successful.

Content can also cause a business to fail if you have too much.  Too much content looks overwhelming to a visitor. Most people don’t surf the web to read a book and most sites that have too much content or look too wordy usually lose the customers as soon as they click on the web page.  Not enough content is annoying to a customer and can even be confusing to them what your company is all about.  Content that is inaccurate or even grammatically incorrect can be annoying and cause you to lose credibility.  Misspellings annoy customers also.  Content needs to be professionally written.

A website can cause a company to fail if it is not constructed properly.  A site needs to be easy to navigate through the pages.  There shouldn’t be any broken links and there shouldn’t be any confusion.  When you click through your company site it may make perfect sense to you because you know where everything is.  However, a user may have a really hard time making it through the site and get lost easily.  A confusing site will lose customers and they will not return.  Broken links are frustrating and they will cause you to lose customers also.  Keep in mind that most potential customers who go to a broken site do not return later to find out if the owner fixed it.  They move on because there are millions of other sites on the web to pick and choose from.

Article source: http://www.catalogonweb.com/blog/
what-to-do-when-your-website-is-causing-your-online-business-to-fail/

Is Your Web Design Hurting Your Content?

March 28th, 2008 | Comments Off
Posted by admin under Design and Content

Most web design company professionals agree that content is king. This simply means that most readers of web pages go online looking not for cutesy images or even interesting animations, but rather content, such as articles, tips, information, and videos. Your readers are not so much interested in seeing your web design prowess as they are getting information that is useful or entertaining to them. Unfortunately, many businesses are so hung up on getting interesting web design, that they end up hurting their content. Is this affecting you? Just ask yourself the following questions:

1) Does your web design make it hard for viewers to find what they want? If your audience is constantly confused about where they are on your web page and where they can go, your Web navigation is not very good. Your Web navigation should make it easy for your audience to find exactly the information they’re looking for. If you’re not sure how your Web audience is able to navigate your web site, just ask. Set up a poll that determines whether or not your audience is satisfied with your web site. Then, simply listen to the answers. If you don’t have the time to go through the information yourself, your web design firm can generally set up market research that determines the effectiveness of your web site. This can be invaluable in helping you build a better web site.

2) Does you web site make it hard to see your content? Lack of color contrast and a busy background can lead to eye strain and can make your text almost unreadable. A simple background color and a contrasting text color is a good bet. 12 point font or slightly larger — but not too large — is also a good design choice. Choose basic background colors, and when it comes to articles or longer pieces of text, always placed them on a white background. This simply makes them easier to read. Avoid busy backgrounds with lots of little titles or images altogether. They may look cool in theory, but they make reading your material very hard.

3) Is your content readable on different computers? Your web site may look great on the company computer or on a new personal computer, but not everyone has a high-grade machine. Students may be viewing your web site from ancient laptops, and some of your customers need using old machines in an Internet café. Make sure that you test out your web site on different computers to make sure that different operating systems, different Internet browsers, different monitors, different systems all still feature your web site in its best light.

4) Is your content formatted simply? If you’re using lots of formatting tricks — such as tables, frames, or lots of fonts, you are hurting your content by making it hard to read. If you’re in doubt about how to make your web site more readable, make it simpler. Many companies are scared to go simpler on their web site, because they want to convince their clients that they know how to use all the latest web design elements. Many companies simply confuse a high tech web site with a very busy web site. In reality, when you look at the highest ranking web sites, such as Google or Yahoo, notice that they use very simple web design elements — in fact elements that could have been used 10 years ago.