Basic Web Design Guidelines

The appearance of your web site is one of the most important aspects of your success. Your product or service will literally be judged by the appearance of your web site.

Poor web design is one of the leading causes of small business failure. There are literally thousands of home-based Internet businesses struggling to make a living online. Most, make very little or no money and end up closing their site in defeat.

I have received many messages over the years from struggling Internet marketers wanting to know if I could look at their site and tell them what they’re doing wrong. Most of the time, I can tell them the problem as soon as their site has loaded — poor web design. They failed to take the time to learn how to properly design their sites — how to design a professional looking site specifically designed to sell their products and services.

If you really want to succeed, you must take the required time to educate yourself.

Creating a Template

When you begin designing your web site, your goal should be to create a template that you can use to create each page of your web site. This will give your entire site the same look
and feel.

A template is simply a web page “shell” that contains your entire page design, logo, images, navigational links and a specific area for your content. However, your template won’t contain any content, as each time you create a page with your template, you’ll save it with a different page name.

Formatting Your Pages

I highly recommend placing your entire page content within HTML tables. Tables will enable you to have complete control over your content and how it will be displayed.

For example, you can create three tables, stacked on top of each other, for each section of content. The cellpadding, cellspacing and border attributes should be set to “0″ to enable your tables to seamlessly flow together. In addition, the widths for each table should be the same. The top table would contain your page header content, the middle table would contain your content and the bottom table would contain your footer content.

As placing your entire page content within a single table will significantly increase your site’s load time, stacking your tables will enable you to benefit from the powerful formatting capabilities of tables, while at the same time, keep your site’s load time down.

If you’ve ever designed a web page without using tables, you know how limited you are as to how your content will be displayed. Your text will be displayed right up against the left border and will span across the entire width of your page — certainly not a good way to design a professional looking web site.

Tables will enable you to display your content in sections like a newspaper, set up a specific number of rows and columns, and even place additional tables within your main content table to create special content sections with colored backgrounds.

Your Storefront

Your main page is the storefront for your business and should specifically let your visitors know exactly what you’re offering. If your potential customer can’t find your product or service, they definitely won’t waste a lot of time looking for it. They’ll go on to the next site and probably never return. They’re visiting your site for a specific purpose. They want something your site offers. Provide them with what they’re looking for and you’ll reap
the benefits.

Branding will play a major role in your success. Make sure you place your company logo and slogan in the top left corner of each page. This will not only assist your visitors in remembering your site, but it will also give your pages the same look and feel.

Instead of trying to cram all your content into your main page, consider creating sections. These sections can contain highlights of your information with a link to further information. You can set your sections up in tables with colored heading sections for information such as articles, products or whatever you’d like.

It’s much better to keep your main page down to the most essential elements and link to the detailed informational pages.

A good rule of thumb is “less is more.” In other words, keep your main page as small as possible and include your most important elements.

Navigation

When you begin designing your pages, keep in mind, your visitors may enter your site from pages other than your main. Make sure you include good navigational links on every page. Place your navigational links together at the top, bottom, left or right side of the page. Use tables to neatly align your links and maintain a nicely organized and uniform appearance throughout.

Try to keep the number of clicks required to get from your main page to any other page on your site down to three or four.

Fonts

One of the most important parts of a web page is text. The way in which you display the text on your web page will have a great impact on your success. It can make your page look very professional or very unprofessional.

When placing text within your web page, always be consistent with your fonts. In other words, don’t use different fonts throughout your pages. The standard fonts used on the Internet are Arial and Verdana. The standard text size is 2. Arial and Verdana are the standard simply because they are the easiest to read on a computer screen.

Headlines, which require a larger font size, are a bit different. A popular headline font used is Georgia, as it displays nicely in the slightly larger font size.

Background and Text Colors

Use caution when selecting your background and text colors. Busy backgrounds make text difficult to read and draw the attention away from the text. In addition, always be consistent with your background theme on each page of your site.

Select your colors very carefully, as colors affect your mood and will have an affect on your visitors as well.

Bright colors, such as yellow and orange, cause you to become more cheerful or happy. Colors such as blue and purple have a calming effect. Dark colors, such as brown and black, have a depressing effect.

A good rule of thumb is to use colors based on the type of effect you’re trying to achieve. However, it’s always best for your text areas to have a white background with black text.

Above all else, you must take the time to educate yourself before you begin. I can’t stress this point enough. If you don’t, you’re honestly just wasting your time. Although it may take a little longer, it will be well worth it in the long run.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

The Web Design Learning Process

The Internet has opened a whole New World of opportunity for all of us. With the vast amount of information available at your fingertips, it has never been easier to communicate your message to the world.

A web site will enable you to create your own home on the World Wide Web. Your home may be as simple or dynamic as you’d like and is only limited by your imagination.

Although designing a great web site is an important part of developing a successful online business, it is only one small part of an overall plan.

Although many new Internet entrepreneurs believe that all they need to do to make money online is to put up a web site, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The truth is developing a successful Internet business takes a great deal of time, thought and effort. It takes a sincere commitment, a lot of patience, and a lot of personal drive.

There are a lot of lessons that must be learned, and a lot of failures that must be endured. However, if you’re truly passionate about your business and success, it will happen — you will succeed.

A major factor in determining your success is the amount of time you take to educate yourself. Please don’t take this point lightly, as it can literally mean the difference between your success and failure.

Sure, learning HTML is an important part of designing a successful web site; however, it is only one small part. You must first develop a strategic plan and design your web site accordingly.

Prior to designing your web site, here are some questions to assist you in developing your strategy:

Writing Effective Sales Copy

A professional looking web site is a very important part of developing a profitable Internet business. However, your sales copy is just as important — each will play a major role in your success.

The key to writing effective sales copy is simply learning how to write persuasive words specifically written for your targeted potential customer. You must feel their needs and write your copy with passion, excitement and benefits. Tell them exactly what’s in it for them by writing copy that evokes a specific emotion and stresses your product’s benefits.

Use the following formula when writing your sales copy:

A - Attention - Use a powerful headline that demands attention
I - Interest - Intrigue interest and create curiosity
D - Detail - Provide details about your product or service
A - Action - Call for action

When you begin writing your copy, your text should be written in a black, legible font with a light background. Avoid using fancy fonts or backgrounds that will make your text difficult to read. Write in small blocks of text with a space between each block. There is nothing that will make your visitor click away faster than a sea of black text –so make sure you use plenty of white space.

A great way to write your copy and come up with new benefits is to use the “so what” strategy. After each sentence, say to yourself, “so what” and then elaborate.

Example:

XYZ computers are lightning fast. (so what) They can process information faster than any other computer on the market. (so what) Your programs will instantly load on command, (so what) saving you hours of valuable time and frustration over the life of your computer.

Remember…benefits sell not features.

Headline

The first and most important part of your sales copy is the headline. If your headline doesn’t instantly capture your targeted potential customers’ attention, and arouse a specific emotion, the rest of your sales copy will be useless.

In order to write an effective headline, you must learn how to use specific words to achieve a specific reaction.

Before writing your headline, you must first learn a little bit about the basic human motivators. According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, human behavior is always the result of one or more of five basic needs. He listed these needs in a sequence that he refers to as “the hierarchy of human needs.”

He believes that until a less important need is met there won’t be any desire to pursue a more important need. Below are the five human motivators, beginning with the basic needs and continuing to the most important needs.

Physiological - Basic human needs include hunger, thirst, shelter, clothing and sex.
Safety (Security) - Human need for physical, emotional and financial security.
Social (Affiliation) - Human need for love, affection, companionship and acceptance.
Esteem (Self Esteem) - Human need for achievement, recognition, attention and respect.
Self-actualization - Human need to reach their full potential.

When you are aware of the basic human needs, you can incorporate these needs into your writing. A great headline will appeal to your potential customers’ emotions. You must feel their needs, wants and desires and write your headlines with passion and emotion.

Introduction

Just as your headline is a very important part of your sales copy, the first paragraph is just as important. Studies have shown that if your headline attracts your potential customers’ attention, and you can maintain their attention through the first paragraph, chances are they’ll read the rest of your copy.

The first paragraph should clearly define the benefits that will be outlined within your sales copy — identify a problem and promote your product or service as the solution.

Subheadings

Subheadings are basically just smaller headlines used to break up your text blocks. They also provide your readers with important highlights of your paragraphs.

Use plenty of subheadings throughout your copy, as not all of your visitors will read your copy word for word. They’ll simply scan it and only read what catches their attention.

Remove the Risk

You must provide your potential customers with a solid, no risk, money back guarantee. In addition, provide a limited time free trial or download that will completely remove their risk. This will build your potential customers’ confidence in you and put their mind at ease.

Call for Action

Once your potential customer has read your sales copy, you must direct them to your order page by asking for the order.

Use a P.S.

When your visitor scans your sales message, chances are they’ll read your headline, sub headlines and your PostScript message. Place your most important benefits within your PS message.

Provide Testimonials

Testimonials provide a great way to reassure your visitors. Blend your testimonials in with your sales message. Avoid making your visitors have to click to another page to view your testimonials — chances are, they won’t. By blending your testimonials in with your sales message, you can ensure they will be read.

Long Copy verses Short Copy

It is a proven fact that long sales copy out-sells short sales copy. However, some visitors do prefer a short sales letter. You can provide your visitors with both. For those who prefer a short sales letter, provide opportunities to click through to your order page prior to ending your sales letter.

Try to keep your sales letter all on one page. Your visitors would much rather have to scroll through your letter than click through and load another page. With each additional click, you’ll lose a percentage of your potential customers.

Your words should seamlessly flow together from your headline through to your order page. Every word, sentence and headline should have one specific purpose — to lead your potential customer to your order page. The simple, well-designed web sites with killer sales copy make the sales.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

Link Popularity:

Why It’s The Best Investment You Can Do For Your Business

More and more search engines rank your web pages based on the number of links that point to your web site (link popularity). Google uses link popularity as its most important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi, and others also use link popularity in their formulas.

In the near future every major search engine will use link popularity, so developing and maintaining good link exchange campaigns are essential to the success of your business. Also, finding the right partner to exchange links with is equally as important as becoming a member of a link farm can be devastating to your long term search goals.

Your exchange link partner should be reputable in the industry, and should provide links back to you on pages that have a high page rank.

The end goal is to have the greatest number of websites pointing to you saying on the link itself, ?Your Company ? Offering (insert your key phrases here)?.

For a good ranking on Google, Inktomi and Altivista, you need good links that point to your site. If you develop a strong content oriented site you can persuade thousands of other webmasters to link to you or to trade links with you. If you want to do it yourself, all you need is the right content, the right email letter, and a keen eye for finding sites that well link to your site.

The key is to develop content people want to link to and then get out there and make the contacts by visiting people’s sites, sending out personalized emails to webmasters of sites you have visited, and networking in discussion groups.

You can also make posts in forums related to your industry to increase your link popularity. Just do a search on any search engine with your industry + forums or discussions and you should be able to find a few discussion boards where you can make posts.

Make sure that you find a way to participate on the discussion as opposed to just posting an ad that’s not related to what people are talking about.

Another way that you can greatly increase the link popularity of your website is by publishing articles. There are literally thousands of ezine and newsletter publishers that would love to publish your article on their ezine.

Again, if you search for ezines related to your industry you should find plenty of places where you can submit an article and see it bring lots of targeted traffic. Make sure you place your resource box at the bottom of the article and require publishers to keep it there.