Sunday, March 28, 2010

Top Six Internal Linking and Tactics to Get Top Google Rankings (2)

3) Use descriptive & different phrases to point to the same inner page.
The words that are in the text of a link (also known as the anchor text) affect your search engine rankings. For example, the anchor text in the two links above is "Your Website". If enough of these links that were on quality and valuable sites, including your website's inner pages, pointed to the same page, it would eventually rank well in Google when someone searches for the phrase "your website".

Therefore, be sure to make the anchor text in all your internal links the phrases you want the pages to be found for in Google. If you have a page that sells "blue widgets", make the anchor text in links on other pages within your website that point to this page "blue widgets". Do it like this:
<a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/blue-widgets.htm">Blue Widgets</a>

Going back to the number 1 tactic above, you would be far better off making the anchor text in all your footer links as descriptive as possible. If you want to rank well in Google for "affordable blue widgets" then use this in your links that point to this page:
<a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/blue-widgets.htm">Affordable Blue Widgets</a>

Finally, vary your anchor text when pointing to the same page within your website. For instance, on some of your pages you could link to your Blue Widgets page with the anchor text of "blue widgets", then on other pages link to it using "affordable blue widgets" and then maybe use "widgets that are blue". This allows you to get the page ranked for multiple terms and helps the user since you are being descriptive and making your anchor text better match the content of the page it is on.

4) Make links in your content.
If you have text on your site, make some of the words within the text, links that point to other pages within your website. For instance, if you have an article about blue widgets, or a page that describes how great your blue widgets are, make the first or second occurrence of the phrase "blue widgets" in the text a link that points to your Blue Widgets page.

5) The Home link solution.
If your website is typical, you will probably have a link on every page that points back to your homepage. And you should because this helps users. By doing this, you are supplying a lot of link value to the homepage since it is getting all these internal links pointing back to it. Since in the number three tactic I recommended that you make your anchor text the same as what you want to rank for, the word "home" does you no good. Assume that you are not trying to get your homepage ranked for the word "home", so make the anchor text what you do want it to get ranked for. The other option is to add the "nofollow" tag to all your 'Home' links, thereby canceling out the word "home" altogether.

6) Make important pages at most 2 folders deep with your site and at most two clicks away from your homepage.
The farther away a page is, the worse it ranks. So if you put a page in a folder that is five folders deep within your website folder structure, Google will likely consider that page not as important as a page only one folder deep. Also, make the pages in your website that are most important to get ranked two or less clicks away from the homepage. This is good for users and allows Google to index these pages more quickly.

By following these top six internal linking tactics, you will be far ahead of the competition, you will rank better in Google and you will be making your website visitors' lives easier.

Source From SitePro News

Monday, March 22, 2010

Top Six Internal Linking and Tactics to Get Top Google Rankings

If you own or run a website and are not following these six tactics for properly linking your website together then you are losing Google traffic as you read this. Internal linking is the links on your website that point to other pages within your same website. External linking is when you link to another website. Tactics are specific things to do to achieve desired results, or any mode of procedure for gaining advantage or success.

There are things you can do when developing or refining your internal linking structure. If you carry out the following tactics, you are going to achieve two things. One, you will make your website better from a user's perspective. Two, you will rank better in Google. And it is no coincidence that Google rewards you for doing things that make the website user's experience easier and better. In fact, the most important thing I can recommend is that you create, design and link your website together in a way that benefits the visitor first. Your visitors are most important, not Google rankings.

Links from other websites that point back to your website are essential in getting top search engine rankings, especially with Google. These links vary in their effectiveness and value depending on the website from which they are coming. But did you also know that internal links often can have similar effectiveness and value as external links.
1) Add links in your navigation or footer as text links to all your important pages and main sections.
This is a very easy and an extremely effective tactic that not all sites do, and even fewer do for maximum results. This is the first thing I look for when reviewing a website for a client. Unfortunately, sometimes artsy Web designers add cool buttons, which are images, to all the main sections of the site, but neglect to include text links as well. Or a programmer decides to make the website's navigation a dynamic drop down menu in DHTML or JavaScript but forgets to include text links to the same pages represented in the menus. Search engines cannot follow image links or links created in JavaScript, they can only follow simple text links, so be sure you add them to your site as well.

So if you want search engines to visit and index (or record) ALL your website's pages, be sure there are text links pointing to all the main sections of your site and to all your important pages.
2) Make use of the rel="nofollow" HTML tag.
This is fairly simple. Google created this tag which tells them NOT to count the link in their search engine ranking algorithm when used on a link. There is debate that maybe Google does count them a little, or will some day in the future. But for now, this tag does greatly decrease a link's value in Google's eyes.

Therefore, consider using this tag on some of your links within your site. For example, let us say you have a homepage and then create two inner pages, and that is the extent of the site. Let us further say that you add a link to both pages on your homepage. If your homepage has some external links pointing to it, then it has some value in regards to Google's ranking system. When you link to each of your two new pages within your site from your homepage, each page gets only 50% of the value the homepage has. (This is all measured in Page Rank). Your first inner page is the one you want to rank well in Google, but you do not care if your second inner page even gets found by Google or ranked. You could add the "nofollow" tag to the second link on your homepage, thereby giving the first inner page 100% of the homepage's value.
Think of the implications. Imagine if you had a website with hundreds or thousands of pages and used the nofollow tag throughout. To understand how to implement this tag, see the two links in HTML below, one without it and one with it correctly included.

<a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com">Your Website</a>
<a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com" rel="nofollow">Your Website</a>


Finally, if you have pages such as a privacy page, terms page, checkout pages or contact pages that you do not care if they rank well in Google, be sure to use the "nofollow" tag when creating internal links to these pages.

To be continued..

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

I'm going to the Gatsby Deodorant Street Fair

Gatsby is the flagship brand of Mandom Corporation that origin from Japanase. The Gatsby brand is concern on the beauty care products aimed specifically at men whereas Lucido brand is concern on beauty care products aimed specifically at women.

In the early 2000s, the company was decided to expand its international presence further by establishing the Gatsby and Lucido brands as its flagship global brands. With the expansion of Gatsby in the international market, the Gatsby branch of Mandom Corp became extremely successful in producing hair styling products.


Today, Gatsby is going to have a Street Fair in Malaysia. Gatsby Deodorant Street Fair will be one of the large event presented by the company to make known of their brand name to public as well as introducing their new Gatsby products for those attend for the Street Fair.

This time, the event will be held on this coming April on 17th at the Front Foyer, Ground Floor of Berjaya Times Square, Kuala Lumpur. The duration of the event will be started at 10am until 5pm of the local time.

What is this?
A public event for public to participate on the fun games, lucky draw. It is the event that you can not miss it. During Street Fair, the organizer will present their new range of products from the Gatsby Deodorant series, which includes Deodorant Roll-on Type Series, Deodorant Perfume Spray Series and so on.


How fun for this event?
1. The most attractive lucky draws will be offered for everyone and various cool gadgets for grabs. There are worth up to RM15,000.
2. Exciting games opened for public, such like Sumo Wrestling, Gladiator battles and so on.

Source From Gatsby

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

20 Best Blog Post Ideas for Small Business Blogging

"So, what do I blog about each time?" is a question I often get from clients. To keep your blog active and healthy, I recommend blogging at least 3 times per week. However, that notion is overwhelming for many. Even though you may be an expert in a topic, your mind may go completely blank when it comes time to blog, and then at other times when you are not blogging, your idea cup runneth over.

The primary thing to remember is that blog posts do not have to be long and complicated. you are not writing an article, a report or a thesis. Many times a blog post is only a paragraph consisting of a few sentences that contain your thoughts about something. Now, does not that sound easier than composing a 600-word post each time you sit down to blog?

Here are 20 ideas you can use to help you create a blog post when you are stuck for an idea:

1. Current events. Can you link what you do in your business to a current event? Open up your daily newspaper or your RSS news reader and see what is happening in the world, your country, your state, or your city. Give your opinion about the event and a solution, if you have it, and relate that to your business if you can.

2. Trends in your industry. I read constantly and subscribe to more industry publications than I have time to review. However, there are a handful that I do regularly read, and it is to those that I look to for what the trends seem to be. When you blog about the trend, put your unique perspective on it, or write a rebuttal post, disagreeing with the relevance of the trend.

3. Get personal. Tell a story about what is happening in your life or in your business that would be useful or instructive for your readers. Chronicle both your highs and lows, your wins and your struggles. One key to successful blogging is getting personal with your readers. The more "real" you are with your readers, the better your reader gets to know you and begins to like and trust you. You become a "real and live" human being to them who faces similar issues that they face.

4. Top 10. Most of my writing is in the form of a Top 10 list because it is an easy way for me to outline the points I want to make and then go back and fill in the details for each point. In this case, each of your points for a topic can become an individual blog post, and when all the points are complete, you can compile the full list for an article for your ezine or website.

5. Frequently asked questions. If you have been in business for awhile, you know the questions that clients and prospective clients ask you to answer over and over again. Instead of repeatedly responding to the same questions, write a series of blog posts that answer your target market's most frequently asked questions.

6. How you helped a client solve a problem. Clients hire you to solve a specific problem they are having, whether they do that when they buy your service or your product. List 3-5 most recent problems that you have helped your clients solve. Create a post that talks about the problem and the solution you provided (either with your client's permission, or by making it generic enough to hide the client's identity) that becomes a learning experience for your readers.

7. Interview an expert. What people do you know and admire in your industry? If you admire them, chances are that members of your target market do, as well. Contact them for a short email or recorded interview and ask them 3-5 questions that you would like to hear them answer about their lives, their businesses, industry trends, or how to solve a particular problem. Publish the interviews as blog posts, adding audio and graphics if you have them.

8. Solicit and answer questions. Ask your ezine subscribers or blog readers to ask you their most pressing question related to what you do. I do this and get questions for 1-2 blog posts per week, and it helps me stay in touch with the needs of my readers, as well.

9. Review something. Read a good book lately related to your industry? Just purchased a product to help you solve a problem? Reviews are not limited to the critics at the New York Times. Blog about your experience with a product, book, or service, highlighting both the high points and low points, and whether you would recommend that others use or purchase it.

10. Read other blogs. Go to Google's Blog Search or Technorati and find other blogs related to your industry or your target market. Add those to your blog reader and take an hour or two each week to read the posts on those blogs. Do you agree or disagree with the post? Have another point of view? Think the blogger was on target but you want to expand on her point of view? Reading other blogs is a great way to generate ideas for your own blog.

11. Keep an idea file. Sometimes a blogging idea or concept will strike you when you do not need (or want) to blog. Begin a blog idea file by creating a document or spreadsheet to track your ideas and thoughts. If you are in the zone, go ahead and write the post, and then you can post it to your blog on a day when the idea well is dry.

12. Create a tutorial. There is always something you can tell your target market how to do. Create a written, audio, or video tutorial of the process as your blog post. Depending on the complexity of the tasks, the tutorial may need to created in multiple parts, like Part 1, Part 2, etc., which would make for multiple posts to your blog.

13. Share a positive/negative email. I often share exceptionally positive or negative emails I receive from people (without names to protect their identity as appropriate) either to celebrate kudos I have received or to demonstrate how I responded to a particularly nasty or upsetting comment. I get the most mileage out of the negative emails, and I often ask for feedback about how my readers might respond to the situation.

14. Take a tour. Take a self-made in-person or virtual tour of something useful to your readers. For example, if you are a dating coach, tour the top 5 online dating sites and report your experiences as a client in each. If you are a restaurant consultant, visit 3 local restaurants and evaluate what is often overlooked in staff training based on your experience as a customer.

15. Write about a Twitter or Facebook update. You only get 140 characters in Twitter to write about something. If you need more space, or want to respond in greater length to someone's Tweet or Facebook status update, do so in your blog. Thought-provoking questions are often asked on Twitter, and the answers may inspire you to blog.

16. Create a "Best of" list. What are the top 7 blogs to read in your industry? How about the top 5 people to watch? What about the 10 most useful online tools you use? Nothing attracts attention on a blog quicker than a list, so create one yourself or ask your readers to help you in the process.

17. Report from an event. Attending a professional trade show, conference, or networking event? You can report live about your experiences at the event on your blog. Talk about the workshops your attended, the vendors you met, the speaker you heard, the sky's the limit!

18. Debunk a myth. Each industry is plagued with myths and fallacies about success/failure or what does/does not work that the industry professionals would like to see vanquished once and for all. Use your blog to debunk some of the most common myths/preconceptions/notions in your industry and set the record straight.

19. Talk to newbies. Picture yourself as a newbie in your industry once again. What do you know now that you did not know then? What questions did you ask? What knowledge do you have that you think everyone knows? Getting back to the basics can help bring all of your blog readers up to speed.

20. Write about a client conversation. Many times I am inspired to blog as an expansion or continuation of a conversation I had with a client. The blog post focuses on a topic of the conversation, not the conversation itself. Typically the strategy/idea/technique you have discussed with one client will benefit your blog readers as well.

This is just the tip of a very large iceberg of ideas for posts to your blog. Take a look around your life, your business, conversations with clients and colleagues, and what is happening in the world around you. you will soon begin to see more potential for blog posts than you ever thought possible.

Source From SitePro News

Friday, March 12, 2010

How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business

If you own a business, chances are you do. But do not pat yourself on the back too quickly. By now it is widely-accepted that if you have a business card you should probably have a website. It does not matter what your company is selling a website, however modest has become a standard.

The real question is: what is your website doing for your business?
Traditional advertising mediums - print, TV, radio, etc - are notoriously difficult to track. Sure, you will know how often the phone is ringing or how many people come in with a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper, but what you do not know is how many people saw/heard your ad and whether they were interested, oblivious or, worse, annoyed.

Business owners are used to this. We all know we need to advertise, it is a necessary cost of doing business, so we buy that half-page ad in the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper, we sponsor an event or a little league team, we have a radio commercial written (maybe even with a jingle) and we hope for the best. This has been a given in marketing since the beginning. But the web, and analytics, changed the game.

So how should you be using your web analytics to grow your audience, and your business, online?

Track Everything
With web analytics on your site you can track:
1.Where your traffic is coming from by
- The referring website and page.
- The search engine and keyword used.

2.Your website visitors by
- Their location.
- Their operating system, browser and monitor resolution.
- Their network.

3.Visitor behavior and actions by
- Duration of visit (time on site)
- Pages per visit (number of pages viewed).
- Bounce rate (percentage of users who viewed only one page before leaving).
- Conversion rate (percentage of users who completed a preset task) .

If you are planning on doing any kind of web marketing, be it through search engines, email or advertising on other websites, information on your past and current traffic is crucial. Not to mention you will want analytics in place so you can properly track the new traffic your promotions will, hopefully, bring in.

Tie Your Traffic Sources to Your Users' Actions
When looking at your analytics data the behavior and action metrics mean little by themselves. If the bounce rate of your site overall is 75%, what does that tell you? Well, this is a pretty high bounce rate you should at least be shooting to have a bounce rate lower than 50%. But does this tell you exactly what is wrong?

Likewise, if you have secured advertising or a listing on another website, the number of visits coming in from that site only gives you part of the picture.

Tying your bounce rate to a specific traffic source, on the other hand, can tell you a lot. If a given traffic source is generating a bounce rate of 85% or more, for example, this indicates that users are not being satisfied. There are a few possibilities as to why:
  • The users may not be well-qualified or the site where you are listed or advertising might not have the best audience for your content/offer.
  • The listing/ad may promise something that the entry page does not live up to (or, at least, the promise is difficult to locate once the user arrives at your site).
  • Your site is simply not usable, is unattractive or unprofessional, causing users to leave immediately (and most do not come back).
  • Your users are not connecting with your content/offer.
There are other possibilities, but you will want to find the most likely answer here - and try to fix it. Then, using the same metrics (traffic source + bounce rate), you can see whether things improve moving forward.

Using metrics like these you can also get a sense of which advertisements are bringing you a return on your investment and which are not. With goal tracking in Google Analytics, for example, a conversion rate is added to just about every traffic metric, including referring websites. If you are finding that a website is sending you plenty of traffic but none of it is converting, re-examine the referring website's audience, how your site is being presented and the user's experience when they click through.

The Point
Your website is more than a brochure. it is an interactive tool for your users. The only true way to find out how they are using it (or not using it) is to get web analytics set up properly on your website (including setting goal points to track conversions). And the best way to improve your website in the aim of building your business is to use the information your web analytics give you. The age of blind advertising of throwing money at the problem and hoping for the best is dead.

If you are not tracking everything, taking time on a regular basis to understand what the data reveals about your users and adjusting your efforts based on this information, you are missing an opportunity to optimize your advertising and get a better return on your budget. In this economy, is that something you can afford?

Source From SitePro News

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

24 Essential Pages to include on Your Website

Wondering what pages to include on your website and why? Here is a list of important information that should be included on your site.

Before you start thinking about what to write, it is important that you create a plan, which outlines what each page will contain. That way you will not repeat yourself or forget vital information. The most common pages on successful websites include:

1. Home Page (First Page)
This is your "sales" page and should provide information about what you can do for your customers. It should also give your visitors a brief overview of what they can find on your site.

2. Products / Services
It is useful to have a separate page for each product/service and write as much detail about each as possible. Start each page with a brief summary of the product/service, then provide whatever information you can. When people are searching for information on the internet, they want to know it now. They do not want to wait until tomorrow when they can speak to you on the phone.

3. Contact Us
Place contact details in as many places as possible. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Create a special "Contact Us" page and include your details in the "About Us" page and also at the bottom of each page. Information to include business name, physical address, mailing address, telephone, fax, email, emergency number, website address.

4. Pricing
Whenever possible include the price of your products/services. Even if you can not be specific. It is helpful to put at least a range of prices, eg. Carpet cleaning ranges between $40 - $60 per room.

5. Testimonials / Product Reviews / Before & After
Include testimonials from your current customers to show your potential clients that you are trustworthy, reliable and that you provide great service and/or products. Make sure the testimonials are real and if possible provide contact details of the person who supplied you with the testimonial. If you do not have any right now, get them. Simply email your customers and ask for their feedback on your business and service.

You could also include before and after photos. Show the problem picture and beside it show the picture of resolution, with an explanation of your product's benefits.

6. Frequently Asked Questions
This has proven to be a great time saver for many companies. Instead of having to answer the same questions over and over again, place them on your website and keep adding to them. The more information you have on your website, the less time you will need to spend answering questions by email or phone. Frequently Asked Questions should address your customer's concerns that may otherwise be an obstacle to making a sale.

7. Response form such as "Subscribe" or "Enquiry" form
An absolute must if you want to build a mailing list. Most people do not like giving out too much information, so ask only the basics, such as Name and Email Address. Then keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis by sending out information that may be of interest to them. You may even wish to develop an on-line magazine (ezine). There are many fantastic free or inexpensive programs that can handle this for you.

8. On-line Magazine or Newsletter
This is a great marketing tool. Not only does it help you keep in touch with your customers, but provides your website with fresh content. You can set up your Ezine in 2 different ways:

(a) Email subscribers on a regular basis, or
(b) Publish it on your website.

Or both. Include information about your business, industry or anything that may be of interest to your customers.

9. Resources/Articles
Add value to your business. Provide information that is complementary to what you do. For example, if you sell wedding dresses include information about reception venues, wedding planners, wedding cakes, flowers. By adding extra information you encourage more hits.

10. About Us
This is a very important page as it tells your customer about who you are and why they should buy your products, services and/or trust your organization. It can also feature your business hours (if you have a bricks and mortar store) or when they can speak to someone on the phone. Many companies also include their mission, details of their staff (photos, biographies, qualifications), recently completed projects, ACN or ABN, logo, directions to your store/office. It is also useful to include details of trade associations you belong to, trade and insurance certificates and any awards you may have won.

11. Guarantee
Provide a money back policy. The longer the policy period, the more effective it will be. It could be 30 days, 60 days, 1 year or lifetime.

12. Survey
Find out what customers think about your website, business or product.

13. Events Calendar
This can relate to your business or industry. If you are an artist, you can feature dates where and when your art will be displayed or if you are a singer, where you will be performing.

14. Search My Website Feature
Some visitors to your site may not know exactly what they want, but if you include a search function on your site, they can look for it very easily. Like search engines, this feature will allow your visitors to type in a word or phrase and then search for it on your site. it is like having a mini search engine, only instead of it searching the world wide web, it just searches your website.

15. Return/Refund Policy
To make your customers feel more comfortable when making a transaction at your website, you should provide them with your return/refund policy. Ensure it is easy to understand and spelled out step by step.

16. Privacy Policy
Privacy continues to be a major issue for customers shopping online. Concerns about how their information is going to be used is a major barrier when making a sale. Internet shopping experience is built on trust and privacy is the number one ingredient in trust.

17. Site Map
A site map shows visitors how the site is laid out and which sections are where.

18. Copyright Information
Your website should carry a copyright notice to protect its intellectual property. It is generally in the form of "Copyright (c) 2004, Your Company Name".

19. Links
Here you can place links to the manufacturers of your products, trade associations or complementary services. When you place links to other businesses, you can request they do the same for you. This will not only bring you more visitors, but may improve your search engine ranking.

20. Media Information
Include any information, articles, photos of your products, staff etc that have appeared in the media, print, TV, radio or Internet.

21. News
This can include news about your products/services or about your industry.

22. On-line store
An on-line store allows you sell products directly on the Internet 24 hours a day/7 days a week. When building an online store it is important to take in a number of key concepts.
Make sure that when visitors arrive at your store the navigational mechanisms are simple and effective.
The actual process of placing the order must be simple.
Make sure you accept common and convenient methods of payment.
Continually test your store so you understand your customer's shopping experience.

23. Blog
A blog is a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily or weekly using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Blogs are a great tool because they help with:

(a) Communicating with your customers. Blogs provide a way for you to communicate with your customers directly. And it is a two-way communication. You can post a message on your blog and your visitors can easily respond.

(b) Search Engine Marketing Blogs give you an increased presence on search engines, like Yahoo! and Google. If you use Blogger (Google's Blogging Tool), every message you post creates a new page on Google so in a very short time you could have lots of pages pointing to your website.

(c) Stay Ahead of Your Competition Blogs are relatively new and chances are your competition does not yet use them. So you will be seen as an expert in your industry when you post your knowledge and expertise.

(d) Media & Public Relations Blogs are excellent PR tools. You can post your Media Releases and articles and have them picked up by the media.

(e) Free or Low Cost

24. Photo Gallery
Even if you do not wish to sell your products on-line, you may wish to showcase your goods or services in a special photo gallery, show how your products or services are being used by your customers. They say "pictures speak a thousand words" and on your website it is particularly important.

Do not give your customers a reason to visit your competitor's website and provide them with all the information they may possibly need or want.

Source From SitePro News

Friday, March 5, 2010

Seven Words That Will Make Your Website Worth Viewing

Seven. it is just a number like any other, but it does seem to come up on a fairly regular basis. There is the Seven Wonders of the World, The Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Dwarfs: Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Doc, Dopey, and my personal favorite, Grumpy.

Phone numbers are seven digits, and they say the optimum brand name should be no more than seven letters long. Seven it seems is a magical number, as the average human brain can only grasp seven things at a time. Interesting, my wife says I have got trouble with two, never mind seven, but that is another story.

So, what are the seven most important words associated with Web-marketing. I will give you a hint: Search, Engine, and Optimization do not make the cut. So what words do make the list? What are the seven words that will make your website worth viewing?

Words Can Move You
By someone's count there are 171,476 entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, plus another 47,156 words that have fallen out of favor. This of course does not count the 9,500 additional permutations, that do not deserve their own special attention.

Fifty percent of these words are nouns, twenty-five percent are adjectives, and 14.285% are verbs, with the rest made up of all those other things, the purpose of which most of us have long since forgotten.

Others may find fault with these numbers, but no matter what the total, it is a lot of words. Of the several hundred thousand words to choose from, the average person recognizes less than ten percent, while the average teenager seems to only be able to handle about half that amount; of course that does not count slang, instant messaging jargon, or the ever-popular four-letter variety.

Why the heck are there so many words if we all refuse to use them. I mean why waste all those perfectly good words on English teachers and college professors. By the way, they say swearing is the refuge of the feeble-minded, people who can not express themselves in a more articulate manner, but to be honest, I really do not give a damn.

Here is the thing, words have meaning and impact, and they provide the emotional context of our communications, to which we can add subtlety and nuance through their delivery by means of tone, cadence, and gesture. So as important as words are, the way they are delivered is even more important.

What Website Design Is Really About
The other day I was listening to a local all-news radio station. It is mostly rip-and-read wire service stuff that they repeat over-and-over like some kind of psychological torture, but they do provide traffic reports on a nauseatingly regular basis. You only have to wait ten minutes until they repeat everything, so if you want to hear what traffic snafus to avoid just wait a few minutes; but here is the problem, the announcers talk so fast that no matter how hard you concentrate, you can not quite get the particular information you need; and if you are driving, you have other things to consider, like the idiot in the Hummer who just cut you off.

None of these guys ever uses a period, let alone a semicolon or comma. Either they have very small bladders and are under pressure to finish quickly, or they are late for their afternoon pilates class. They seem so intent on rushing to the commercials that they do not ever deliver the content in an appropriate manner. And your website just might have the same problem. Too much information is as bad as not enough. Information overkill leads to information anxiety, buyer's remorse, reduced satisfaction, unattainable expectations, and purchase-decision paralysis.

Website owners have been told that visitors will not wait for anything, that they are impatient, and you have got to get to the point fast, make the pitch and close the deal; well that just is not going to work with any sophisticated product or service.

Your website presentation needs to slow people down so they hear what you have to say, and you have to say something worth hearing.

Website design is about more than layout, markup language, and technical wizardry. Website design is about communication, it is about turning advertising into content, and content into an experience that viewers will remember.

Seven Words To Remember

1. Communication
People are always asking us what is wrong with their websites, and the answer in the vast majority of cases can be summed-up in a quote. Communication is the key to success, and that does not just apply to your website, it applies to almost everything you do both inside and outside your business-life. If your website is not communicating on both a rational and emotional level, if it does not provide the psychological and emotional context of your marketing message, then exactly what is it doing?

2. Audience
I can not think of too many people who actually like being sold. In fact, sometimes customers get so irritated by sales tactics that they end up not buying the thing they came specifically to your website to purchase. Solving the problem is merely a question of altering your perspective; the average buyer is predisposed to dismiss and ignore high-pressure tactics, and meaningless sales pitches. So instead of treating customers like customers, try treating them like an audience. Audiences want to be engaged, enlightened, and entertained. And that is the most effective way to make a sales impact.

3. Focus
All too often websites inundate their Web audiences with facts, figures, statistics, and an endless list of features, benefits, options, and whatever else the sales department can think of throwing in. All that stuff just confuses people. Focus your message on the most important elements of what you have to say. If your website can embed that singular idea in an audience's mind, then it has done its job.

4. Language
The words used, and how they are put together provides meaning; they inform personality; they provide mental sound bites; and they make whatever you are saying, worth remembering. Language is one of the critical elements of 'voice', the ability to convey personality; and writing without a 'voice' is instantly forgettable.

5. Performance
Even the most articulate prose can be lost in a befuddled delivery. Communication is more than words; it is a combination of language, style, personality, and performance. Things are rarely what they seem. Even our memories are a stylized version of what we have actually experienced. Creating a memorable impression is about managing the viewer experience, and providing the right verbal and non-verbal cues that make what is being said memorable.

6. Personality
Every business has a personality. The first problem is, few medium-sized companies ever attempt to manage that persona, and as a consequence, the buying public forms its own opinion. And that opinion is often not the way you want to be regarded. The second problem is companies either do not have a firm grasp of who they really are, or they know, and they are afraid to promote it. If your company's identity is not worth promoting, it is time to think why that is, and change it. The bottom line is, a company without a personality is a company without an image, and that makes you instantly forgettable.

7. Psychology
The most important feature you can provide your audience is psychological fulfillment, not deep discounts, fast service, or more bells and whistles. The real reason people buy stuff is that it makes them feel something. Cosmetics make women feel attractive or sexy, while cars make men feel they have achieved some level of status. Even services make people feel important, as in "I have got a guy, who does that for me." Finding the psychological hot spot in your marketing, and promoting the hell out of it consistently and continually should be your primary marketing goal. All those features and benefits are merely the excuse for a purchase, not the reason.

The Web Is Fast Becoming A Video Environment
Websites are not just marketing collateral; they are not just digital brochures. They are a new presentation medium that requires specialized communication skills, and knowledge of how best to use the medium. You may be a great salesperson, and nobody knows your business like you do. You may even be skilled at delivering speeches at conventions and seminars, but performing effectively in front of a camera is a whole different ball game, and for most people, it is way out of their comfort zone, let alone their skill level.

The same old methods that used to work will not work any more. You are no longer competing with just the company down the street; you are competing with the entire world. Web-businesses may not ever actually meet their customers face-to-face, or even talk to them on the phone, so it is imperative that they use marketing presentation methods that deliver an experience worth remembering.

Source From SitePro News