Posted by Ginny Huang on Thu, Oct 28, 2010 @ 12:11 PM
Beyond the edge...
Have you ever gone on a website and hit the back button right away because of the way the website looked? Think about your website. Are your viewers doing the same thing? Viewers rely heavily on the design of a website to determine whether they want to continue exploring your site or bouncing off. Wherever you search online, the appeal of a website is one of the first things people look at. You may have a great product, but without the right presentation, you will not reach your audience. In this article, you will find 5 elements that can help you create a website that will grab your audience’s attention. Each element – balance, consistency, focus, color and functionality - is essential in helping you achieve a strong website design.
Balance - Creating a sense of balance for a website is similar to the balance of a scale. Each element on the webpage needs balance in order to hold your viewer’s interest. The size, shape, and color of the elements on your website can make a difference in the “feel” it creates for a viewer. Whether you have large, small, bright, or dark objects, there needs to be a balance. The design of your website can either have a symmetrical balance, identical elements placed on a design evenly, or an asymmetrical balance, elements of different sizes, shapes, and colors placed on each side of a page in a way that still equalizes the weight on a design.
Consistency - The flow of your website is also very important, as it helps bring all of the elements together. Whether it is text or images, it is important that the flow is consistent throughout your website. Inconsistencies may confuse your viewers and lead them to leave. For example, if you have a navigation bar at the top, keep it at the top for all of your pages. Do not change it to the right side for all of the other pages. Your design should always be easy for your viewer to follow. Can you imagine you customers having to spend more time looking for your website’s navigation links than actually looking at the products or services you offer on your website? Your website should never be a scavenger hunt for your viewers. Other design consistencies include fonts, colors, text, sizes and spacing for headers, subheadings, the body, links, captions, margins, and padding throughout the website. This adds exponentially to the visual appeal.
Focus – The design of your website also revolves around the objectives of your business. To reach your goals, your design should direct the attention of your viewers to a main focal point, the most important piece of every layout. For instance, making a “Submit” button in a convenient and easy to find location will ensure that your customers will know where to make a purchase. However, try not to have too many focal points on one page as this will lose your viewer’s attention.
Create a focal point by:
- Using darker colors for headings and subheadings, while using lighter text for the rest of the content.
- Making text or images different shades to highlight the main content.
- Using fonts that are colored or unique for important information.
- Placing the image or text directly in the center of the page.
- Using a line to lead a viewer’s attention towards a point of interest.
- Bunching less important information in one area and placing the more important images or text in an area with empty space. This will put more focus on the image or text.
Pattern – The design of your website needs to have a general pattern. Once your viewers understand the pattern, they will be able to find what they are looking for without much effort. Repeating items with a few variations make it easier for your viewer to adjust and creates a more comfortable, predictable flow.
Color – Color plays another key role in a website’s design. The colors you choose can either pull a viewer’s attention towards your goal or push them away. Throughout our lives, color has been used to symbolize items around us. For instance, red is used to convey danger or love, whereas green is to convey freshness, life or money. Colors also have a subconscious affect. Bright colors like oranges and reds can promote energy, action and even appetite, while blues and purples have a more relaxed, calming effect. If you are not the best with colors, it would be more beneficial to hire a professional because colors that do not go together can spoil your whole site.
When choosing a color for your website, it should depend on your focus:
- Brand Awareness - choose colors surrounding your logo. This will help customers associate the colors with your website.
- Emotional Awareness – choose colors that fit that type of emotion. For instance, if you are developing a website for a couple getting married, you may want to use colors like white for purity and pink for sweetness.
- Contrast – choose colors that are stronger or darker than the rest of the contents on your web page to make your focal point standout.
Functionality – Design your website so that it is accessible for most users. For instance, do NOT use high resolution images that are only visible with higher end computers. The majority of people viewing your website probably will not have that type of equipment. Flash presentations have also become popular. However, if you are targeting people who are less likely to be interested in Flash (and are not likely to have the plugin to view a Flash presentation) or if such a presentation does not match with your products/services, skip it. No matter how nice something may look to you, you must consider your target market first. After all, they will be the ones to whom you are targeting your website. You must make sure that your pages load quickly, the important information stands out from the rest, and the coding for your website displays correctly for the majority of Internet browsers.
Posted by Ginny Huang on Mon, Jun 14, 2010 @ 05:21 PM
Beyond the edge...
People ask me all the time what it takes to be in the first position on google, yahoo, etc. I tell them they are asking the wrong question. You can find out the right question by contacting us or through one of our seminars. But the below is an example of how people get sucked in, taken advantage of and lose money. It was something I thought I should share with you so you can see a real life example of what goes on. What is also interesting is that you have a successful, senior executive in the industry for over 23 years and he still doesn't make the promises that these fraudulent companies make. Notice he didn't say he doesn't make guarantees. He just said he doesn't make those type of guarantees. So be careful...success is not an overnight journey.
On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 9:37 AM, Robert Dorfman wrote:
Mike wanted to show us what the competition is sending out.
Sounds too good to be true [promised]...
From: Jeff
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 12:52 AM
To: mike
Subject: [SPAM]: == Your Google Ranking and Website Traffic ==
I noticed that you are listed as the contact person in a recently issued press release and I thought you may be interested in this service we offer.
Have you ever wanted to receive thousand if not hundreds of thousands of visitors to your website in as little as 3O days?
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To take advantage of this and for more details:
Regards,
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On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 12:54 PM, Lamar Childs wrote:
I believe it is India. One time cost traffic means nothing. Clicks are not sales or conversions and can be driven to a site instantly by ethical and unethical means but what will they return and what will be their reaction when they find themselves on your site (if they truly make it there?). You want..."oh this is exactly what I was looking for "and not" how did I get here?) I would challenge a company like this to a discussion any day. But competition aside, if they could deliver useful clicks and advertisement wouldn't every ad firm beat down their door for only $499 and wouldn't they be charging more like the true value of $4999?
Just my 2 or 5 thoughts
On Apr 9, 2010, at 17:43 , Ted Tyree wrote:
Well stated LaMar.
I kid you not... I was on the phone with someone just recently. Has a sign business in Florida. He was getting lot of new clients from the web... most of his sales (I think he said 80%). He signed up for one of the SEO things. Suddenly he was getting almost no sales! He also found that many of the reputable search engines had black listed his site. He was struggling with what to do! What a terrible lesson to learn the hard way.
- Ted Tyree
215-806-2075
www.TheWebsiteParkingLot.com
From: Robert Dorfman
Date: Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 5:49 PM
To: Ted Tyree
Cc: Lamar Childs, Michael J L, Barbara Dorfman
WOW!
It's scary anymore. But you gotta know who you're dealing with.
You know, I've been in Advertising and Marketing for 24 years now and I don't make those kinds of promises -- there's no way to guarantee.
It's just wrong...
Robert Dorfman
Posted by Ginny Huang on Mon, Aug 03, 2009 @ 08:29 AM
Beyond the edge...
We recently had a company send us the following request: "i want vitiligo sites marketing i have a site how will you promote it on rank 1st?"
Our response is below and we hope it may help others with similar questions.
I don't fully understand your question but here is what I think you are saying:
You have a website promoting solutions for vitiligo and you want to get it promoted to #1 on the search engines.
First let me start out by saying that no company can guarantee 1st page ranking in the search engines. The reason is there are tons of companies out there like ours who know how to do search engine ranking and promotion and we are all jockeying for the #1 spot for our customers. So while we may get you in the #1 spot today, we could be knocked out tomorrow and then fight you back up there next week. However, we cannot in good conscious tell you and charge you for a #1 spot.
This is what we can do. We can promote your website so that it is consistently in the top ranking and for your primary target keywords, we can elevate the site higher. It may be in the top spot but that is not your goal. Your goal is to sell products or services. Our company focuses on making that happen using online tools. We work to make sure the content or words on your website are what the search engines are looking for. We make sure blogs and other social media outlets have your message. By doing this you will be getting more business than even a #1 spot may get you because you will have prospects looking at your site in many different areas.
Let's face it, even as popular as google is, not everyone buys just from google. So you want to make sure you have a high ranking on google, yahoo, Ask.com and others so that wherever customers are looking, your site and your information is coming up. Don't look to just pound people with your message. Instead give them information, educate them on how your product and service works, and guide them to an informed decision that your company is the best place to purchase the product or service that they want. If you do that you will have long-term customers that will tell their friends about your company.
I hope this answered your question.
Posted by Chris Johnson on Mon, Aug 18, 2008 @ 01:36 PM
Beyond the edge...
Happy New Year! With the holidays behind us, we're heading into a challenging year. Staying profitable may take a little more creativity than usual. This issue of Local Backyard Marketing can help - with 10 low-cost (and even no-cost) ideas you can use right away to keep your business healthy and growing throughout 2009! Even one of these ideas could make all the difference! Take a look.
Your 3 Best Marketing Investments for 2009
1. Local Search. Newspaper readership, Yellow Pages use, and TV audiences continue to shrink, making local consumers, hard to reach. The good news is that more and more consumers are going online and using local search to find everything from attorneys to home improvement to child care. For you, local search can be far less expensive than traditional marketing. It also can deliver a much better “cost of sales.” Since local search zeroes in on your own highly targeted audience, you’ll get leads that are more relevant and it will take less time and money to convert those leads into customers.
2. Online Video. . Studies show that video can boost website experience click-throughs 50%. It also boosts your search engine visibility. That’s why smart marketers are starting to use video in eMail, eNewsletters, microsites, press releases, and in advertising and awareness campaigns on sites like YouTube and Facebook. During 2009, experiment with using video yourself! Some ideas: product demos, testimonials, introduction to your website, special report, a status report (e.g., progress on a project or how you’re renovating your offices), etc. Video is expensive though right? WRONG!! It may cost you $700-1200 to produce a high quality video for your business. That video can then be used in sales presentations to WOW your potential customers, on your website to get them to call and help your website stick out from the rest. It can even be mailed to potential clients. But the main thing the video does is make your website and any other marketing more personal. They get to SEE you or your business personnel and let’s face it, people would much rather watch something than read. Cater to their laziness and rack in the customers from your competition.
3. Messaging. Trade “nice to haves” (convenience, luxury, etc.) for a value statement that communicates “need to haves” (lasting value, money savings, etc.). Example: When a salon and spa owner saw a huge drop in demand for massages and high-end hair color services, she changed her website, ads, and what stylists were saying to customers: instead of promoting “pampering,” the new message was “in this job market, you’ve got to look – and feel – confident and relaxed.” This simple change of message turned the salon services into smart investments rather than indulgences or things that you can put off until later. Online marketing lets you change your message instantly instead of waiting for the next issue or worse the next YEAR! Find your value statement and you’ll find more customers.
Want to Grow Your Customer Base? Just Ask!
Is it possible for your customer base to grow even as the economy shrinks? You bet! In fact, new customers could be yours just for the asking. Try this:
1. Ask Mom for Help. Generation X and Y moms make $1.7 trillion of purchases a year. 
Even if the recession has them spending less, they’re still making decisions about everything from insurance and household maintenance, to choosing where to eat, shop, travel, and entertain the family. Use the Internet to tap their influence and spending power! But follow the guidance of a MarketingCharts study and use a different strategy to reach each group: Gen Y moms go online to read blogs, create and share their own videos, and participate in an online community of moms. Gen X moms go online to shop and upload photos. To learn all you can about this market, read blogs for moms and search on phrases such as “marketing to moms.”
2. Ask for Ratings and Reviews. Today, more than 75% of shoppers are using product ratings and reviews written by other customers to help make a purchase decision. Plus, referrals from ratings and reviews generate 97% more revenue per referral than referrals from natural search engines to product pages. Backyard Marketing automatically enhances your search listing with ratings and reviews made directly from testimonials we collect for you and through other sites. Benefit even more by publishing ratings and reviews on your own site — right where potential customers are considering purchasing from you. The best reviews are ones that give specific examples or tell how you solved a problem for the reviewer.
3. Ask for Referrals. Do you always ask every customer for a referral? If not, you could be missing out on a huge chunk of new business. There’s no need to be pushy. Just print a short message on receipts that asks for referrals. Have cashiers smile and say, “Tell your friends about us” as they ring up customers. Create a program that rewards customers who bring you new customers. After a sale, send a follow-up note or email: “Thank you so much for your business. We’d love the opportunity to see you again soon. And if you know anyone else who might enjoy what we offer, we’d so appreciate a referral. If you send us a referral we will give you a 20 percent discount on your next visit…” Simply find a tactic that works best for your particular business and do it — every time with every customer!
To Boost Natural Search Rankings, Lighten Your Load
How long does it take your website to load? The answer could directly impact how you rank in natural search results. That’s because search engines include load time in their algorithms. Having a slow site puts you at a disadvantage with search engines and with competitors.
Bottom line: to help your website rise to the top of natural search, it pays to “lighten” your load time. Here’s how:
1. Minimize the size of photographs and other graphics. Images eat up load time — especially if they’re large. Your best rule of thumb is to keep graphics, photos, and other images on your website to 72 pixels per inch or less.
2. Run an assessment of your overall site. Use keyword searches like “load time optimization” and “Web resize tool” to find a wealth of online optimization resources. You 
may want to start off with one of the many sites offering free tools, including speed tests that calculate the size, composition and download time of your pages.
3. Check with your tech. If you don’t have a website guru, hire one to make a few little tweaks that can make a major improvement in speed and performance. Secrets include adding a “far-future expires” header, structuring for fewer HTTP requests, Gzipping page components, and minimizing CSS, HTML and JavaScript. !
Ask BackyardMarketingGroup.com
Q: I am interested in doing some things but I need someone to help me figure out what works for my company. How can I do that without breaking the bank?
A: Any company worth their “salt” will be more than happy to give you some pointers over the phone. They can even run an analysis of your site free of charge. We do that for people all the time and there are other firms that do that too. If you want us to provide you with information give us a call at 1-888-710-8389 or email Mandy at Mandy@BackyardMarketingGroup.com . She can help you or assign a member of her department to help you out.