What Makes you Special?
By: Diana
Date: Jul 25, 2008
Category: branding, marketing
Branding your website is just as important as branding a breakfast cereal. Users will develop a "feel" for your site and associate their experience with your "personality". As a business or individual, you are still a brand. There are so many websites vying for attention. Users are most likely to revisit sites that give them a reliable experience and a secure feeling.
Knowing that users will get a "feel", decide up front exactly what you want them to feel. What is your core value? What is the thing about you, your business, your service that makes you truly special? Rather than make the user figure out who you really are, know who you really are and design a web presence that conveys that message. Choose a logo, colors, text, and images all with this value in mind and thus . . . it becomes your brand. And it will show.
For example, one thing that makes me special as a web developer is my commitment not just to serving my clients but to educating them. I am deeply committed to educating myself. And so, The WebGeek Journal is designed to convey this value. Return users can trust that, if nothing else, they will always learn something here.
Include a Call to Action
By: Diana
Date: Jul 05, 2008
Category: content, writing
When creating content for your website, decide exactly how you want your user to respond to what they've read. Do you want them to contact you? Make it very easy for them to do that by including the contact form or link to it. Do you want them to share the content with a friend, purchase the product, view other pages on your site, or leave a review? Make sure you lead them right to the action by offering them the option in an inviting way. Do not force them to action by boxing them in but do guide them towards your objective.
If you have content that is strictly informative, like a privacy policy for example, offer the user an action that keeps them on your site. You might ask "What would you like to do now?" and display links to interesting parts of your site. Even a simple "Return to Homepage" is better than no action at all.
Remember that web content is interactive. Unlike print media, your "reader" can act on whatever you write. More and more, your users will come to expect this. Make it easy for them. And make life easier on yourself by subscribing to the WGJ.
3 Image Selection Mistakes
By: Diana
Date: Jan 24, 2008
Category: design, graphics
The most important thing to remember about selecting web graphics is that each and every image conveys meaning. Logos, backgrounds, photos, Flash files, and illustrations all communicate a message, along with the text and site organization. The more unified that message, the more effective the site. Here are three common mistakes people make when selecting graphics for their websites.
Mistake one is "dressing up" your site, adding images because they look "pretty" or "cool". Unless "I am pretty" or "We are cool" is the main message you want to convey this is a waste of valuable pixels. Instead, when selecting graphics, consider exactly what you want your users to know about you. What is your core value? What makes you unique, special, a site owner worth visiting? If you are cool because your solutions or products or services are cutting-edge, select images that convey cutting-edge, including the colors you select.
Mistake two is not demanding that each image you put on your site does a job. Images are like headlines, they attract your users' attention and lead them to action whenever necessary. They communicate necessary information. A graphic is "dressing up" if it has no purpose. There is almost always a better use of the space being taken up by slacking images.
Mistake three is "noise for nothing." Loud or animated images frustrate users and can convey the message "annoying" because they attract the user's attention - like a child tugging at his parent's sleeve. Your user is there to do something. Ensure with your images that your user knows exactly where to click to do it without distraction. And draw her attention to the things you most want done without the web equivalent of "look at me look at me".