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Think of the people who visit
your site as blind dates. When you open the door, your
blind date usually knows whether they are attracted to you
within the first minute. How do they know? Easy. By how
you look, what you say, and how you treat them. If you
open the door wearing the same clothes you wore in 1987,
say, "Wow, from my friend's description, I thought
you would be a lot better looking," and sneeze in
your dates face, not only will you never get a second
date, your date will run for his/her life.
The same rules apply to
your website. When people do a search for something they
want to buy, they usually have many sites to choose from.
If yours does not impress them right off the bat, it takes
about five seconds for them to find another that does show
them what they want to see. There are plenty of other fish
in the sea. You are just one among many.
So what do people want to
see, you ask? There are 3 standards of website excellence,
and they are the same standards you would use to judge
your blind date:
1. How it looks: If I visit
two different websites with the purpose of buying
something, and those two websites sold the exact same
product at the exact same price, I would buy from the site
that looked better--the one whose design made me think,
"Wow, these guys must be making good money if they
can afford to hire a good graphic designer." The more
money I think the business makes, the more I will identify
them with value and professionalism.
The bottom line is, you
need to make web design a priority. There are plenty of
people out there who have graphic designer friends willing
to design their website for next to nothing. Those people
have the advantage because, even if they aren't the
superior business, visitors will perceive them to be
superior.
If you don't have any
connections with graphic designers willing to do you a
favor, see if you can find a starving artist willing to
design the layout of your site. If anyone has an eye for
aesthetics and is willing to work cheap, it's a starving
artist. Once you know what your site should look like,
either you or a web designer can bring the artist's vision
to life.
Take the time to design
something that represents your business or product well.
Don't just throw up a website with gaudy wallpaper, out of
focus pictures and graphics placed at random. Remember
that first moment when you open the door to a blind date.
Remember how much appearances count for in this world.
2. What you say: You want
the person who visits your site to know instantly what
you're selling and why they should buy from you. Visual
representation has a lot to do with this, but you need to
watch what you say as well. You must be clear, concise and
focused. Don't make the visitor decipher a cryptic
headline full of spelling and grammar errors. Include
headlines that shout to the reader exactly what you want
them to hear.
Go over your copy a hundred
times if you must, or have a proofreader edit your copy.
You must be sure that a potential customer won't get lost
in a stream of consciousness narrative about your product
or company, and come out saying, "What was that all
about?"
Above all, think carefully
about the colors you use for your font. Make sure there is
plenty of contrast between the background and the font
color. Never put a yellow font on an orange background.
Also, be careful with white fonts on black backgrounds. If
the letters are large, they will be easy enough to read,
but if they are 14 point or smaller, your visitor won't
even bother with the copy. No matter what colors you use,
always make your font large enough. If people have to
squint to read your copy, it is too small.
3. How you treat them--It
is socially acceptable for a woman to keep her date
waiting, letting him know that she doesn't consider him a
priority. However, it is not acceptable for your site to
keep a visitor waiting. If your site takes too long to
load, the visitor will simply find another site.
Do what you can to ensure
that your site will download quickly. One easy thing to
remember is that, if you have too much content on a page,
it's going to take a long time to load. Also, if you are
on a free server, and you are sharing a port with others,
your loading time will be lengthy. More specifically, if
you have images that are uncompressed, they could be at
70k or 80k, as opposed to compressed images that look
almost identical and load at a preferable rate of 5k or
10k.
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About
The Author
Author
Sam Serio, himself an Internet Marketer,
offers information and marketing resources
to small businesses and individuals who
want to make their web sites more
profitable. He is currently offering a
Free 7-lesson mini-course entitled
“Climbing the Ladder of Internet
Success.” For more information please
visit www.morninglightmarketing.com
or email samserio@ccisp.net
or call 757-894-2334 10-5PM est.
757-824-3868. |
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