Category Archives: Web Publishing

Website content … Why does it always have to updated and enhanced?

Posted on by Michael Boyer

Content, content and content.

As a business owner with a website I’m sure you’ve heard this chant a thousand times …

Content tells your audience about you, your company or organization. This mish-mash of text, graphics, photos and imagery is all “content,” in this post we’ll focus on text, the main type of content search engines find on your website.

Okay, enough with the small print, let’s break it down …

Relevant Content and Linking to Relevant Websites

Successful online marketing always begins with content that is highly relevant to your business or organization. Relevancy is one of the more important factors when writing your content. The textual content on your website should be focused around the topics that specifically describe your industry, your business, your local community and yourself. This content should be written to communicate to your human target audience, not for the benefit of search engines .

If written correctly, relevant content will contain a high density of keyword terms that your target audience can type into Google to bring up your web site in their search results. These keyword terms are very important to understand so you can make sure that your content is written to maximize relevancy.

Linking to other relevant website content is another way to help your target audience find relevant information. These links also help establish your website as a knowledge leader in providing relevant information and sources concerning your industry, your business, your local community and yourself.

The content you write and link to should ALWAYS be done in the best interest of your human audience. If you create this strong foundation of great relevant content your human and search engine audiences will both like your website.

Updating and Adding Content

Adding new content pages provide your users with up-to-date information about your products and services, your local community and your industry. None of these are static, so the information you provide on your website should not be static either. For example: every new customer changes your business just a little bit … the more of these customer testimonials you have, the better perception your audience will have of your products and services. Incorporating new content such as new testimonials will help Google will see more relevant content as well. For more one how search engines rank webpages …

Local Content

The reach of the Internet is huge … When you write content for your website, focus on the geographic location of your target audience. Your audience and search engines will have a much easier time finding your website if you provide City, County or State/Province information interlaced in your content. For example: case studies should talk about specific locations where services were rendered or products were successful. Content about local community activity with links to local community websites also enhances your ability to build trust for your business in the local community.

Quality Content

One thing is also certain, quality writing counts! The following are basic best practices for writing quality website content.

  • Spelling and grammar: Few or no errors. No page had more than three misspelled words or four grammatical errors. Note: spelling and grammar errors were identified by using Microsoft Word’s check feature, and then ruling out words marked as mis-spellings that are either proper names or new words that are simply not in the dictionary. Does Google use SpellCheck? Keep in mind that no one really does know what the 100 factors in Google’s algorithm are. But whether the mechanism is SpellCheck or a better shot at link popularity thanks to great credibility, or something else entirely, the results remain the same.
  • Paragraphs: Primarily brief (1-4 sentences). Few or no long blocks of text.
  • Lists: Both bulleted and numbered form a large part of the text.
  • Sentence length: Mostly brief (10 words or fewer). Medium-length and long sentences are sprinkled throughout the text rather than clumped together.
  • Contextual relevance: Text contains numerous terms related to the keyword, as well as stem variations of the keyword. (thank you to webcredible)

Keep these concepts in mind when crafting your website content. Know your audience, make your content keyword dense, include local content and add to your site consistently. Keep your content focused and relevant will put you ahead of the competition…your site search engine results will benefit and your business will as well.

The Importance of a Creative Brief

Posted on by Tony

I can’t recall how many times I’ve sat in a discovery meeting with a client and it became clear that a design direction was very unclear. During those meetings, the client expressed they either didn’t have an existing website or their website wasn’t working for them for some reason or another. Yet there wasn’t an obvious “next step” solution (or even “first step”) in their mind — only that the client wanted to take a step toward a new site or an improved site. It is critical that an interactive agency provides that clarification and guides the client skillfully through this discovery process. Enter the Creative Brief.

The Creative Brief is a document addendum to the Project Brief (the other invaluable document outlining the entire scope of the new project) that clearly defines all design aspects of the project. Without it, a project can quickly become a mish-mash of random notes, lost communication and a game of they said/we said. None of this bodes well for a successful outcome!

I’ve recently revisited our own Discovery and Creative Brief protocols and revised them. I felt that even more details could be added and fleshed out in the discovery process. The more information we have from our clients at the beginning of the project, the better. But it’s not always obvious what questions to ask. A few topics we discuss with client that eventually make it into the Creative Brief include:

  • ~ When someone visits your new website for the first time, what do you want their immediate reaction to be? What are words to describe that?
  • ~ How would you characterize the personality and style of your new website?
  • ~ What main colors would you use? What complementary colors?
  • ~ What existing marketing materials do you have? Should the website emulate them?
  • ~ What do your competitors websites look like? Do you like them? Why? or Why not?
  • ~ What would your calls-to-action be? What is your primary message? What do you want your users to do?
  • ~ What type of imagery will you be using? Photography, illustrations, etc? What flavor of imagery — people shots, kids; lifestyle, commercial; edgy styling, B/W, white space; certain ethnicities, professions, actions?
  • ~ What type of navigation scheme do you want? Vertical, horizontal, graphic, text-based? Is there a sub-navigation?

When you get down to it, the website look and feel is much more than “I like this” or “I want it to look cool.” What’s cool needs a definition and needs to work in the scope of existing or new marketing goals, ease of use and navigation, industry best practices and a host of other considerations. A successful website project needs to be a well-defined and understood undertaking.

We’re Going on a Picnik …

Posted on by Michael Boyer

… With Online, Browser-based Image Editing

San Luis Obispo, CA – August 7, 2008. Elements, an interactive marketing agency, today announced that they have added online, browser-based image editing to their ElementsLocal & ElementsConnect software platforms. ElementsLocal is an online local marketing platform for franchise companies, ElementsConnect is a website management system for businesses to manage their online marketing initiatives.

With the addition of online, browser-based image editing, ELEMENTS’ customers can now manage 100 percent of their website without leaving their ElementsLocal or ElementsConnect dashboard. No need to edit a photo before uploading, just upload the image and do almost anything to it with simple little sliders. :-)

“Image editing, mainly re-size and cropping, has always been an expensive, complex and time-consuming hassle for website managers,” said Michael Boyer, Chief Marketing Officer. “With the integration of Picnik, we have solved a problem for our clients that will save them money and time, without any additional charges.”

About Picnik – www.picnik.com

Picnik: photo editing awesomenessPicnik lets you clean up your pictures without knowing a thing about photo editing. Picnik is photo editing awesomeness, online, in your browser. It’s the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos. With Picnik you can do everything you usually do in Photoshop, but it’s so much easier.

About ELEMENTS – www.elementsinc.net

ELEMENTS is an interactive marketing agency, we design and develop online business applications and corporate web sites. Our online business applications provide industry specific platforms which enable companies to harness the power of the internet to streamline their business. Our world-class interactive services provide marketing solutions for mid-market and franchise companies. From conception and strategy to design and implementation we combine masterful creative services and proven technology expertise with forward-thinking business strategies to deliver a successful solution for deployment of enterprise web initiatives.

Eenie, Meenie, Miney…Moe!

Posted on by Michael Boyer

Choosing a name for anything is daunting. Your kid, your business or website domain, you want to make a good choice. Your domain name is your internet identity and should be a vital component in your overall business and marketing strategy. How do you figure out what your ultimate domain name is?

I Am What I Am

Ideally, the planets will align so that your website name and business name will come together at the same time. The name that you’ve been using in your marketing and branding efforts is the name you want for your website and domain. It’s the first thing users will try to enter into a browser.

If you already have a well-known name or brand, you should obviously get the domain that matches that name. You put a lot of effort into getting that name and branding established in your community. But what if that name is taken? Don’t change your company name because you couldn’t get the domain name.

Look up the current owner on www.whois.net and contact them to see if they are willing to sell it to you. If they are agreeable to selling the name, they will probably up the fee so you could be paying a higher rate than when you buy a new domain.

If your website and/or company is new, you might want to check out domain names first and find one that suits the name of your business. So, let’s say you find that bitsandbobs.com is available and buy it, it could be a perfect name for your Bits and Bobs business with your website being bitsandbobs.com.

Remember, the internet is an extremely fast-paced world and your customers want ease of use, so don’t make them work. A domain name that reflects your business and website is one less piece of information for users to remember. When visitors think of your business and website they’ll know it by name and where to go or what to enter into the browser.

The Long and Short of It

It’s true. Shorter domain names are easier to remember (but it’s harder and harder to get meaningful short names that make sense). Short names are also less apt to give users problems with typos. Todayisyourluckyday.com (sort of an average length) is much easier to remember and use than goandconquetheworldtodayisyourluckyday.com.

On the other hand, if a short name seems confusing or random unless the user is very familiar with you, then stick with something longer. So, tiyld.com is short and sweet, but it’s an odd assortment of letters that aren’t even pronounceable as an acronym. Spelling this out is probably easier to remember and use: TodayIsYourLuckyDay.com. Additionally, search engines will probably not pick up on your randomly-lettered domain name.

Word! What’s the Key Here?

Another point to consider is using site keywords in your domain name. Using keywords are likely to boost your site ranking with search engines. It’s not your business name, but the plus side is that search engines gravitate toward keywords that are also found in domain names. However, in order to make keywords in your domain work for you, you’ll need to know what words people are searching for. There are quite a few tools that will can help you figure out the best keywords to use. See Good Things and Do Your Leg Work below for a more detailed discussion.

So being that you can use up to 63 or 67 characters in a domain name, you could use several keywords…go crazy! But, and try to remember that run-on name and type it into a browser! It’s probably a good idea to avoid a horrendously long name…no one will remember it, much less want to type in out. The key to your domain name, long or short, is that it makes sense and doesn’t cause a lot of confusion for your customers or other potential users.

Spell It Like It Is

A correctly-spelled domain name will help your users find your website easily. It might be cool and fun to use z’s for s’s or even add a few zzzz’s to your name, but opt for simple and easy… kewlgurrrlsurferz.com …huh?

To Hyphen or Not to Hyphen

Some things to think about with a hyphenated name:

Not So Good Things:

  • ~ You’ll have a hurdle making people aware of the hyphens in your domain and people don’t usually remember to type them in. Most people would type in todayisyourluckyday.com, not today-is-your-lucky-day.com
  • ~ Adding hyphens in your name makes for a potential mouthful when users say your name…verbal marketing will sound clumsy. It would be almost more logical to buy clumsyhyphenandhyphenawkward.com because you’ll be saying “clumsy hyphen and hyphen awkward dot com.” If you aren’t clear about the hyphens, when people recommend your fabulous product or service and site, other users will type in clumsyandhyphen.com, not clumsy-and-awkward.com. Take a cue from most corporations and try not to use them.
  • ~ Generally, they are a pain to type, especially several of them within one domain.

Good Things:

  • ~ Hyphens help search engines identify keywords more easily. Because they distinguish your keywords better, your site will be better ranked in search results for those specific keywords.
  • ~ It’s an alternative when the un-hyphenated domain name is already registered to someone else. If you can limit them, you may still be able to get a not-too-awkwardly-hyphenated domain you want.

Happy Medium Thing:

  • ~ Buy both your natural and hyphenated domain names…since typing the name is easier without hyphens, this is the one you use for marketing and everywhere else. Since search engines usually like and rank domains with hyphenated names better and better ranking drives more users to your site, you’ll get the benefits of the hyphen.

What’s the Point?

Registering multiple domain names and pointing each one to a specific page or a few to your general website can help generate higher sales and traffic to your site. When you do this, you give users multiple avenues to your site. So, both customers who know the business name will be able to find you and customers who know your product or service will be able to find you.

Consider purchasing domains that are similar to your domain, contain hyphens or are even misspelled: coolcoffeeshop.com, coolcoffeeshoppe.com, koolcoffeeshop.com, cool-coffee-shop.com, coolcofeeshop.com, kewlcafeshop.com…you get the picture. Registering several domains will cast a wider net when users search for you. A word of caution: don’t point too many multiple domains to the same page because most search engines will dump your site.

Dot Wat?

.com is the most common and widely known extension. Like a good short name, finding your .com domain can be challenging. Most people now recognize .biz, .edu, .org, .net…but these also have certain implications. Be aware that .biz is generally recognized for businesses; .edu is intended for educational institutions; .org is widely used by non-profit and similar organizations; .net was originally for network providers, but it has a general use like .com now. However, there is nothing wrong with buying your domain name with several of these extensions.

iCUGOT12?

Numbers can present a similar problem as hyphens, especially with vocal marketing: is shineything4you.com – 4you or foryou or fouryou or 4u…..?

Shock Value

Using profanity in your domain name is unprofessional and gives you a negative image. Done.

Do Your Leg Work

Getting back to using a keyword or words in your domain name…this will help optimize search engine results, but to make your choices meaningful, you have to know what people are searching for.

  • ~ Word Search – www.wordtracker.com is one of the many tools that can help you find good keywords. Enter the words or phrase/phrases you think people would use to search and the program shows you which words are most popular. You can use this information to optimize our website content, generate more keywords and improve your organic or pay-per-click searches. This site gives you a free 7-day tour, beyond that it’s a paid membership. If you search for “keyword tool,” you’ll find other tools to use as cross-reference.
  • ~ Trademarks – If you have any question about your domain name being trademarked, do some research to verify you aren’t violating the law. However, if you register domain name and then a company trademarks it, you’re probably safe.
  • ~ www.whois.net – You can do various searches on this site, obviously finding out if the domain you want already has a current owner. You can search by domain name, keyword and owner. Using the domain search will help you with trademark research. You can find deleted domains as well.
  • ~ www.deleteddomains.com – The name says it all! Do a primary search for deleted and on-hold domains here. The site has a great feature that allows you to choose search parameters like character length or domains that contain specific words. You’ll need to register to get the full benefits of their services.
  • ~ www.nameboy.com – This is a playful generator site. You search for words and let the program know if you want your domain to use hyphens or rhyming words. It also has a “who is” search. A cool feature is that you can submit your domain name and they will appraise the words for things like search frequency, terms and keyword advertising values, popularity. Using this tool will help you evaluate your domain relative to keywords.

Because your domain name is part of your image and branding, use all the resources available to make a good choice. Sometimes domains come easy and are a logical fit AND are available—the planets aligned for you! It gets tricky when your first choice isn’t available or you can’t find a good combination of words. Your domain should represent your company and product or service in order to better integrate your website into your marketing strategy.

The ultimate domain name does not make an ultimate site…you still need to put some work and effort into great content and design. Go the extra mile with keywords and some SEO work. Otherwise, your website will be all dressed up with nowhere to go.

In today’s internet world, there are great online tools, what are your favorites?

Posted on by Brandon

As an interactive marketing agency, we are always trying to find new ways to save time, provide better quality, or to check in on the ‘Jonses’ and see what they are offering their customers

Widgets

This first tool is a customer service dream. It’s called ‘Jing‘ and essentially, it allows you to take quick pics and videos of your screen and then share it with other people. If you’ve created an image, Jing will allow you to use some general tools to make the image more lively, such as an arrow or text box.

What’s even cooler, is that this tool comes with a very useful feature, a free account at Screencast.com when you give Jing a try. Once you have uploaded your image or video to Screencast, it auto-generates a link for you to send to someone else who can now view your newly created image or video. Screencast even auto-generates embed code…WOW!

Check out this image I created.

And here is a video I created.

For more info, go to techsmith.com, a great company with great ideas.

Lets move onto some real fun. I play a little game here at the office. It’s called, ‘Copy-Mac.’ The rules of the game are simple:
1. Listen to the cool features Mac users say they have that PCs do not.
2. Find a PC tool that copies those features exactly.
3. Show them…

One feature many Mac users love, is the tile-window feature. I have recently come across a tool that lets me continue to play this game. The tool is called ‘Admiral’ created by Mexircus and it’s not only useful, it’s fun to use, especially if you are like me and have tons of windows open at any given time.

Compare: here is the PC view with Admiral; and below that is the Mac version,

PC View:

Mac View:

These are just a couple of tools that I have found to be fun and useful.

Photo Sharing

Flickr – almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world – has two main goals:
1. We want to help people make their content available to the people who matter to them.

Flickr is the WD-40 that makes it easy to get photos or video from one person to another in whatever way they want.

2. We want to enable new ways of organizing photos and video.

Once you make the switch to digital, it is all too easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer number of photos you take or videos you shoot with that itchy trigger finger. Albums, the principal way people go about organizing things today, are great — until you get to 20 or 30 or 50 of them. They worked in the days of getting rolls of film developed, but the “album” metaphor is in desperate need of a Florida condo and full retirement.

In Flickr, you can give your friends, family, and other contacts permission to organize your stuff – not just to add comments, but also notes and tags. People like to ooh and ahh, laugh and cry, make wisecracks when sharing photos and videos. Why not give them the ability to do this when they look at them over the internet? And as all this info accretes as metadata, you can find things so much easier later on, since all this info is also searchable.

Others:

Webshots
Share your pictures through photo messages, online photo albums, custom prints and gifts. |

Snappages
Fully flash built interface with 3D slideshows and an image editor.

Fotki
Free unlimited photo hosting for blogs, 9 cent prints, and photo contests.

Shutterfly
Free unlimited storage, 12 cent prints, as well as calendars and photo books.

Contacts/Business Network

Linkedin – Your professional relationships are key to your professional success. Our mission is to help you be more effective in your daily work and open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have.

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 25 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

Others:

BNI International Web Site
BNI – International Website … BNI is the largest business networking organization in the world. We offer members the opportunity to share ideas, …

Ryze business networking
Ryze Business Networking, make business connections, make new contacts and … The prospects of social networking sites that focus on business-oriented …

Project Management

Basecamp takes a fresh, novel approach to project collaboration. Projects don’t fail from a lack of charts, graphs, stats, or reports, they fail from a lack of clear communication. Basecamp solves this problem by providing tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project.

Others:

AceProject.com
Ace Project PM Software website. Commercial.

EasyProjects.net
EasyProjects PM Software website. Commercial.

ProjectInsight.net
ProjectInsight PM software website. Commercial.

People Search

Spock is “Google,” but for people. I use Spock to find out more about other companies or people I interact with. If i know more about them, I can probably help them more effectively. Of course the most relevant use is to find old friends, collegues, or even your boss…

Others:

Wink
Search using the world’s largest people search engine. Find people by name and get their phone number, address, Websites, photos, work, school, more.

PeekYou
PeekYou’s free people search engine allows you to find, contact, and track anyone online. Find photos, links, work, school and family info and much more.

Video Sharing

YouTube
Hosts user-generated videos. Includes network and professional content.

Break.com
Hosts user-generated videos. Includes network and professional content.

Viddler
You need to be logged in to use this feature. If you don’t have a Viddler account, you can join Viddler right now. It’s easy and free! …

5min
Find the best how to, instructional and DIY videos.

The list could go on forever…

What are your Favorite online tools?

Average Number of Pages Viewed. What does the mean?

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Last week we began a series about unlocking your businesses’ key performance indicators (KPI) by focusing on a few “key” indicators that will help improve your business. The indicators we discussed were:

  • Average Page Views Per Visit
  • Average Time Per Visit
  • Average Bounce Rate

This week we’ll focus on Average Page Views Per Visit in detail and provide best practices surrounding the decisions you can make from this KPI.

The average page views per visit on your website is also referred to as ‘depth.’ Depth is the average number of page views a visitor consumes before ending their session. It is calculated by dividing total number of page views by total number of sessions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics).

Primarily, this is used as an indicator of two things:

  • How compelling your content and messaging are
  • How easy it is to navigate your website

Keep in mind that different websites have different purposes. Marketing and E-commerce websites generally want to increase this average, because it shows greater interest from the visitor. However, depending on the goals of the website, more page views can indicate confusion on the part of the visit. For example, if your message is simple and your purpose is to quickly drive a visitor to call you from your website, then your average page views should be low.

When the average number of page views per visit trends against expectations, we recommend examining a handful of common site components that affect page views:

Presentation: First impressions are EVERYTHING. Even if you have a compelling message and the presentation of your website is poor, you may not capture the attention of your visitor. Consider reviewing your competition and analyzing whether or not your presentation is on par with those websites.

Expectation: If presentation and content are strong, however visitors are not engaging with your messaging, then your website may not be meeting visitor expectations. If this is happening, do some research on what visitors are typing into search engines to find you and changing your messaging to match these key terms and phrases.

Content: If your content is poorly written and doesn’t follow best practices for web content, visitors may leave your site prematurely. However, if your content is well written, visitors may be inspired to “keep reading,” driving up the average number of page views.

Navigation: Navigation, or website architecture, are critical to providing ‘depth’ of page views. If it is difficult for visitors to navigate your website, they will not be able to easily flow from page to page and browse the contents of your website.

Search Technology: If your search functionality is poor or you don’t have a search function on your site, visitors who are used to searching to find what they want quickly may turn away or not find the information they’re looking for.

Next we’ll discuss average time spent on your website per visit.

$50 for a Color Wheel?

Posted on by Tony

As a designer with years of experience under my belt, working with and integrating color schemes into both print and web pages has always been a bit of a challenge, and it’s not something I take lightly. Color plays such a vital role in anything designed — it sets the mood and tone of the work, targets market appeal, brand and market position and even implication of the work (which identical Mercedes Benz ‘looks’ more expensive — a black one or a green one? I’ll quote Wesley Snipes: “Always bet on black”).

Enter ColorSchemer Studio. I used to use color theory books galore, and still rely on my own sense and experience with color, but ColorSchemer Studio ($49.99) is now officially in my arsenal. It’s a powerful little app that isn’t overly complicated, and does the job very, very well. And that is — speeds up the process of color selection, down to the nuances, and gives you a nice, simpatico color palette to work with. You can even work ‘backward’ by taking an image, picking a few key colors letting the ColorSchemer generate a palette from those.

When finished, export your palette in a number of compatible file types for the development program you’re working in. For casual users ColorSchemer offers less expensive version that retains the core application but without some of the bells and whistles.

I highly recommend this app for designers — web, print or other. It makes what could be a frustrating and painful job a whole lot easier. Enjoy!

A Recipe for Successful Local Marketing …

Posted on by Michael Boyer

Franchise companies have many challenges, one of which is local marketing. Traditionally, it has been difficult to produce consistent local marketing campaigns that drive leads to the local office. These campaigns normally consist of some sort of direct mail, “yellow pages” or print advertising, all of which are becoming much less effective in these techno-savvy times.

A new recipe for local marketing includes 2 cups website, 1/2 cup email, 1 cup search engine and a dash of tracking. Mixed well to make a successful local marketing campaign.

2 cups Website – A website is made of visual imagery and textual content. When mixing up your website, please choose only natural and relevant text for your content. This will allow the search engine and website to blend well together and produce a better tasting (more leads) dish. Use the combination of visual imagery and text to produce the fragrant smell (call to action) that entices your guests (site visitors) heads toward the kitchen (your contact information)

1/2 cup Email – An email is one page of your website delivered to your contact’s email box. It’s a combination of problem-solving and education. If you can brew these two items together to create interest and anticipation then you have succeeded in stirring up interest in your website. Email should never outwardly sell your services, but should educate your customer.

1 cup Search Engine – Search engine is the final and most often forgotten ingredient to your successful local marketing campaign. Search engine is only effective if it is incorporated well with website. If your website and search engine have similar content then customers will find website in their search engine queries.

A dash of Tracking – To realize success is to measure success. Use Google analytics to track your website and your traffic sources to understand if these ingredients are producing an increase in customers coming to your website. This tool will also show you the increase the number of customers who contact you.

We hope you enjoy this new recipe! If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

Deconstructing Your Home Page

Posted on by Michael Boyer

Your web site’s home page design should be insightful and creative. It should engage your clients and guide them through your site, compelling them to take action in the places you specify. Your home page is also your client and future clients’ first impression of you as a person, company, brand, product and/or service. And at the hyper-speed with which everything technological moves these days, you want your home page to do it all and say it all – all in a few minutes.

Eye Contact

A visually appealing design will draw your clients into your site, but placing your important messaging and calls to action in prime locations encourages them to stay and participate. By structuring your home page effectively, you’ll create a visual hierarchy that provides users with an intuitive path through your home page.

Understanding how users’ eyes typically move on a web page will help give some logic to getting the most from your home page’s real estate. Most users’ eyes begin either in the upper left corner of the page or in the middle of the page and then move to the upper left corner. So, placing your company logo and possibly your brand messaging in the upper left corner is a great start.

Your clients’ eyes may then scan across the top of the page to the upper right corner. This path is logical based on Western readers reading from left to right and generally follows your main navigation bar. The users’ eyes may then zig back left and down, so putting calls to action or action items in a left side bar (buy now, join now, learn more) tells your users how to participate.

Typically, your users’ eye movement zags the rest of the page ending in the lower right corner of the page. So, this gives you another chance to make an impact on your client.

Remember, these are general eye movement theories*. There are many other synergistic factors that draw your clients into the site and compel them to move through the page and stay on your site.

This Company Speaks to Me

Establish your credibility immediately on your home page with accurate and compelling content. Your home page introduction should not be a dissertation because users “scan” and “skim” more than read. Convey what you do or are offering to your audience and why you do it better than your competition. Get this message across in the first minute of their visit.

Make your headlines inspiring and informative. “Welcome to my home page” misses the boat…think Ferris Bueller’s econ teacher, “anyone…anyone.” Establishing what you do or what you want your clients to know in your headline is much more interesting. For example, we want our clients and our future clients to know that we “Know why. Know how.” We know why our clients need our products and services and we know how to implement solutions to achieve our client’s goals.

Your content should be relevant to your target audience and make clients say, “this company speaks to me.” Educating your customers with information they want and need gives them a reason to visit, stay, and return, again and again.

Are We There Yet?

Easy and intuitive navigation is a must for your home page and web site. Web sites that use breadcrumbs help their clients navigate backward. This is especially helpful if your site is large. Also, limiting the amount of levels your users need to “drill down” into to find the info they want is good user-friendly design. Making your clients and users work to find information is a great tool to drive them away. Users equate a poorly organized site with the quality of your company, product or service.

  • ~ Place important page links in several place on the page (main navigation, side bars, call to action buttons)
  • ~ Offer different ways to get there. Use both text links and graphic buttons for site navigation.
  • ~ Organize content on your page so it’s logical. Place the most important message pieces in prime spots “above the fold.”

Less is More

Graphical elements can add elegance to your home page. But, if your design is not thoughtful, your site can look and feel like a three-ring circus. Your graphics should fit your company’s messaging and branding. Flash might be snazzy, but it can also be distracting to search engine spiders and eat up valuable user time. Automated slide shows are a nice alternative. Used wisely, slide shows dynamically feature multiple images in one place. If your business requires other images on the same page, give careful attention to the number of other images and their sizes relative to your main image area.

Interactivity

Calls to action such as joining your e-newsletter, signing up for a monthly email, donating online or buying your product offer your users direct interaction with you in a click of a button…well, a click and then some data entry. These links or graphic button links should be clearly labeled and strategically placed. Putting an important call to action or two in various places on your home page gives your clients several opportunities to participate.

Keyword Relevancy and Density

Search engines are looking for relevant keywords within your content. This doesn’t mean just repeating your keywords over and over; they need to be written logically into the text. A good rule of thumb is between 150-250 keyword rich content. You can write more, but keep in mind that scrolling can sometimes be an issue for users. Keep your main messaging “above the fold” for good measure.

Double-Check and Check Again

Links that go back home, nowhere or contain 404 errors are frustrating for your clients. Typos and grammatical errors are a big no-no. Invest in the time to make sure your message is proofread and spelled correctly. With spelling and grammar check programs, there is no excuse for these errors on your home page. It destroys your clients’ confidence in you and creates the impression that you are not competent, therefore whatever your offering is of poor quality.

Make your page visually stimulating and easy to navigate. Optimize your branding and calls to action by placing these messages in strategically smart locations. Make your sparkling content accurate and error-free. Remember, your home page is your first impression and sometimes, you only get one chance to make it a lasting one.

*We will discuss eye movement and web site design more in-depth soon!

Project Manglement, um… I mean Project Management

Posted on by Michael Boyer

In today’s interactive environment; design, marketing and creative companies rely on their high-powered creative professionals, executives and sales teams to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

BUT … these leaders can only promise you an unsurpassed product or service, they, themselves, generally are not delivering the end result.

THIS is left to another member of the team, the project manager.

Tasked-based project planning and management is the backbone of successful enterprise Internet marketing initiatives. This is the essential element to effective PM and driving both internal and external accountability. Using PMI best practices for project planning, change management, risk management and resource allocation provide stability, predictability and control to any large complex project.

Project managers often walk the fine line between micro-managing and holding team members accountable for hitting targets. The task-based plan empowers individual team members to take control, especially on large web interactive projects – and it provides a clear level of accountability to the team as well as to the client.

By applying the task-based PM practices, the Elements team is able to deliver world-class products and exceptional customer service.

THE REAL DIFFERENCE is the project manager who is committed to superior service.

Michael Boyer, CMO of ELEMENTS, shares a “Core Belief” that guides our project management methodologies and superior service goals.

The humility of the transparent (Service: authentic people, real service)
To be of service to others lies at the core of the meaning of honesty. For to facilitate lasting change and progress the goal must be to do the good thing, the right thing, and to speak the truth. It is from this place of honesty that we do well.

Thus our way is to share, in service to our clients and partners, what makes us special. We are a transparent company; our clients and partners can feel our passion, touch our intelligence, hear our camaraderie, see our energy and sense our difference. We have quiet values yet we hold them fiercely; we have our custom definitions of quality, value and professionalism.

And at the end of the day we ask the simple questions ‘Did we matter?’ and ‘Have we contributed?’ for the measure of our longevity will be in how others judge us. In an era when change is a whirling dervish it is the fact that we come back time and time again to a place of transparent humility that will enable our world to see us and our company for what it is – human, real, humble and different.