The Low Cost Web site Design Secrets series continues. You’ll always be able to click the link to the entire series below.

Low Cost Web Site Design Secret Number 25: Be Almost Painfully Obvious with Your Call to Action.

Imagine this scenario. You’re interested in buying a new flat-screen television, so you go to your favorite store that sells them, which is having a sale with cheap places and is located close to your house. They even have free delivery, so you figure this will be a painless trip.

As you’re wandering around the store, you see all kinds of information about the television that you can read. You see charts with price comparisons, and way at the back of the store are places where you can even sign up to have the catalog sent to your house, although you have to hunt for it, and ask several of the sales people where to find it.

You’re starting to get annoyed, when finally you find the area where there are actually TVs on display. You pick out the one you want, and start looking around for the check out area.

Only you can’t find it. You look everywhere you can think of, and finally ask one of the sales associates about it on the way out. He stares at you blankly and scratches his head, and after much consultation with other associates, directs you to a tiny closet on the far right wall of the store, near the bathrooms.

By this time, it’s been almost an hour and a half, and you’re so freaked out, you just take all the research you’ve put together and go to your second-favorite store. In this one, the TVs on sale are well displayed, and the cash registered are right at the front of the store, the way they are in most department stores. You buy your flat-screen television set and go home happy in about fifteen minutes. You vow never to waste another second in the first store again.

What’s the moral of this story? There are three.

Make your call to action almost painfully obvious - though not obtrusive. No one can buy your products if they don’t know that you’re selling them.
Make the buying process as simple as possible.
Don’t be bashful about selling your products or services. If you are, there’s someone else who won’t be.

Many new webmasters are nervous about the fact that their site sells something, but they shouldn’t be - if your prospects are interested, they may become clients. Indeed, if they are targeted visitors, they may Want to become clients.

And since, on the internet, a person can arrive at just about any part of your site other than the home page, you should have your call to action - whether it is to subscribe or to buy - on every single page of your site, in a prominent, consistent location.

Nina

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The Low Cost Web site Design Secrets series continues. You’ll always be able to click the link to the entire series below.

Low Cost Web Site Design Secret Number 24 : Freshness is Key.

You’ve heard, hundreds of times probably, that people come to the internet for information. But what we often overlook is that you and I come to the internet for fresh, updated information. The very nature of the internet implies that the latest thing is available at any hour of the day.

So do so few site owners update their sites on an on-going basis?

Not only should you be updating the content on your individual pages from time to time, you also want to keep adding new pages and sections to your site. The internet is quickly moving to a more dynamic nature.

Leading internet brands such as Google, Yahoo, Technorati, Amazon and Ebay, are all tending towards an internet that is constantly moving into the era of a web that changes on the fly. It is one of the reasons that updating web technology is so popular.

Blogs, content management systems, RSS and any other technology that makes it easier to update portions of your site appeal to this new trend of the web, and it is no accident that frequently changing sites are at the top of the search engines.

Static web pages and sites are becoming a thing of the past. If you don’t want your site to be a dinosaur, join the era of the dynamic web and update your site.

Nina

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The Low Cost Web site Design Secrets series continues. You’ll always be able to click the link to the entire series below.

Low Cost Web Site Design Secret Number 23 : Master the correct tone of copy for your audience.

You will want to match the tone of your copy to the audience that is coming to your site. The vast majority of the time you’ll want a business casual voice that is conversational - the exception would be circumstances where your audience does not speak in a conversational, business casual tone. Very few commercial sites are going to fit this bill, but it’s not entirely unheard of.

For example, if you had invented a social software such as an instant messenger, while your company might be commercial, your audience speaks in a casual voice, and so should your copy.

Part of having a conversational voice is writing copy that imitates the way you would speak to your future client if there were some way for you to see them step into your virtual store. You will want to be friendly, but not overly intimate. You should use the same short sentences that you would when speaking aloud.

A good way to test your copy for a conversational tone is to open up a best-selling novel and look at a page of dialogue. Instead of actually reading the page, just glance at the layout and look at your site.

When comparing the two, you won’t be looking for an exact match to white space and use of pronouns. Rather, you’ll want to see that the layout of the page looks similiar. If you find too many blocks of text on your page or have copy that reads like an instruction manual than a letter to an aquaintance, you’ll want to have a web site designer or copywriting expert look at your page and give you some pointers.

Sometimes departures from conversational copy will be necessary - but if these are the norm at your site, it’s worth having someone give it a second look.

Nina

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