With a communication medium as ever changing as the Web, setting your business apart from others seems increasingly difficult. Statistically, consumers decide in seconds whether or not your site has what they are looking for. So what sets apart your site from the competition, and how do you make a unique site that attracts visitors? Read the full article…
Archive for Usability/Design
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What Makes a Web Trendsetter?
Elise Georgeson
13Nov
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Corporate Blog Tips: Content, Design and Usability
Cory Grassell
If you read my last article about the benefits of corporate blogging, you have been waiting for this follow-up blog post about basic usability, content and design guidelines for your corporate blog. All these elements work together, catering to easy navigation so readers can find information fast. After all, consumers are more on the go than ever before. Read the full article…
29Oct
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Corporate Blogging Benefits
Cory Grassell
You’ve probably heard reports that search engine marketing and online advertising is expected to grow in the next five years. This data comes directly on the heels of other reports that a record number of consumers are searching more frequently than ever. So how do you improve your company’s search marketing to ensure you’re positioned at the forefront of organic search engine results? Establishing a corporate web log (blog) is a simple, cost-effective way to drive organic traffic to your site, which creates opportunities to grow your sales conversions and, ultimately, a bigger customer base. If you haven’t yet set up a company blog, consider that 70 to 80 percent of blog traffic comes from new visitors — a major increase in your sales leads. Read the full article…
28Oct
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Improve Your Website’s Usability
Cory Grassell
Just as your brick-and-mortar storefront is a representation of your company and often the first impression shoppers get of you, your website acts in much the same way for the online shopping experience. You go to great lengths to ensure your physical store is clean, organized and staffed with friendly representatives, so shouldn’t your website also enhance the customer’s experience? If your building layout is prohibiting consumers from satisfactorily and conveniently perusing your shelves for what they need, you’d make it better, right? But what if the tools and features of your website are keeping customers from doing business with you? Would you listen to your consumers and improve your site based on their recommendations? Read the full article…
27Oct
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Balancing Online Content and Creative Website Design
Cory Grassell
You’ve heard the old adage that first impressions are everything. Well, research suggests that Web users make aesthetic decisions about their overall visual impressions of websites in as little as 50 milliseconds. That’s 1/20 of a second! As advocates for creative, we can conclude that aesthetics do, in fact, play a major role in the user’s online experience, much the same way that aesthetics affect a shopper’s experience at a physical, brick-and-mortar storefront. For example, shoppers will unlikely return to a store if the stylistic elements or navigation aides prohibit a creative, welcoming aura or simple shopping experience. Read the full article…
26Oct
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Website Design & Development: Call-to-Action Buttons
Cory Grassell
It may seem like a simple element of your overall website design and development, but it shouldn’t be overlooked. One of the most basic design elements can also be the difference maker between a consumer doing business with you versus closing out of your website for a competitor’s site. It impacts business growth, and if you’re not properly using it you could be missing out of potential sales. I’m talking about your online call-to-action button. By effectively implementing a call-to-action button on your website (or in your e-mail marketing design), you greatly increase your chances of converting leads into sales.
Read the full article…21Oct
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You Mean We Just Need to Listen?
Jamie LeRoy
I came across an article today that was refreshingly honest. There is a lot of great advice out there on how to get your consumers to pay attention to your site, click on certain links, how to create “calls to action” that speak to the consumer, but the first thing that any marketer needs to know before they start out with this great advise is, what does the conumser want?
Aaron Kahlow writes about this in, “Understanding Human Behavior to Drive Marketing Decisions” and advises marketers to Listen to their consumers. It can be really easy to get wrapped up in how to make your site look sharper, provide content that draws in the consumer, but because the Web goes both ways, users may feel like they’re not in control and lose patience because you’re trying to oversell your product/services.
To combat this, one suggestion is to employ usability testing on your site. This way you can really listen to the consumer and see how they percieve what you already have, see what you need to change, or add in anything that may be missing from the user experience.
Read the entire article here
05Feb
