Dec
13
I recently read this article on how type affects a company’s image. Most of us have a good feel for what is appropriate for a serious company such as an accountant or lawyer, versus what a restaurant or daycare center might use for a logo or font on a website. However, The Software Usability Research Lab really breaks it down scientifically. Good read.
From the article summary:
This study investigated the effect of website typeface appropriateness on the perception of the site’s company. Results indicate that typefaces that are high in appropriateness should be used for websites. Neutral and low appropriate typefaces significantly decreased the perception of the company as judged by professionalism, believability, trust, and intent to act on the site.
Dec
3
10 signs you probably aren’t ready for an e-commerce website
Filed Under E-commerce Design | 4 Comments
Based on my experience with clients who have physical store locations and don’t want to miss out on this new craze called “the world wide web”, I’ve come up with some signs that may indicate you may not be ready for managing an e-commerce website. Feel free to use this as an interview checklist before signing on new clients.
1. You do not know how to resize a photo.
2. You want to send the designer the ACTUAL product to scan to put on your website.
3. You want your store to be designed to *literally* look like the storefront of your physical location. Windows and all.
4. You do not know the difference between natural search results and PPC/adwords.
5. You want to duplicate amazon.com for $300, and it has to be done by friday.
6. “If I build it, they will come” is your marketing plan.
7. You think your e-commerce company isn’t qualified because they won’t show you how to use a digital camera or operate quickbooks.
8. Your plan for taking payment online is to have customers email you their credit card number & order
9. You still use a dial-up connection with AOL
10. You’ve never actually shopped online
Oct
6
Today we recap “What’s New With Retailers & Search Marketing”, presented by Search Marketing Expo (Oct 6, 2008, NYC).
As previous and future blog posts will reveal, SEO for e-commerce is quite a different beast than SEO for an informational website. With the holiday shopping season quickly approaching, Now is the time to really be getting your e-commerce websites marketing in gear.
Sep
15
One of the latest trends in web design is the ‘hand drawn’ look.
Can it truly be achieved via Illustrator or Photoshop? I doubt it. You tell me.
Checkout these hand drawn (looking!) websites;
(rollover for preview!)
The Original hand drawn design: www.dailycandy.com
squawkdesign.com
carlkrull.dk
flatfish.com.my
lucuma.com.ar
dawghousedesignstudio.com
themattinator.com
charmingwall.com
erguvanplatin.com
pointlessramblings.com
Resources:
Hand Drawn Fonts
Hand Drawn arrows, stars, and other doodles.
Hand drawn ‘call to action’s.
Ok, want to cheat and use a tablet? Heres a great tutorial.
Sep
3
SEO Audit: Whatiseeoutmywindow.com
Filed Under Sites Reviewed | 3 Comments
domaintools.com SEO Score:71%
Summary:
What an interesting site. I found myself quite addicted to this – couldn’t stop myself from reading each post. It’s a clever way to satisfy the voyeur in all of us. Since this blog is hosted at Blogspot, it’s difficult to make any coding changes to the site itself. Also, since the website is designed for entertainment and doesn’t really fit any particular niche, its impossible to find a keyword list to optimize the site for. However, I do have a few suggestions.
The Good:
HTML navigation. Interesting content that will keep the user coming back frequently to view new posts.
The Bad:
- Its hosted on blogspot, which restricts the amount of on-site optimization that can be done.
- Its blue text on a blue background. This makes it difficult to read for the average user and possibly impossible for the 3 of 10 men who have some form of color blindness.
- Difficult to navigate.
- This template has some bugs in IE.
- Not well monetized.
Suggestions:
- Choose a different template that offers a light background with dark text. Users will be able to view it easier and in turn will stay longer.
- Try to increase the length of your content in each post.
- The extent of inbound links seems to be limited to stumbleupon & technorati. Improving your inbound links will provide the essential boost you need going forward. Consider making a small icon or banner that says “see what i see out my window”, or something to that extent, as a souviner for the people who send in photos from thier window. Include the code that they should use to post it on their blogs. Not only will the submitter feel pride in being able to display ‘thier’ view of the world, but it also creates valuable backlinks and can even drive traffic from your submitters websites.
- When you do create links to your blog, link to your domain name, www.whatiseeoutmywindow.com instead of whatiseeoutmywindow.com.blogspot.com. This way, if you ever plan to host the site on your own server, your traffic (and page rank) will come with you.
- Instead of listing all contributors in the left column of your website, consider giving credit for each post to the appropriate submitter instead. IE, at the bottom of a submitters post, write “this post submitted by Lisa of www.lisablog.com”. So instead of having thirty of the same outbound links on every page (as it is now), each blog post can pass ‘juice’ only to the one submitter credited with submitting the post. It also opens up space in your left column for advertising.
- To monetize your website, use image ads instead of text ads in your left navigation. Image ads are more likely to be viewed and clicked on, resulting in more cash in your pocket. You can insert a single line of text link ads between posts (or every few posts) to be less intrusive. Another possible way of making money is to offer businesses shots of their storefronts instead of their homes at a flat ‘per post’ rate.
- To drive more traffic to your website, you’ll need more of a ‘word of mouth’ marking campaign. Consider collecting the emails of people who send you their submissions, and send out a monthly newsletter with the latest window posts. Offer a RSS feed so users can get fresh windows as often as you publish them. Invite users with personal or related blogs (travel, city blogs, home and garden websites) to post their windows, and let them know that you’ll give their website credit, which may provide additional exposure to the submitters website.
- If possible, add a ‘related posts’ feature (or add related posts manually) so when users are viewing a window in Phoenix, AZ they can click a link at the bottom of the post to see other windows in Phoenix, AZ.
Jun
21
‘Grunge’ seems to be the latest design trend to be taking over the interwebs.
SmashingMagazine suggests the grunge look is for websites with “more natural and subtle colors“. Here we present a few sites that use the grunge look, but as the post suggest, with bright, candy colors.
Rollover to see preview:
http://www.oneprayer.com
http://www.futureofwebdesign.com
http://www.erguvanplatin.com
http://www.graphics.net
Resources for creating your own grunge design:
Grunge Fonts
How to create Grunge Effects in Photoshop
Cool Grunge Brushes for Photoshop
Jun
7
Design Trend: Purple
Filed Under Web Design Trends | Leave a Comment
What is it about the color purple that makes such a remarkable impact?
The term ‘purple cow’ is a marketing term referring to an idea or concept that steps people in thier tracks – making them notice, and hopefully get them talking about it. Seth Godin’s Marketing for the book “Purple cow” employs this very technique.
Nexium was one of the first brands to employ this technique, literally – both nicknaming its product ‘the purple pill’ and coloring its ads and the pill itself purple.
Yahoo! Recently released their new theme – purple. The slogan: “Start wearing purple“. Look more more purple all over Yahoo, including on the new advertising platform, APT.
I’m sure you want to see more purple sites and judge for yourself. Rollover to preview.
PA Department of Health
Nexium, the purple pill
Sheridan, Oregon
oenonline
Espuma Restaurant
Bel Koo
SciFi Channel
Partners in Rhyme
AZFamily.com
May
30
Web Design Color Swatches
Filed Under Blog Design, Design General, E-commerce Design | 2 Comments
Ever get ‘creative block’ when you’re just desperate for inspiration, and need that little boost to get you started? Check out these graphic color swatches. Feel free to use as you wish. Post what you come up with and send me a link.
May
15
SEO Audit: www.wearyourbeer.com
Filed Under Sites Reviewed | 5 Comments
domaintools.com SEO Score:73%
Read more
Apr
29
All About Site Structure
Filed Under Blog Design, E-commerce Design | Leave a Comment
This First, lets start with the two types of site structure – physical and virtual. Both types are important for different reasons. Physical site structure is important to show search engines structure and organization; Virtual site structure is important for users to be able to navigate the site. Lets look at two examples.
Physical site structure: we have a homepage, or index – with 4 categories. Within each category are 3 pages. the directories and URL’s should look like a family tree:
http://www.mysite.com/
http://www.mysite.com/category1/
http://www.mysite.com/category1/page1.html
http://www.mysite.com/category1/page2.html
http://www.mysite.com/category1/page3.html
This is important so that search engines can not only better navigate your website, but can also put more ‘weight’ on certain pages. In this case, a search engine (SE) would see the index page as most important, then a category page, then the lowest level pages as least important. By placing all pages at the top level, or in the root directory, such as below – SE’s will assume all pages are equally important.
http://www.mysite.com/category1-page1.html
http://www.mysite.com/category1-page2.html
http://www.mysite.com/category1-page3.html
Virtual site structure: Regardless of physical site structure, google can also follow the links on a website. If a site’s navigation can show SE’s a structure, SE’s can better understand the importance of your pages, and better index your website. This can be done via a sites navigation, and/or by using breadcrumbs. To use navigation to show a virtual structure, A website can display the main categories, sub-categories, and pages within the subcateories within the main page or within the main navigation, as shown on Jcrew.com. In this particular instance, I’ve clicked “womens”, then “sweaters”. On this page, you can also see which subcategories fall within the category “sweaters”, which is within the category “womens”. Hopefully, you haven’t used javascript or ajax, and SE’s can properly follow your links.
Sample of “silo’ed” navigation:
Home
Category_one
Category_two
Category_three
-subcategory_three_a
- – page-one.html
- – page-two.html
-subcategory_three_b
-subcategory_three_c
- – page-one.html
- – page-two.html
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