Fonts: Website Enhancement through Font Choice

Improve your website by choosing a psychologically appropriate font. Audience perception is affected by psychological impact of fonts in websites and documents. Would you deliver a doctoral dissertation in baby talk? A sports play-by-play in legalese? With so many fonts available, how can you decide which font will most effective suit your purpose? A Wichita University study recently examined the “personality traits” of several different fonts through an electronic survey. The charts below from the University of Wichita site show how different fonts were perceived and how they would be used by respondents. To illustrate the psychological impact of fonts take a look at these two passages, both with an identical message, but the blink is quite different.
Improve your website by choosing a psychologically appropriate font. Audience perception is affected by psychological impact of fonts in websites and documents. Would you deliver a doctoral dissertation in baby talk? A sports play-by-play in legalese?  (Appropriate for formal invitations)
Improve your website by choosing a psychologically appropriate font. Audience perception is affected by psychological impact of fonts in websites and documents. Would you deliver a doctoral dissertation in baby talk? A sports play-by-play in legalese? (An appropriate choice for a friendly scrapbooking project.)

Websites Search Engines Find: Make Marketable Sites

Market your website with effective search engine optimization and create user friendly sites. These ten tips will help your site get found.  The most beautiful site isn’t worth a hill of beans if it can’t be found. Need help implementing these steps? Get free email updates by subscribing to this site.

1. Your website address needs to be memorable and easy to type. Make it clear what your site is about. Search engines don’t give points for having your product in your URL, but it can help get it can make it easier for folks to recall the name of your site.
2. Use product names and keywords when building the files for your web site. Use hyphens instead of underscores in naming the files. (ie.www.widgetworld.org/green-widgets.html.) Why? Search engine robots sometimes read hyphens and under-scores differently plus you get keyword credit when using hyphens.
3. Content COUNTS! Make sure every web site and every page you build has  compelling text on each page. How much content? Opinions vary on the amount for the best site optimization,  but most agree it should never be less than 200 words of text and 10% of those should be important keywords.
4. See your site through the eyes of a search engine. Follow these rules in layout and design of a web site if you want the site to market well in the search engines:
   • Use more text content than html on the home page.
   • Avoid frames.
   • Minimize javascript. (No matter how cute that little applet might be, resist it!)
   • If posting ads make sure you attach no follow tags.
   • Make it clear what the site is about the minute it comes up on the visitor's screen.
   • Keep all files close to the root directory (search engines don’t like to crawl deep for info).
   • Do not use all caps for text.
5. Make sure each page title is seven words or less. Avoid stopper words (of, the, this, and, etc.) in titles. Give every page a unique title on the page matched to the meta tag title.
6. Use meta tags. Are meta tags dead?  Some search engines may ignore them this week, but next week that could change so put meta tags on each web site page.  It certainly won’t hurt a web page to have meta tags. Use meta tags correctly: keep the title tags less than 60 characters (punctuation and spaces count as characters); keep the description tags to 150 characters; and use no more than ten keyword phrases for keyword tags.
7. Make sure each page has at least one internal link to another page on your site and add external links that help the viewer understand the site better.
8. Use alt tags for each graphic so people surfing the net with graphics turned off or the handicapped can still understand your site because of well formulated alt tags containing key words.
9. Select a topic and stay with it. One topic is best, so if your site is about widgets use that as the theme and have pages about green, blue and titanium widgets. Do not try to sell widgets and coconuts on the same site — have two sites with single themes.
10. Include a link page on your web site. Try to have 20 links to your web site from other web sites before you go live on the internet. Make sure those other sites linking to you that have web site themes that are complementary to yours. A site about baby clothes with links to a night club, just doesn’t flow.

If you use these ten tips, your site will be much easier to find and have a greater potential for success.  The internet is constantly changing, so it’s important to stay on top of the latest research, and implement this knowledge. Subscribe to this site to stay informed.

What’s Your HPA? Are You Marketing It?

After reading “Always have a Call to Action” in Entrepreneurial Woman, I started questioning: How well am I presenting my call to action?  What is my Highest Paying action? & How can I market it effectively? Read on for business building tips using your HPA.

What Consumers Want

According to Karen Dodd. of Entrepreneurial Woman,people want  easy-to-understand, bite-sized marketing messages and most of all, be told what to do next.

3 Parts of a Compelling Marketing Message

The author advises-truly compelling marketing messages :

• Ask critical attention grabbing questions.
• Reassure readers there is a solution for their situation.
• Tell them exactly what they need to do next.

How it Works

Targeted questioning resonates with your ideal client,  forcing them to confront what is not working in their life. Questions like: “are you: frustrated by, struggling with, embarrassed about…?” remind them of their “pain.”

Reassuring engages them further. We all want to think we are experiencing the same thing as others, but want to discover a better way. In effect, you're saying to prospective clients, “you're normal, there is a way out of your situation and it's not your fault that you haven't been shown the solution yet.”

Presenting the Call to Action Tell them what you want them to do next. Direct them to take your “highest payoff action” (HPA). Your HPA is the action that gives the highest likelihood of prospects becoming paying clients. What is your HPA? Call for a complimentary consultation?  Fill in info and email it to you, Register for a free teleclass you're offering?

Using Your HPA Ms. Dodd emphasizes-Put a  clear, compelling “call to action” on all your prospecting material: your website, ezine, brochures, business card, special offers and mailings. If your call to action is missing from any of your marketing messages, you're wasting time, energy and money. 

People often think of a website as only a means to establish an online presence, not realizing it can get them new business, It shouldn't be that way. Karen says, “All too often, (I see) entrepreneurs sacrificing utility for beauty. …beautiful marketing doesn't get you new clients.”

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Take Action! Karen Dodd’s 3 Steps for Maximizing HPA

1. Take a really critical look at your website: (yes, now!)

Does the very first page remind visitors of their discomfort through compelling questions and tell them exactly what to do next?  People visit your website for a reason. Get their attention and  help them solve their problems. You're not being negative or hitting them over the head, you’re saving them time!

2. Look at your business card:

Is it simply a calling card with contact information, or does it actively brings you business?  Two must haves on  your business card:

• Free Special Offer in exchange for their name and email,
• Minimum 3 "pull marketing questions," and what they should do next, to see if you can be of help

3. Review your marketing materials:

Is the HPA you want people to take clearly indicated every time you send out a mailing,  newsletter, or special announcement,? This is especially critical with mailed marketing pieces, (conversion rates, even with expert marketing, are typically very low). Anything (even a warm friendly update letter) without a clear call to action, is a waste of your time, energy and money. – (Tip: Save time by putting it in your email signature.)

Ms Dodd Summarizes If you made an in-person sales call, then didn't ask for their business or tell them the next step in the process, wouldn't you be disrespecting them and their time? When someone is interested enough to stop by our website or look at our marketing materials, they're looking for help and it’s our duty to share how we can help them. It's their responsibility to make their own decision, you're simply making it clear to them how to take the next step, to get the help they came looking for. 

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The original article: Always have a Call to Action.accessed16/08/2010