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Innovative Websites
may 2008 * the new media insider * fletcher prince |
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Engage Your Visitors With Interactive Content
Here are 7 tips to bring life to your website and increase your web site's search engine optimization.
- Make your website useful to your readers, in an entertaining way. Changing and refreshing your information frequently will encourage repeat visits and increase your search engine optimization.
- Add ways to interact with your site. Widgets, comments, polls, YouTube videos, podcasts, customized social networks, forms, and quizzes are just some ways to engage your visitors.
- When creating content about your business or nonprofit organization, ask, why would they want to read this? What is the benefit of
our services or product to my web site visitors?
- Place your call to action -- what you want your visitors to do when they visit your site -- in a prominent location; within the top few inches of your web site.
- Use headlines and subtitles liberally, but keep your content short
and conversational.
- Create a generous number of pages, in HTML. Search engines place priority in search results on web sites with numerous pages, and they don't read Flash that well.
- Create a blog, link it to your web site, and add content to it twice or three times a week. Search engines love blogs.
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Get Your Favicon On!  What's a "favicon?" It's that little graphic image that perches next
to your URL, dressing it up like a cute pair of earrings. A favicon is a tiny
distillation of your company's or nonprofit organization's logo, and is just
about the smallest graphical representation of your brand. Favicons can be
difficult to design, but when you nail it, it's pure brand recognition.
The term blends the words "favorite" and "icon" because it's the icon you click when you bookmark a web site's URL as one
of your favorite web sites.
If you don't have one, we can design one for
you. Presenting a website without a favicon is like serving a banana
split without a maraschino cherry. There's just something
missing -- something so small, and yet so important!
By the way, this small jpg isn't just for browser bars. Favicons make nifty social media accessories. Fletcher Prince uses its asterisk favicon for our Flickr page and for the various social networks with which we affiliate.
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 Designing Web Sites Women Like
Advertising Age reports that more than 50% of online users are female. The online
community of women is the Internet's fastest growing market segment.
At Fletcher Prince, we specialize in
creating web sites that appeal to women of varying age groups. We use
designers and programmers who know what women like and who ARE women.
We've learned from research and experience that, speaking generally, women prefer web sites that are beautifully designed, highly interactive, and which feature outstanding, emotion-eliciting, over-sized photographs.
Curvilinear fonts, white backgrounds, bright colors, and magazine-style
layouts and images are also important design elements for women.
Research shows that women are especially fond of interactive features, such
as quizzes, contests, and forums. They also prefer relevant content that can be absorbed and
used quickly (since they are multi-taskers), such as top ten lists and checklists.
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Website Makeover
 Does my website reflect my company's brand?
Your brand is a reflection of your company's personality. Make sure
the style, tone, and language of your website will appeal to your most
important customers. If they can't relate to your brand OR your
website, call Fletcher Prince for a brand makeover!
Does my website look like my company? Will my target audience recognize it?
Your website should have a look and feel, including colors,
photographs, typeface, logo, and tagline, that are easily associated
with your company's other (successful) marketing materials (such as
your business card, print advertisements, posters, brochures, and other
collateral). Like a stylish wardrobe, everything should basically
coordinate.
Is my website organized in a way that makes sense to my customers?
When designing a website, it's important to consider what your
customers may expect to see when visiting a website in your product or
service category (do some investigative research by examining the
websites of your competitors!)
I am a fan of simply designed websites with horizontal navigation
bars and a clear and single call to action/key message on each page.
It's hard to go wrong with a formula like that, although you can stray
from it on occasion.
You do have to anticipate the kinds of questions your customers may
have, or the objections they may be thinking "why should I buy this
product?" and counter it with well-organized and consistent messages
that reassure your web page's visitor and encourages them to continue
exploring your site or moving to the next step (calling you, placing an
order, making a donation, etc.)..
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Thanks for reading! Your friends at Fletcher Prince hope this newsletter has inspired you to investigate social networks, and try them yourself! For more information, just call us at (703) 582-2580 or email me, Mary Fletcher Jones.
Sincerely,
Mary Fletcher Jones
Fletcher Prince
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How Much Will It Cost Me?
Template sites can be inexpensive, and at Fletcher Prince, we can create websites using templates with a variety of features for as little as $1500 per site.
The costs for writing, designing, and building a custom-designed HTML website is higher. Depending on the project, the costs vary widely, but, on average, expect to pay...
$200-$500 per page for copy writing and editing
$25-$500 per photograph
$3,500-$8,000 for graphic design and coding for an HTML site
$2,000-and up for content management systems
$5,000-$25,000 for usability testing and analysis (if needed)
$1,000-$3.000 for custom-designed logos (a little less for favicons)
$1,500-$2,500 for custom-designed blog sites
$25 a month for hosting
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