What Visitors Like and Dislike with Graphics

Here's what Internet users and buyers say they like and dislike.

What Internet visitors like:

- They want easy and logical navigation. Viewers want to find what they're looking for without clicking on numerous links or having to go through numerous pages. Use words for your navigation buttons and links they will recognize such as Home, Order, and Contact. Avoid using an entry page with animation that doesn't tell anything about the content and takes a long time to load.

- They like being in control and having multiple choices. Give them choices by providing many links. Provide plenty of links on your home page, giving an overview of your web site's content and choices.

- They like sites they can interact with. Web visitors like to be involved. Offer an ezine they can subscribe to and provide feedback forms. Bulletin boards (message boards) are a great way to get repeat traffic and visitor interaction. Involve your visitors by providing downloads, databases, search features, contests, quizzes, trivia tests, self-scoring tests, and animated movies that include interactive elements. Other interactive web tools include shopping carts, chat rooms, free classifieds, JavaScript, and search-engine submissions.

- They love content and freebies. Useful, valuable, and entertaining content gets visitors to your site, engages them, builds credibility, and converts them into buyers. Valuable content can include how-to articles, reports, tips, links to useful resources, and freebies.

- They love customer service and will return to sites that treat them well.

- They like pictures without sacrificing speed. A slow web site will cost you sales. Don't make visitors wait for graphics they're not interested in. If you want to illustrate your products with large images, provide thumbnails (small graphics) and let visitors decide if they want to click on them to view larger images that take time to load.

What Internet visitors dislike:

- They dislike long pages. If you have a long sales letter or page, break up your copy into short, easy-to-read sections and use subheadings to highlight benefits. Break up text with white space, color, columns, lines, and graphics.

- They dislike drop-down menus. Some newbies don't know how to use drop-down menus or they're not aware that there is a drop-down list.

- They don't like receiving error messages or their computer locking up. Be aware of programming errors when using Java or JavaScript and other features that may crash a user's computer.

- They don't like difficult-to-use web sites. When using sophisticated features, software, and programming, consider how people access your features. Test if the typical user can use your database and pull-down menus.

Follow these tips to make your web site user friendly. Make it easy for visitors to use your web site and they'll refer your site to their friends, return often to your site, and buy your products and services.

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.



© Leva Duell

How To Boost Your Copywriting with Power Words

Are you using power words in your web sites and blogs? If you aren't, start using them now. Adding power words is an easy way to write more effectively.

What are power words? Powerful words are words that create an image or impression in people's minds. They elicit feelings and actions. For example, the words "bravery, hurt, sacrifice and justice" create a strong impression when you read or hear them.

Power words such as "accomplished, achieved and awarded" in a resume capture an employer's eye and describe the job seeker's accomplishments.

When using power words in your web site they will catch the attention of your web visitors and prospective buyers, create visual pictures in your readers' mind and bring out emotions.

Just replacing a few ordinary words with power words can make your writing powerful and turn ordinary sentences into convincing ones. You should incorporate power words in your sales letters, web site and all marketing materials and business communications. Use strong, powerful, positive words loaded with emotions that are suited to your topic and audience and intersperse them into your writing to create killer sales letters and promotional materials.

Here are some of the most important words that have proven to attract attention, motivate prospects to buy, and increase sales. Use them in your web site's headlines and copy.

FREE
Click here to watch our free video tutorials.

YOU/YOUR
You can use these images in letters, on envelopes, in PowerPoint and in your web site.
Hundreds of “ready-for-you-to-use” images save you time.

NEW
Now you can instantly add a NEW level of response-boosting power to your copy.
How you can add new life to an existing sales letter with these images.

DISCOVER
Discover why simulated handwriting gets attention.
You will discover why the cosmetic of your sales copy is critically important.

AMAZING
10 amazing ways to boost response.
Click here to learn more about an amazing tool for getting profit-boosting attention!

GUARANTEE/GUARANTEED
A copywriting breakthrough guaranteed to supercharge your copy and boost response without changing a Single word.
Your success in using this product is completely guaranteed. Here’s my 100% rock-solid promise to you.

SECRET
This have been called a "secret weapon" that can use to improve your response rates within 90 seconds.
Secrets of keyword placement that only the pro marketers know.

SAVE
66 ways to save time promoting your web site.
The techniques you'll discover in this report can save you a small fortune.

HOW TO
How to dramatically spice up your copy.
How to write compelling copy to attract more people to your web site.
How to attract buyers' attention with compelling headlines.

EASY
Easy-to-use graphic techniques that savvy copywriters use to help guide readers through long copy, create interest and involvement, and boost readership and response.
7 easy ways to increase sales -- fast.

REVEAL (also has INSIDER)
Free report reveals how to boost traffic and increase your Internet sales.
Master marketer reveals seven top ways to make money with your web site.

INSIDER
Free video course reveals the insider strategy & benefits of adding hand-drawn notes to boost response.
An insider's guide to top search engine ranking.
Insider secrets to your own million dollar Internet business.

SUCCESS
10 marketing tips for online success.
A blueprint for your online success.
Secrets on how to design a web site for success!

Other top power words you should use in headlines and sales letters include "breakthrough, latest, proven, money, top (top 10 ways), act (act now), call now, call today

Use power words and action verbs to make your sales letters powerful and compelling and add impact.

Start using power words now! Add power words to all your marketing materials. Use power words when writing headlines and content for your web site. Using them can generate additional traffic, subscriptions, leads and sales.

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.

Easy-To-Read Web Pages Will Increase Sales

Web pages with readable text will generate more sales than fancy-looking pages that are hard to read. Follow these design tips and not only will your web pages be easier to read, but you'll keep potential buyers at your site and position yourself to increase sales.

Keep Pages Short -- Especially Your Home Page

• Put important content at the top of your pages so it's visible to visitors immediately. Users may not scroll through lengthy pages.

• In general, limit the length of a web page to two screens.

• Split up long pages into several pages.

Layout

• Use left aligned text rather than justified text.

• Write short paragraphs (2-5 lines).

• Limit the width of your web pages to fit your visitors' monitors. Your visitors don't want to scroll left to right to see your content.

• Keep the look, layout, navigation, typefaces, and colors consistent on all pages.

Break up Copy

• Break up long text with white space, color, columns, lines, and graphics.

• Break up copy into easy-to-read sections

• Use subheadings and bulleted lists to highlight benefits.

• Draw attention to important information with hand-written text and hand-drawn arrows, circles and other doodles. Do this sparingly to avoid a cluttered look.

Colors

• Use color sparingly. Too much color can be distracting.

• Select a background color that contrasts with the text color to make your content stand out.

• Avoid blue backgrounds when using blue links (the standard link color).

• Avoid dark backgrounds. Dark text on a light background is easy to read.

• Avoid text on multi-colored background images. Such background images will decrease the readability of your text.

• Use web-friendly colors. Colors that look bright on your monitor may appear dark on someone else's and make your message unreadable.

Typography

• Limit the use of small type, reverse type (white text on dark background), and italics.

• Avoid using UPPER CASE in your body copy.

• Limit the number of fonts in a web site to a maximum of three (proferably only two).

• Use a type size that is geared to your target audience. For instance, use larger type for older readers.

• Emphasize important words, headlines, and sentences by using color, bold, and different text sizes. But do so sparingly. Too much bold or color reduces the impact.

• Avoid underlining. Readers might think your underlined words or sentences are links.

• Use standard fonts such as Arial, Verdana, and Times New Roman. If you're using fonts your viewers don't have on their computers, their browsers will substitute those fonts and your web pages will look different on their computers than you intended them to look.

• Avoid special characters like curly quotes, curly apostrophes, n-dashes, and m-dashes. These characters may convert into bogus characters on web sites.

• Use fonts that are appropriate for your subject matter and your audience.

Images and Graphics

• Use images and graphics that support your sales message.

• Keep animation, blinking text, and scrolling text to a minimum. They distract the reader from focusing on your text.

Check Your Pages

Web pages may look different on your visitors' computers, depending on their computer, monitor, browser, and fonts. What may look great with one browser may look unprofessional with another. View your web pages with different browsers, computers, platforms (PC and Mac), screen resolutions, and settings. Statistics indicate that visitors use a wide variety of browsers and platforms.

Keep visitors, prospects, and buyers at your site with easy-to-read, interesting content. An easy-to-read, professional web site can maximize your sales. Apply these techniques now.

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.


© Leva Duell

How to Optimize Your Web Images

Images are important. The right images can change the look of your web pages instantly and, more importantly, they can instantly boost your online sales.

However, your images must come up quickly. Graphics that are not properly optimized can slow down your web pages considerably, and a slow web site will cost you sales. Apply the following techniques to help speed up your pages, keep potential buyers at your site, and boost sales.

· Keep images and graphics as small as possible in file size. The larger the file sizes, the longer the images take to download.

· Always optimize images before placing them on your web site. Optimizing compresses a file and reduces the file size while maintaining the highest image quality possible.

· Reduce your file size by saving images in the proper graphic format. GIF or JPEG are the most popular formats for web images.

· Avoid large and unnecessary graphics -- especially on your home page. Only use images that support your sales message. If you have too many images on your pages, they will distract your visitors and will dramatically slow down the opening of those pages.

· If large images are necessary to illustrate your products, display smaller images (thumbnails), and provide links to the larger versions (which will open on a new page).

· Crop images. If, for example, you’re showing a photo of a person using your product, much of the surrounding background is not necessary to support your sales message. Every bit that you remove or "crop out (remove) helps to lower the file size of that image.

· Reduce the number of colors in clipart and illustrations. The more colors in an image, the bigger the file size and therefore the more time it takes to open a page.

· Use gradients sparingly. They contain two or more colors and produce a larger file size than a single solid color.

· Keep the resolution of your images at 72 dpi, the maximum resolution a computer monitor can read.

Include ALT tags in your images. The ALT attribute provides an alternative text description for images. ALT text displays before the image is loaded in the major browsers and instead of the image if images are turned off. ALT tags tell search engines what an image is about but they are less important for search engine optimization today. Alternative text is still appreciated today by users with accessibility requirements and users wanting to optimize bandwidth use.

Pictures can instantly improve the look of your web site, but it won’t matter how good they look if they significantly slow down the opening of your web pages. Use high quality, relevant pictures that support your sales message but make sure they are optimized.

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.

© Leva Duell

Boost Sales With Targeted Web Images

Images add pizzazz to your web site. You can make a web site more attractive and support your web content by providing a visual representation of your product.

Images also communicate a message. They can trigger feelings and emotions. Carefully selected, quality images that accurately support your sales copy will help to generate a positive response in your web visitors. More importantly, focused, high-quality web images will increase your sales! Quality graphics, like an overall quality web site, will inspire trust in you and your products.

Keep in mind that not just any image will be an improvement. In fact, if your choice of graphic images (photos, clipart, illustrations, handwritten doodles) is not properly focused and of high quality, then you could actually lose sales. Poor graphics will damage your credibility instead of boosting it. They suggest that you are not professional, your sales message is not to be trusted, and your product’s value will become suspect.

What kind of graphics should you add to your site?

Use unique graphics that represent your products and enhance your sales message. Here are some images that can do that.

• A professional-looking header image at the top of your web pages. This is the first thing your web visitors (and potential customers) will see, and therefore is your first chance to make a good impression.

• An image representing your products. This can be an ebook cover, software box cover, or CD cover image.

• An attention-grabbing order button to attract people to your order link. Including an action verb in your order buttons, like "Click Here to Order Now!" can increase sales.

• Turn navigation links into images and keep them consistent on every page. I would also suggest that you provide text links in addition to the image links for search engine optimization. You can put the text links at the bottom of the page.

• Hand drawn notes, images and doodles have proven to boost the response of sales copy.

• Include your URL on each Web page. This will make it easier for people to go back to your Web site when printing or saving your Web pages. You can include your URL and copyright information in an interesting-looking footer image.

Don't use too many images as this can have a negative affect. Too many images tend to distract the visitor which lessens the impact of your sales message. Use only enough images needed to support the focus of your site. The bottom line is: A few quality, focused images sell!

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/

Is It Easy To Buy From Your Web Site?

If it's not easy for prospects to buy, they won't. Use this checklist to find obstacles in your Web site that cost sales.

Navigation

· Are you leading prospects to your order form?

· Is your order form easy to find? Do you have an "Order" button or link to your order form on most pages?

Contact Information

· Can prospects contact you if they have questions?

· Do you provide a link to your contact information on every page? Do you provide a phone number, email address, and mailing address?

Product Information

Do you provide the information your customers need to buy your products or services? This may include:

· Product listing and pricelist.

· Testimonials, case studies, and customer list.

· Money-back guarantee.

· Answers to frequently-asked questions.

· Service information and warranties.

· What your products or services can do.

· Who your products or services are useful to.

· How customers use your products or services.

· Tips for buying your products or services (to help prospects make an informed decision).

Payment and Ordering Methods

· Do you provide several ordering and payment options?

· Do you accept MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and Discover? The majority of Internet users will order online with credit cards. Few people will mail a check. If you're not accepting credit cards online via a secure server, you will lose sales.

· Can your prospects order online through a secure order form or shopping cart?

· Is your order form or shopping cart simple to use?

· Is every part of your form working?

· Do you provide alternative options for those who don't feel comfortable ordering online such as ordering by phone, fax, and postal mail?

· Can customers pay by check or money order?

Is it easy to buy from you? Eliminating obstacles will boost your sales immediately.

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.

© Leva Duell