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The best resources for adding images to your blog posts!
A few weeks ago I discovered that it was taking me way too long to find the perfect image to go along with our blog posts. I set out to discover what others were doing and develop a system of my own that would act as my own “image search engine”. By combining a simple process and some great resources for images I have now cut my image search in half, which frees up my time to focus on other tasks.
I started with a great blog post by 10e20 author, Patrick Winfield titled: Rewind to Fundamentals: The 10 Best Ways to Find the Perfect Image for your Blog Post
In summary here are Paul’s ten best ways to find images…
- Subscription Based Stock Photography
- Creative Common Licenses
- Free Photo Sites
- National Parks Archives
- Public Libraries
- Agricultural Research Archives
- Public Domain
- Shoot Your Own Photos
- Draw Your Own Pictures
- Pull-Quotes
In each of the above categories there are links to relevant sites - I spent some time picking the ones I liked and compiled a list and began setting my bookmarks for easy reference. Using the sites mentioned in Paul’s post along with other image sites I was able to build a list of 25-30 sites that I now use on a regular basis. I encourage you to begin to develop your preferred image list to act as your own image search engine.
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The Most Useful Design Tips of the Year
The Internet is changing with the development of Web 2.0, and the changing marketplace reflects a need for increased usability, easier functionality and design that is visually appealing but that still lends to an easy to maneuver, content-rich website. The following is a list of ten top website design tips that made a difference in 2007.
1. Know the audience: The design of your website should cater specifically to your target market both in the visual sense, and in usability. It is critical that the design of your website reflect the values that your potential customers will hold.
2. Personalize: Even if your website is designed by the greatest professionals in the business, if you do not allow your customers to get to know you, or to believe in you, you will have difficulty selling your ideas.
3. No uncertain terms: Clearly identify what the purpose is for your website, and ensure that every facet of your website focuses on this goal. Are you conveying a message, selling a product or offering a service? Make this obvious from the beginning, and keep your focus until the end.
4. Keep it quick: You have between ten and thirty seconds to capture the attention of your customer, so keep graphics small in order to minimize the time it takes to load your website. Compress images when possible, so that your loading times stay low.
5. Design is important, content is more so: Good content is what sells your ideas and products. Is your copy delivering the message you intended for it to? Grammar and spelling ARE important; so proofread everything you write before it goes live.
6. Map your Site: You can make your website’s navigation much more easy and intuitive simply by creating a site map, or a directory web page. If your customer cannot navigate your website quickly or easily enough to find what they came for, they will go elsewhere for solutions.
7. Strive for consistency: Your website should be consistent in the design, the look and the feeling. Colors, themes and ideas should stay constant throughout every page on the website to make the best impression on your visitors.
8. Keep track of links: You should make sure that your site is fully functional at all times, which means checking out your website links on a fairly regular basis. If you have dead links on your site, there is no telling how much of a negative impact will transfer to your search engine page ranking, or the opinion your visitors have of your website.
9. Make a simple start: When you begin your site, take everything one page at a time, and optimize each page for the best results before moving on to the next. This means that you should make sure that every page is perfect before leaving it for the next one.
10. Optimize: The top search engines are responsible for helping more than 85-percent of all web users to find exactly what they are looking for. If you want to be one of the websites that is considered when users look for similar products or information, you must make sure that your pages are designed to maximize your search engine placement.
I hope you enjoyed our Top Ten Design Tips list - If have any comments or would like to add to the list - we strongly encourage you to do so…
Recommended Reading:
Some people seem to have been born knowing creative design principles. Others, maybe you included, have to struggle to develop even the tiniest creative skills they do have. One thing is for certain, you can learn to be more creative. And you can discover the creative design ideas that other artists use for inspiration, even if you were not born with a single creative bone in your body.
There are several principles of design you must consider when you begin to learn the creative design process. These principles give an over riding basis on how your design elements will interact with one another, in your artwork and your designs. Each one influences the others in an endless tug-of-war within your mind and on your creative canvas. Your challenge is to learn to create harmony out of all these principles in your artwork, and to give your designs that unique blend that can only come from within you.
The creative design principles are…
Balance
Rhythm
Dominance
Unity
Now, let us look at each principle as it relates to your creativity and your designs.
Balance is the arrangement of different design elements, on any given piece of artwork, so that there is an equal distribution of visual weight to the whole piece. Art that doesn’t have balance can leave the viewer uneasy, almost as if there is something wrong with the piece.
Rhythm has to do with repeating elements and patterns in your designs. It also involves variations on those patterns to provide freshness, and to keep your art from becoming boring. Repetition can help to unify a piece, or bring different parts of your artwork together. It can also provide the basic textures for your design work.
Dominance refers to emphasizing certain parts of your design so that they get noticed first. Every piece of artwork needs a focal point which determines where your eyesight goes first, when you look at it. If you do not have a focal point your viewer quickly loses interest. Having too many points of interest will also leave the viewer with no place to focus. There are many ways to emphasize parts of your design, but the most important point is to select your focus based on your main message and, secondly, in consideration of whom your audience will be.
Unity is the final aspect in design, which gives a feeling that all the elements belong together. Unifying a piece can involve using various elements, including matching colors, shapes, textures, groupings, weights, typographies, or sizes. Unity, in your art, is the overall feeling that brings your piece together, and gives it wholeness or variety, whichever you are trying to convey to the viewer.
When you consider each of these design principles, while creating your artwork, they will have an impact on everything you create and do in your piece. No matter where your creativity takes you, if you will try to incorporate balance, rhythm, dominance, and unity into your artwork, you will be building on the solid basics of creative design.
Do you use an Annual Website Maintenance Checklist for your clients and your own sites?
Each year we spend a fair amount of time preferably prior to the end of December and review both our client sites as well as our own.
Over the years we have evolved the checklist from ten items to many more…
The checklist is designed to help website us and other website marketing managers review potentially costly issues and reduce any errors that might have cropped up over the year.
Maintaining a website properly can be difficult and time consuming and easy to put off until you “have more time”. We suggest that you make it a priority - it is that important to you and your clients websites. Even the smallest of errors have the capacity to undermine the credibility and effectiveness of your websites.
Here is our End of the Year Web Site Checklist:
Perhaps we missed something? Send us your thoughts and feedback…
No matter if your website is a personal site with a few pages or a huge corporation website, having a good design is one of the most important things. It matters a lot to visitors and can make the difference between leaving a site or bookmarking it. Here are a few tips to help improve your design:
Tip #1 — Fast Loading Pages
Pages should load fast. Most people will leave your site if it’s not done loading in ten or 15 seconds. And even if you have a fast internet connection, not everyone does and 56k modems still exist.
Tip #2 — Easy to Read Text
Text should be easy to read. The text size should be big enough, and the background should not obscure your text. If you want to be safe, use black text on a white background. If you want more color, choose very carefully to make sure it’s still easy to read.
Tip #3 — Intuitive and Easy to Navigate
Your website should be easy to navigate. Each link should be clearly identified as such and graphic navigation elements like buttons and tabs should be easy to read and use. You do not want people leaving because they could not figure out how your Flash menu works.
Tip #4 — Consistent Layout
Your layout and design should be consistent. If you switch between styles too much, you will confuse your visitors. If the design is too different, people will believe that they are now on a different website since the layout changed.
Tip #5 — Less is More - Sometimes…
Avoid music and sounds. Very few people like to have music forced on them while they navigate, especially if they are already listening to music or surfing at their job! If you really cannot do without music, turn it off by default and ask visitors to start it themselves.
Tip #6 — Pay Attention to Browser Compatability
Design for browser compatibility. Many people do not use Internet Explorer on Windows. Make sure your site is at least viewable in Mozilla Firefox and Opera (if possible, you could even try testing on a Mac). Sites that target markets like technology should be more careful, since readers are more likely to use the newest browsers and gadgets like PDAs.
Tip #7 — Screen Resolution - Still Matters
Design for all screen resolutions. You may like to surf in 1240×1080 with your new screen, but some people still use 800×600, or even 640×768! A site that looks perfect in high resolution may turn out to be impossible to view correctly in 800×600.
This is just a begining to what I hope will be a growing list of web design tips (please submit tips through comments) and one that evolves into more advanced design tips. Please provide some feedback and tips of your own so I can get a better sense of the level of our readership.
PS - I am toying with the idea of adding Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Categories to Designers Mind. Let me know what you think…
Editor’s Note — The easiest way to think of a business website is to think of it as a virtual salesperson. And to be considered successful, it has to convert traffic into paying customers. This article will tell you how to increase your conversion rates.
One of the biggest myths online is that it’s acceptable to have a conversion rate of 1% or 2%. Although this is the average, it IS possible to far exceed this. So if you’re sitting comfortably thinking you’re doing as well as you can. Think again!
Many sites have double-digit conversion rates. Although it takes work to initially get to that point, you’ll reap the rewards for a long time to come.
These great tips will help you get started:
- Use audio on your website to sell. If your site’s purpose is to sell a product or service, EVERYTHING on your site should be used for selling – including audio. Instead of an audio introduction from you like many sites have added recently, create a powerful 30 second commercial that tells people what you offer, the major benefits of purchasing from you and/or why you’re better than your competitors. You don’t have to use a hard sell approach. Keep it conversational and show your enthusiasm – but make sure they’re given information that takes them one step closer to buying!
- Make it a goal to create a “sales system” that works. Your ultimate goal should be to create a system that you know (with complete certainty) will make a sale to a certain percentage of people you put into it. This system should be mapped out from start to finish – that is, from the time a prospect first arrives at your site until they are a lifelong customer. Get started creating your system by planning out the steps you’d like customers take (or if you already have customers ask them what steps they took). Once your website, marketing materials and advertising plan are set up to work with your system, track every step and make improvements as necessary to make it as efficient and profitable as possible.
- Make your site navigation simple and straightforward. Studies show that when a customer cannot find what they’re looking for in less than 2 minutes, they leave and usually never come back. Make sure you don’t lose their attention by providing a consistent navigation system on every page. Also, remember that a link to your home page from every other page on the site is essential. That way, if the search engines bring a potential customer to a page other than your home page, they’ll be able to easily find their way around.
- Make it a habit to ask customers how they found your site. Although you should be tracking all of your site traffic it’s also a good idea to add a field to your order form asking people how they found your site. You may be surprised by the answers! This is another way to get a detailed picture of the best places to get targeted traffic from.
- Get their contact information so you can follow up with them again. A potential customer has to hear your message an average of 9 times before they purchase something. If you consider that only 1 in 3 messages actually gets read, you have to contact people an average of 27 times before they’ll be ready to buy! Therefore having a strong follow up system in place is key. If possible automate this with an autoresponder series using a service such as AWeber. This will allow you to set the messages and forget them!
- Make testimonials and endorsements credible. The best way to do this is to include lots of information on the person who submitted it. Some information to consider using is their full name, city and state, URL, photo, signature or an audio testimonial/endorsement. If the person is willing to take phone calls from potential customers then also include their phone number.
Website conversion rates of 1% may work for other site owners; however when you want to maximize your returns, 1% is just not enough. You must increase your conversion rate to increase earnings, and using the tips above is the perfect place to start.
Ben Euporian of Omsho.com makes it easy to learn from Website Sales Conversion Experts. For details, visit this site now: Increase Website Conversion
Web sites are all the rage today, it seems more companies and professionals have decided they need them and have put plans in place to build a site for their business. Unfortunately outside of the basic notion that a site is needed most businesses don’t plan out what a web site will do for their business. It becomes a situation where you want one because “they” have one, but unfortunately without purpose and planning neither your site nor theirs will be successful.
A statistic regarding web sites is that over 1,500 new web sites are launched every day somewhere. With that many new sites being created every day to make yours stand out, much less provide value it has to have purpose. Here are four steps to creating a stronger web site for your business.
Know your Purpose
Is your web site designed to sell products online, build your prospect list or serve as a vehicle for information fulfillment? It could be one of these things it could be a combination of them. However even if it has more then one purpose then answer the question what is the primary purpose of the site? Rank your priorities in order of importance from first to last. Once you know the purpose you can focus the site on achieving this goal.
Build Your Site Around the Primary Purpose
Build your web site around your purpose. For example, if you goal is to build a site that grows your prospect list then you need to focus on creating ways to get visitors to give you their contact information. You could do this through an online newsletter, free reports, giving away products or consultations and other methods of giving value to a user that will trade that value for their contact information. Your site navigation, color, overall design, copy and organization needs to be built around achieving this goal.
Offer value
If your web site is a basic brochure about you or your company that ranks very low in terms of providing true value to a visitor. If you can offer articles, free reports, fresh updated content, checklists, links to other sources, a current blog on your expertise, etc. you give people a reason to explore the site and share it with others. You also create a reason for the visitor to come back to your site and expose them to your message and marketing again. If you don’t offer value and instead just have a site all about you and your company you may get visitors once, but soon your traffic will start declining. You want to create a site that is vibrant, alive and a destination for visitors, one that they will willingly come back to. The key to getting this interaction with your visitors is value, offer it and they will come.
Measure progress
Once you have something of value to offer now you need to measure how successful it is. However measurement of useless information isn’t going to help. Figure out what really constitutes a useful measurement. Is it sales, visitors or names for your list? Whatever “it” is be sure you not only know and measure it, but have the goal in mind of what this measurement needs to be to constitute success. There are several great management tools that can give you web statistics on your site, but without the right stats and goals that information is about as useful as ice in Antarctica.
It is too easy to build a web site today, so easy that most become a failure. Don’t let your site become a failure because of lack of purpose and planning. Know why you need it and what the goals and plans are to achieve the “why” then like any good plan execute it and measure your progress. If you apply this strategy your site and business will be much more successful.
For most small businesses, the goal of having a web site is to attract customers, gather leads, and convert sales. But is that what YOUR web site is doing? When you get it right, web visitors have a valuable experience and clearly understand how your product or service fulfills their needs. Get it wrong and you could be sending web traffic and potential business right to your competitor’s door! Here are some common web site mistakes that can scare away visitors and hurt your bottom line:
- Too many choices – When you give your visitors too many options, it can become overwhelming, making them less likely to make any decision at all. All options are not equally important, so be careful to present your information in an organized, logical way that is easy to understand.
Editor’s Note – Please read this article I had written on another website.
- Non-relevant web site content – Be sure that the content on your site is focused on delivering your main marketing message. You are the expert on your business, so you already know what information customers need in order to make a decision. Extra information that doesn’t promote or support your message doesn’t belong on your web site.
- Unprofessional web design – The way your web site looks and functions speaks volumes about your business, even if it is unintentional. If your web site has poor layout, broken or missing links, outdated information, or looks unprofessional, your visitors will have a negative impression of your company, regardless of how great your business may be.
- Red flags – Most web users today have a healthy skepticism when they visit web sites, so make sure you show them immediately that your company is legitimate. Provide detailed contact information that includes your physical mailing address, phone number, contact names, and email addresses so visitors know your business can be trusted.
- Asking for too much information – When visitors want to make a purchase, sign up for your mailing list, or request information from your web site, what kind of a form will they be faced with? Make sure you ask only for the information that you absolutely need, and don’t try to gather too much information at once. Instead, keep the form short and simple, and then follow up later to gather any additional customer information that you may need.
I have seen and heard crazy things…ah! But how to build a website! In my endeavor and quest for success I have heard people ask weird questions and I have seen those professing to be internet gurus give astounding answers.
I know of a fellow who posted a question on yahoo answers. This particular question kept me staring at my monitor screen lost of words. This fellow had bought a domain name and registered it with one of the leading domain name registrar. His question was simple yet to those familiar with the art of online business, the question leaves a lot to be desired.
My friend was seeking advice on what to do with his domain name. He had no plans or ideas on what to do with it! Think of lack of planning and we don’ t need to go further than this example.
To avoid being on the same predicament, here are 5 factors to consider as you ponder on your next move. Before you build a website, think about the following:
Identify the type of web site you will be building. Are you going to build a website whose primary purpose is to sell hard good or e-goods? Would your site be composed of affiliate links or are you going to sell your own service or product? Is your web site going to be primarily informative in nature with google ad sense and other form of advertisement or is it going to be purely visual with little or no content.
Identifying the type of web site you are going to create will make the next step easy to identify.
Gone are the days when all a web master needed to do was to stuff their web site with links leading to all type of product and services. In the current internet world you can not succeed in building a web site designed in the form of a shopping mall with all kinds of goods and services.
The internet is increasingly and exponentially becoming a specialized super highway. Only those web sites that are able to distinguish them selves as authorities in a given area are poised to reap the benefits of online business.
Start out by identifying a profitable niche that you will enjoy writing about, identify an area that you already have experience on, have passion or will be comfortable learning about.
Only build a website in an area or niche that you believe in.
It’s not just enough to develop and build a website based on your strength and weakness. Care should be taken to do a little bit more research about the potential and profitability of that given field.
There are great tools out there on the net that would enable you to come up with a profitable niche, those tools will also enhance your research by shading light as to the exact phrases that your potential visitors would under normal circumstances type into the search engines in their quest for information.
Care should be taken while choosing the domain name and hosting company for your online business. A search in any of the leading search engines for the phrase “how to choose a domain name” or “web hosting” would return tones of articles that have been written advising us on the do and don’ t do as far as choosing a domain name or host provider is concerned.
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Have you ever typed the exact phrase of a given keyword while searching for information on any of the leading search engines only to end up frustrated with the displayed results after trying several times? Search engines and human traffic thirst for information, great quality information.
One sure ways to win the search engines wars and in the process please your targeted customers is to create quality content. A site owner who remains focused and persistent in doing just start will in the long run reap the benefit of having their pages rank up high if not at the top of the search query results.
And there are many more things to consider, but why not start with this 5 first!
Checkout - Principles of Beautiful Webdesign.
These twenty mistakes are the difference between a very poor website and a very good website. You may know some of these mistakes already, but if you have avoided or corrected all of them you are almost certain to keep visitors coming in and coming back.
This list is especially important for new designers, amateurs or the experienced but sloppy who need a list to work from for a website spot check.
1. Bad Layout and Design - Yes, there are some ugly, unbalanced or overloaded webpages out there. Make your page a pleasant viewing experience. If you are not sure about the looks of you design, then let some people see a screenshot of your webpage.
2. Non-Standard Links - Why confuse your visitors with links that are different colors or fonts that vary from page to page. Don’t frustrate your visitors, it shouldn’t be a guessing game.
3. Iffy Navigation - Take it easy on the moving objects, trailing images and other stuff you see on kids websites. It’s just not that entertaining and it can get in the way and distract your visitors. Keep it stable easy to find and read.
4. Slow Pages - Who wants to watch your dumb load meter rack up the percents of loaded kilobytes or megabytes? Keep your pages lean and fast, under 50k if possible. Do not bore your visitors.
5. Wild and Crazy Color Schemes - Some pages look idiotic with overly bright colors, maybe even revolting. Your texts must be easy to read, not a sensational nightmare.
6. Spelling and Grammar - Errors in spelling and grammar make your page look amateurish or childish - always spell check.
7. Page Text - Keep your pages easy to read. Break texts into paragraphs or blocks. People scan pages more than they read them, make it easy on them.
8. Font Style and Size - Choose easy to read fonts and use the right size - not micro reading or headlines on every line.
9. Dumb, Out of Control Music - select background music that fits the subject matter and make sure it can be turned off easily.
10. Under Construction - Avoid having a visitor coming to you closed or not yet opened website. What’s the point? Give them a single page of content with a notice as to when the whole site will be available.
11. Untested Web Site - Always look at your website in multiple browsers and make changes accordingly before uploading your site to the web.
12. Sloppy Texts - Make sure all the right words are in all the right places - “Content is King” for readers and search engines.
13. Old Content - Updating your website is important, visitors need to see something new once in a while.
14. Too Many Clicks - Why should a visitor have to jump through page after page to find anything on your website. Make sure everything is only 3 clicks or less from the homepage.
15. No Contact Information - Keep your contact information easy to find and easy to read.
16. Free Hosting Service - When you see a webpage that has a name so long that it has at least one period in the middle of it you know it’s a free hosting situation. Everyone knows the limitations of free hosts and the limitations that they place on a webpage. Don’t use a free web host if you want to be taken seriously.
17. Advertising - Do not overload you page with ads, especially the big grotesque banners. Well placed, well designed ads are okay if you don’t overload the page.
18. Bad Images - Don’t make a visitor suffer missing graphics file or badly shaped or cropped images. Optimize your images and use the best heights and widths, and keep your files in the best formats - jpeg for Photographs and gif for artwork.
19. Website Best Viewed - Don’t say this on your website, it looks like a beginner’s website.
20. No Prices - If you sell something don’t waste your time hoping you will get email inquiries on your prices - just include a price with the item description.
That should do it. Follow these directions to correct the 20 most common mistakes in website design to make sure your webpage is in good shape.