Experts Dispel The Beauty Myth
In Web Design
Your web site exists for a purpose - to market
your product or service, make a favorable impression, and induce people
to come back regularly. Unfortunately, a lot of web sites
(and advertising in general) falls for what we call the "beauty
myth." We've all seen ads on television that have been
stunning, innovative, brilliant pieces of cinematography. An
example is the Honda "Cog" ad, which can be found on YouTube.
Now, if you're a nationally recognized brand
(like Honda), simply getting brand reinforcement can be enough of a
goal from an ad on television. On the other hand, if you're
reading this, you're probably not that big of a company.
At which point, you need to focus on the
function of your ad (your web site) over its form and beauty and
innovation. Now, we're not pushing for ugly, text
only web sites that assume everyone's stuck in 1995, however,
simple and attractive and understated is far better than flashy (or,
for that matter, Flash-driven).
Far better than spending your money on web
design experts (or a web designer trying to build a
portfolio site), build a functional, if somewhat basic web site, using
cascading style sheets so you can update the look without massive
trauma, and focus on what your web site is supposed to do:
Convert browsers into buyers.
Understand that people are going to be
referred to your web site either from links on a social networking site
(like FaceBook or Digg), or by a search engine term (and thus, by paid
keywords). More than 90% of the traffic will be from the
latter, though social networking sites are gaining rapidly as the
second most effective form of traffic generation.
People who hit your web site will be on one of
three phases of the customer cycle: They'll either be looking
for information only, looking to do price and deal comparing, or
looking to buy right now. Make sure that your advertising
leads them to the right place depending on where in that cycle they are.
The other thing to keep in mind is that your
time is valuable. It is absolutely worth your time to hire
someone to do this for you. Pay Per Click advertising, and
landing page building, have a lot of subtleties as much or more so than
an eye-grabbing web site does.
It's worth it to find someone who's
trained and certified on the
ins and outs of the Search ad products that both Google and Yahoo!
give. Google calls these folks Google Certified
Professionals, and Yahoo calls them Search Advertising Ambassadors, but
they both have the same job: They recommend key
words, look over landing pages, and help you find ways to tune up your
ad presence to get
the job done while building a relationship with visitors to your web
site.
These experts can help to turn your
ad budget from a black hole into something with measurable results, not
just on your tracking log, but on your sales log as well.
They understand the importance of building relationships with visitors
and understand that it's the relationships that have to be beautiful,
not your web site.
Sharon Gantt AKA The Queen of Search Copywriting
created & managed hundreds of ad campaigns on the majorsearch
engines. Discover how to increase your sales, get better cashflow with
targeted effective online marketing.
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by Leadpros.com in Association with Ground
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