There is only one thing that significantly affects the conversion rate of visitors into customers. No, it is not the layout or a design or cool graphics or awe-inspiring animation. It is the website copy that makes the conversion rate surge up or dive down. High-converting website copy follows a set of principles which I am going to share here.

Secret of high-converting website copy

Magic Headline

Some headlines work better than others. Most of the people err here. When it comes to writing headline for a post, all they do is write whatever first comes to their mind and use it as title. What possibly could be worse than this — not writing the copy at all?

Do not commit this mistake. Think hard before writing a headline. I will suggest you to write 10-15 versions of a headline before choosing any one.

USP

USP stands for Unique selling proposition. In the beginning, you would like to know what is that one thing that you would want to talk on a webpage. Do not build too many selling propositions in a web page. This will confuse your audience. Yes, even two is too many in this context.

Focus

Your copy should not waver. It should be laser focused on the promise it is attempting to deliver on. Do not let is waver even for one word. Keep your audience and its needs in mind when writing copy. Use your audience’s language to communicate.

Descriptive copy

Copy that builds on the promise made by the headline converts better. Do not just write anything on your web page — you can do that but you should not — as it will dilute the effect of the proposition made in the headline.

Tell story

People do not care about data and stats as much as they care about story. Tell them anecdotal tales and they will believe you. Give them data and they will yawn.

These are some of the principles of copy writing, which you should include in your writing to make your web page convert like crazy.

Well, you have to think up a great domain name.  Your domain name is important, so you don’t want to take this one lightly.  Your domain name helps to register your unique brand with your users, and search engines, and is the beginning of the description of your website.  You want to pick something short and relevant, that’s also easy to spell and remember.  This way you’re more likely to gain memory recognition from your users, and anyone searching a web page is less likely to misspell your domain on Google.

Now that you’ve got a good domain name, you need somewhere to host that domain.  There are a variety of website companies that offer such services, for a nominal fee.  You’ll have to pay for registration, as well as maintaining that domain name every year.  While you’re purchasing the name, you’ll also want to look into data storage, as you have to have storage in order to put anything on your website.

Most companies that offer domain registration also offer data storage plans.  All have varying levels of cost, and you’ll have to factor in your companies needs when deciding which service is for you.  Factor in how much data, including photos and media you want to store on the page.  You also need to think about what sort of traffic you will be expecting.  Exceeding your traffic bandwidth is usually penalized by extra fees being charged to your account, so think carefully.

Now that you’ve got the site, remember that your engaging content is what’s really going to drive traffic.  Making the page available isn’t even half the battle.  Building a page that people legitimately want to visit is the real war.

Creativity plays an important role in web designing and so does intuition.

What did I say…intuition?

How could intuition possibly be related to web designing?

Role of Intuition

Well, do not get bogged down by thinking that intuition does not matter in the process of designing a website because it does and it does a great deal. Talk of anything creative and you are talking of intuition playing a role in how it comes about. In terms of web designing, intuition play a significant part when:

• We chart out navigation map for the website. How users move from one place cannot be known by any other mean if not intuitively. You cannot explain how you know that the website visitors will go to c from a then come back to b then again to a then d and so on and so forth. An experienced web designer just knows how a visitor is going to interact with the website.
• We chose the color scheme. Indeed color theories are there to assist us on which color will look good with which color and which will look awful. But you cannot explain why a certain type of website works well with certain color scheme, while it fails when other color scheme is chosen. And why one color scheme works well with one type of website and does not work will with another kind of website.
• We decide the placement of elements in the website. There are many elements that are important for our website, but not all the elements will work at all places. Some elements work well when placed at the first position on above-the-fold while other works at eye-level. Can you explain why this subtle difference matter?

Can you help me find where else intuition plays an important role? Use the comment box and help me know more about this.

There are certain elements that go into making or breaking the users’ experience of a website. The web design Professionals know these things, and beginners should aspire to know these things. Let’s make it clear: It does not matter how great your website looks, or how great a concept you have, if your website is not easy to use, it will not cut.

Let’s put the elements that go into making a user-friendly website in order here, so that the beginners can refer back to it when executing their projects. These elements will help the professionals as well in finding the missing part.

• Navigation and navigational structure: This is the most basic thing. Navigation and navigational structure is stairs and an elevator for your website. Visitors will use it to go from one page to another. Make the navigation structure as flat as possible. Do not use too many layers.

Apply 3-click rules: The 3-click rule means that the visitor to your website should reach wherever he or she wants to go in no more than 3 clicks.

• Page Layout and structure: The structure of a page and the layout you will employ should not look cluttered. Give as much breathing space as you can. The more whitespace you will leave on your web page the easier your web page will go on the visitors. You can use other colors as the background color, instead of white, for your website as well, but I prefer to keep it white. It makes the web page look serene, calm, and non-obtrusive.

• Loading time: the website’s loading time is another factor one should care about while designing a website. A website that loads faster gets more visitors. You can improve the loading time by removing unnecessary lines of codes, optimizing images, flash, JavaScript, etc.

• Screen Resolution: Let’s accept it, you might have the latest screen, but not everyone own the same screen that you have. Hence, do a little bit of research to see that what screen resolution is in fashion now and make your website compatible to that. There is nothing like standard screen resolution. The screen resolution changes with changing technology.

• Browser Compatibility: Your website should look the same across the browsing platform. At least make it look good on Internet Explorer, and Firefox. I would also not suggest ignoring Opera and Chrome.

]]> http://itlist.com/5-elements-of-web-design-to-care-for/feed/ 0 http://itlist.com/ten-factors-that-affect-search-engine-ranking/ http://itlist.com/ten-factors-that-affect-search-engine-ranking/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:21:13 +0000 arshat http://itlist.com/?p=955

Here is the list of top 10 factors that affect search engine ranking.

1. Use of Keywords in Title Tag

If I am allowed to work on only one aspect of a site, I would work on the Title Tag . Put all your keyphrases in your title tag, but also remember not to overstuff it! For best results you gotta optimize each page individually.. Lets say your first page has information about “free antivirus” then you should have key phrases like – “free antivirus, download antivirus, best antivirus” etc. Lets say your second page has information about “firewalls” include keyphrases like “free firewall, best firewall” etc.

2. Keyword Use in Body Text

Now its pretty obvious that if your web page doesn’t contain any information about Antivirus but still contains key phrases like -– “free antivirus, download antivirus, best antivirus”, it aint gonna work!! The point being, please make sure that you have the text in the webpage that you have on your title tag!! Don’t worry about the density of the key words. There is no relation between the density of the keyword and its rank on the search engine

3. Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords

Remember, google is google because its got some serious smart guys working for it, so don’t be under the impression that fooling them is gonna be easy. Just stuffing a key phrase into a completely unrelated page wont do you much good.

4. Keyword Use in Domain Name

Some disagree with the importance of this one, though I feel it does not play a major role, why take a chance? Especially if you want to start a new site.. That said, remember that you choose to lose more than gain if you have an established site with a good pagerank! Note that there are websites that offer excellent services when it comes to web hosting

5. Keyword Use in Page URL

Again different SEOs take different sides on the importance of this one. I believe it is of some importance, but doesn’t make sense to change the urls for an existing site with a decent pagerank.

6. Keyword Use in ALT Attributes and Image Titles

I think this is extremely important. Maybe even more important than url and domain name. Experince shows that image optimization is a wonderful way to make a page appear higher on the search list to a desired query

7. Keyword Use in H1 Tag

Inspite of critics deeming tweaking with H1 tags as useless, its been proved otherwise. Head up the body text with an H1 containing the keyphrase.

8. Keyword Use in H2, H3, H… Tags

Since we have used it in H1, why not use it in H2, H3, et al..

9. Keyword Use in Bold/Strong Tags

I deem this method as moderately important. It helps Google in analysing what your page is about and what can the reader expect to find on it.

10. Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag

Definitely important. Each page should have a custom title and meta description tag. The ability of the Meta Tag to make it appear on the search list should not be underestimated.

All said and done, it should be remembered that CONTENT is the king!!

]]> http://itlist.com/ten-factors-that-affect-search-engine-ranking/feed/ 0 http://itlist.com/surviving-recession-through-the-internet/ http://itlist.com/surviving-recession-through-the-internet/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:39:27 +0000 Janeita http://itlist.com/?p=44 While recession is not exactly seen as ‘daddy´s day at the park’ it does not necessary have to be a death sentence to someone´s career. There are vast opportunities that one can undertake to make money through the Internet even in recession. Care should be taken at this time that all measures are taken to protect ones self from any possible identity theft that may occur. The last thing you need is to have your identity stolen while you browse from web page to web page. If you have something to offer then follow these simple steps to ensure your product get to the targeted section of the market.

Make a plan about your business that outlines the service/product you intend to offer and the market segment you expect to reach. In order to execute an action , there has to be plan that governs all the steps that one intends to make. This will prepare you in advance for the many responsibilities that may arise as you undertake you mission step by step.

Create a website for yourself . There are thousands of website packages that allow you to build a website at an affordable price and even offers privacy protection.Organize your website to ensure that it is easy to navigate and attracts the attention of online navigators.This can be achieved though optimization of your website using tools such as SEO.Finally ensure that you have taken the necessary precautions to avoid Identity theft

As budget is the determining factor in any recession there are quite a few ways for you to advertise your services without having to spend a lot. E-mail marketing for example is a cheap way that guarantees this.E-mail marketing requires that one has to an organized database in operation and a system that manages the messages you intend to send out.

There are thousands of websites that claim to drive Internet traffic to ones website, this has to be carefully researched as at times there really is to gain to this , just spam and not Internet traffic. Another point is that in order to be aggressive in the market, one has to be aggressive to defend his/her product and brand, always check to ensure that untrue advertisements regarding your product are not made and that you are not hosting your competitor on your website!!

Understand the desires of your customers and always review blog posts to see what hey are saying. By doing so you will be informed as to what you need to offer your clients in order to stand out in the market by these very blog posts.

For those who do not have a product to offer at the time and may consider working as a freelancer special care should be taken when looking for at home jobs on the Internet. Never take a job that you have to pay for, after all that is the main reason you are behind a job, to get paid!!. I recommend Odesk, Elance if you wish to work as a freelancer using the Internet.