Advanced Marketing Techniques

Advanced Marketing Techniques

One of the most common problems with marketing is the inability for those who handle marketing to communicate effectively to those who provide technical services. Most advanced marketing sites become so technical that the only people who can understand are the programming gurus.

We seek to bridge that gap, providing both marketers and programmers with advanced marketing concepts and techniques that are written in such a manner that anybody can understand.

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1. 8 Online Press Release Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) (2.8) 84 votes
2. Seven Guidelines for Website Usability (2.8) 75 votes
3. Organizing Your Site: Tips for Getting Your Website Up and Running Smoothly (2.7) 74 votes
4. Don't forget Today's FREE Webinar (2.6) 76 votes
5. Blogging 101: Eight Mistakes that Are Killing Your Blog (2.6) 81 votes

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This blog has 8 posts and 11 comments spanning a range from 08/27/07 to 10/30/07 .The total number of words in all posts is 8,496 , and the total number of views for individual posts is 15,445 .

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1. 8 Online Press Release Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) (5)
2. 6 Tips for Building Your Company Brand Online (3)
3. 5 Tips for Building Better Landing Pages (1)
4. Rising to the Top - Building an Internet Marketing Strategy (1)
5. Don't forget Today's FREE Webinar (1)

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1. 6 Tips for Building Your Company Brand Online (2,415)
2. Rising to the Top - Building an Internet Marketing Strategy (1,797)
3. Organizing Your Site: Tips for Getting Your Website Up and Running Smoothly (1,709)
4. 8 Online Press Release Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) (1,421)
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Marketing

• 5 Tips for Building Better Landing Pages

  The Customer Has Landed… Now Keep Them There

  Your landing page is the first thing potential customers see when they get to your site, so if you want visitors to stick around, you have to capture their attention and give a good impression. If your landing page is difficult to read, doesn’t engage the reader and entice them towards product or company, and provides no way for customers to take more action, then they'll be gone and off to your competitor's site.

  If you want your landing page to start showing more conversions, here are some tips for drawing the customer in now that you've got them on the hook.

  They've got problems, you've got the solution

  Chances are you started your business to solve a problem that your potential customers have. You know why your product or service is the best thing on the market. With a landing page, your job is to make prospective clients understand how you are the answer to their problems. Cover as many angles as you can here. Utilize benefits, statistics, taglines related to their problems and your solution. Give them plenty of reasons to work with you.

  Paint a picture

  Don't just say, "This will help you fix XYZ." Make them painfully aware of the problem by using anecdotes, stories and other engaging techniques. Don't just give a features list; actually demonstrate how your product or service will positively affect their life, their business, their finances, or their time. By the end, your potential clients should be wondering how on Earth they've been surviving without you.

  Leverage testimonials

  What better way to convince people that you're the way to go than quotes and testimonials from satisfied customers? Your current customers had the same problems as your potential customers. The difference is you – your solution. So what better way to showcase that than through feedback from past clients?

  If you've gotten positive comments via email or snail mail, ask if you can use those quotes on your landing page. Seek out your customers and get testimonials to add. If you can use audio testimonials on your site, do it. Make sure your potential clients know that you've got a bevy of satisfied clients on your side.

  "Free" is a beautiful word

  Every landing page should have a call to action. Your job is to make it easy and enticing for readers to take action. Invite them to take immediate action and get something in return. They could sign up for a free e-book, get a free quote, or start a free trial, whatever will work best for you. Make use of the word "Free" and make it something potential clients are actually interested in.

  Don't forget the little things

  There should be multiple ways to reach you on your landing page. If people are interested in what you're selling, they shouldn't have to hunt all over your site to get in touch with you. Put contact information at the top and the bottom of your landing page, so that they only need to glace to see how to reach you.

  Also, make it easy for them to take the next step. If you ask them to sign up for your newsletter, only ask for their name and email address. Tests show that if you limit the amount of information readers are required to give, your completion rates will increase significantly. The less they have to do, the better.

  Don't let your landing page languish, and then wonder why nobody's signing up for a free quote. By spending a little time making sure your landing page is top-notch, you can increase your chances of making a sale and getting a new customer for life.

  
• 6 Tips for Building Your Company Brand Online

  Are you projecting a consistent image to your potential customers? Do they even know your name? Wal-mart, Windows, Apple; each of those names conjures an image, a logo or a product line at just the mention of their name.

  You, too, want to get your name out there as a certified, reliable business. A cohesive identity allows people to associate your company with quality, speed, reliability, or your unique selling points. The Internet is a great place to get started. New technologies and growing online audiences make online marketing a very effective way to reach your customers. Here are a few ways to build a powerful image for your brand online and off.
  
  Consider social media

  Sites like MySpace and Facebook are just two of the numerous social media sites out there. Starbucks has an excellent Myspace profile that represents their company well. Their site hosts photo contests of Starbucks locations or products, and offers an easy way to forward the site to other Myspace friends. These features encourage and reward audience participation, a key ingredient of social media.

  Don't try to hit up all social media sites, though. The point of social media is to get involved in it. Don't just make a profile and throw up a couple of articles and hope for the best. Read and respond to other people's blog posts and articles. Start thought-provoking discussions in forums. Find a good niche and stick with it. Become a member of the community, and the community will see you that way. If people are intrigued by what you have to say, then they'll be searching your profile for more information.

  Vandana of Customer Think has a great post on building customer loyalty through social media: Building Brand Equity Through Social Media

  Give your company a voice and an image

  Audio and video can become two of your best friends. With YouTube and podcasting, it’s become easier than ever to promote your company with multimedia. Don't splash them all over your site, but do some research into your target audience and find out what kind of audio and video performs well. Once you have an idea of what could work for you, start creating and distributing your own content. You'd be surprised at how a few entertaining videos on YouTube or another video-sharing site can boost your publicity.

  Stop the presses

  You can draw traffic to your website with well-timed press releases and articles. Press releases can even show up in Google News or Yahoo News if you use the right distribution service. Contact local or industry reporters to expand the reach of your news through traditional and online media outlets as well.

  A well-written article can gain exposure for your website as well. You can include a link to your website in the author bio information to draw readers to your site when they finish the article. Directories like EzineArticles.com are always looking for new content. You can also contact online news websites and various online magazines and newsletters to see if they are interested in running your piece.

  Put your website on all your marketing materials

  Your offline marketing efforts should include your website information. Every online profile, every brochure, every banner ad and every business card should have your website URL on it. URLs should be easy to remember and easy to visit. If somebody wants to get a better idea of what your company's about, they should be able to tell with a five-second visit to your site.
  
  Keep your website updated

  If you want to build your brand online, you'll need to make sure your website is working for you. And that means keeping it updated regularly. Few things will kill your brand faster than having a website or blog that hasn't been updated in months. That gives the impression that your company and brand are tired, or old, or even out of business and nobody's told the guys running the site just yet.

  For more advice on creating a powerful web presence, check out this article: Organizing Your Website: Tips for Getting Your Website Up and Running Smoothly
  
  Keep your message consistent

  Whether you're going online or offline for your marketing and advertising, the message you send should be consistent across all your materials. If you have mixed messages, you'll risk alienating the customers you have and won't be able to convert potential clients.

  Online marketing is one of the best options for building a name for your business, and there are a number of ways to do it. Explore as many avenues as you can, and find the ones that have the best return for you. You may not be able to become the next Starbucks, but you can establish a trustworthy name for your business.

  Your business:

  Do you have any tips for giving customers a consistent company image?

  
• 8 Online Press Release Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

  You've heard how press releases can increase your company's exposure and raise credibility in the eyes of your clients. You've seen your competitors getting their name out there and possibly chipping away at your market share in the process. You might've even tried distributing a release here and there, hoping to catch some publicity. So far nothing has really stuck.

  Chances are you're making some critical mistakes with your releases and sabotaging your own hard work. Here are eight common mistakes for online press releases, and how you can takes steps to avoid them.

  1) Missing Google News and Yahoo News in your distribution efforts

  These news outlets are crucial to any effective online press release distribution. With the advent of universal search, surfers are even more likely to see Google News items popping up in regular search results. Make sure your press release distribution service includes Google and Yahoo News.

  2) Not including important keywords in the title of your press release

  This is by far the most important place to add your keywords. Avoid stuffing every possible phrase into the title, but be creative with how you utilize them. Words do not necessarily have to be right next to each other to count in the search results. By splitting your keywords, you can add SEO value to a piece without completely butchering the title.

  3) Targeting the wrong audience (or no audience at all)

  Know your audience. Pharmaceutical companies use different language and have different needs than industrial firms. If it is an industry insider piece, write for your peers. If it's a consumer awareness piece, keep it focused to your clients. Make sure your tailor your news to a specific audience and speak to their needs.

  4) Lack of newsworthy content

  Corporate fluff and self-serving endorsements in your press release will damage your credibility with your audience and the press. The content must be newsworthy to your audience. This is not necessarily the same thing as what you think is newsworthy. Put yourself in your client's shoes. Think about what they are interested in, what their problems are, what they care about, and structure your piece accordingly.

  5) Splitting the focus

  Don't try to cover too much information in your press release. Ideally your piece should fit on one page. Pick one topic for the focus and stay on target. If you try to stuff too much into one release, you risk diluting your message. You've got a short time span to grab and hold your reader's attention. Don't waste it.

  6) Lack of contact information

  Designate someone in your company as the press contact, and brief them on what to expect and how to respond to media inquiries. The more prestigious the contact, the better. Journalists love talking to important people within the company.

  7) Not having a call to action

  Journalists are important, but don't forget potential clients who are reading your release online. You want to make it as easy as possible for readers to take action. Keep sales language out of your press release, but give your audience somewhere to go for solutions or more information. The best kind of call to action involves a free report, quote, tutorial, newsletter, etc.

  8) Sending visitors to a generic web page

  Don't waste your call to action on a generic landing page. Readers who are interested in your press release may not survive the transition to your home page. To get them to stick around for more than few seconds, you need to build a bridge from the press release to your website. Create a landing page to link from your press releases that is related to the information they were just looking at. This will help to entice visitors from the press release to explore deeper into your website. It also helps track the traffic from your publicity efforts.

  Press releases are an excellent way to get your company's name out there. With a little care and planning, you can take your press releases further and get the recognition you deserve. By avoiding these common mistakes, you can achieve better results with your publicity efforts.

  
• Blogging 101: Eight Mistakes that Are Killing Your Blog

  The first year of keeping a blog is always the hardest. You're just getting into the game and you haven't quite learned all the ins and outs of playing just yet. While that's understandable, if you're making too many mistakes with your blog, you'll never have a chance to get it off the ground. Here are eight common blogging mistakes, and steps you can take to avoid them.

  1) Ignoring reader comments

  You don't have to respond to every single comment (especially if there are several), but if somebody makes an interesting point or asks a question, answer it. Commenting back encourages readers to start a dialogue and lets them know that you're listening to what they have to say. Ignoring them sends off the statement that you don't care about your readers' thoughts on what you've written, and they'll stop reading.

  2) Straying off topic

  It's easier than you'd think to start a blog post with one idea in mind, only to drift away from that to a completely different idea by the end. However, while that rambling might work under some conditions, it's not good for a blog. People aren't going to want to read a blog post that wanders around eight different topics like a lazy river. Keep your posts simple and to the point, and you'll keep more readers.

  3) No countermeasure for spam

  Spam has infested emails, MySpace, Facebook, forums and blog comments, and nothing will bring your blog down faster than looking in the comments to see that they're all from somebody in Nigeria who needs to move $1.5 million to the U.S.

  A spam countermeasure is as simple as a verification box, where people enter a series of letters before they post. Or, you could ask a simple question, like "Is fire hot or cold?" Just do something to ensure that the person posting is actually a person.

  4) Looking just like everybody else

  You've got your blog on your site, right? So why does it look exactly like every single blog found on Blogger, Blogspot or Livejournal?

  Using the exact same templates that come with every blog is boring. You don't look special; you look like everybody else. A unique blog design that matches your website will keep brand consistency for your users. Plus, it will showcase your personality and taste, not the taste of the template designers. For a good example, take a look at this blog: http://www.sleepingtiger.org/blog/

  For more ideas on how to spice up your blog, check out this article at David Meerman Scott's blog: Pimp Out Your Blog.

  5) Poor grammar and punctuation

  You probably don't worry too much about grammar, spelling and punctuation when you're chatting online, but those mistakes in a blog can be a death sentence. Blogs with lousy grammar and punctuation and frequent misspellings come across as unprofessional, and that's not the image that you want for your business. Edit your blogs and check them for grammtical errors before you ever post.

  6) Stale or grandiose writing

  Blogs are supposed to provide personal, human insight into your company. They shouldn't read like bland corporate gibberish, nor should you use so many five-dollar words that your readers would have to hit a dictionary just to understand your post. The former makes your stuff boring; the latter makes it condescending, and either way, people won't want to read it. Keep your writing simple and lively.

  7) Personal attacks

  Controversial ideas or topics are good for blogs, as they can spark discussion and attract a lot of attention. However, while controversy is good, stooping to personal attacks is not. You're writing a professional blog, not picking a grade school fight. Personal attacks will reflect badly on both you and your company, so refrain from it.

  8) Long absences

  It's all right if you can't post every day. However, letting 10 days, two weeks, or even a month pass without updating is a big blogging no-no. A lack of updates indicates that your blog is on its way out, and readers will quit checking back. Even if you just link to an article or a video that you thought was worth sharing, make an effort to post frequently.

  For more blogging tips, see this article: Why Your Business Should Be Blogging.

  By avoiding these common blogging mistakes, you can keep your blog helpful, interesting, insightful and professional. Take steps to correct your mistakes now and you can make sure that your blog and readers will be around for a long time to come.

  
• Don't forget Today's FREE Webinar

  Want the Xeal team to help you with your website? Sign up for our free Thursday webinars!

  Xeal president Tony D. Baker will evaluate a variety of websites and offer marketing tips that can dramatically impact your business.

  Get expert advice on:
  - Design techniques and mistakes
  - Improving your rankings
  - Increasing conversions
  - Drawing customers to your website

  Sign up now to receive more information and our free 25-point website checklist:

  We'll see you there!

  October 18 (Click here to sign up)

  October 25 (Click here to sign up)

  November 1 (Click here to sign up)

  
• Organizing Your Site: Tips for Getting Your Website Up and Running Smoothly

  Getting a website set up is one of the most basic things any business has to do. You might think that it's as easy as buying a domain and hiring a tech guy to throw something up there, but that's not even the tip of the iceberg. With today's digital society, your website may very well be people's first introduction to your business, and you don't want to give them the wrong impression.

  Here are a few tips making a smooth entrance online, rather than throwing a page up online for all the world to see.

  Look at the competition

  You probably looked at the competition in your area before you set up your business. It's important to see what the market has to offer and understand what sets you apart. Now, it's time to check out what they're doing online for the same reasons. See what you like and don't like about their pages. Compile a list of things you can adapt or do differently for your own site.

  Get examples together

  They say when you're decorating a house, you should go through magazines and rip out pictures that you like. It helps you find your style, and gives you something to go from when you're actually shopping. That's the same idea with websites. Find sites that have a setup you like, or find examples of designs that you feel would go well with a visual image for your company. Make a portfolio of ideas to show to your web designer, so that they'll know generally what you're looking for.

  Finding a designer

  Chances are you know how to use the Internet, but you're a little fuzzy on the details about actually putting a web page together and getting it up and running. That's where a designer comes in. When you're looking for a web designer, ask for a portfolio or examples of previous work and make sure they mesh with your company image. If you want a mature look for your site, don't hire somebody who primarily has a cartoony feel in their previous work.

  Also, listen to designers when they make suggestions regarding the website. They're familiar with what looks good and what will register well with customers, so lend an ear to their input.

  Keep your feel consistent

  All your marketing materials, from your website and blog to your ads and business cards, should have a similar feel. You don't want to send mixed messages with your company, so keep a consistent design in mind when you're developing your materials.
  
  Developing content

  You can't have a website without something to put on it, right? The content you put up can include pictures, audio, video and keyword-rich copy. A mission statement and "about us" page are always good ideas, as well as a searchable list of products you offer, or a detailed list of services.

  Make sure somebody goes over your written copy with a fine-toothed comb to ensure that the spelling, punctuation and grammar rules that you haven't thought about since grade school are followed.

  This is just a brief overview of things you need to consider before you start designing your website, but they're all important. You want to give the right first impression with your site, so take the time to make sure it's top-notch.

  
• Rising to the Top - Building an Internet Marketing Strategy

  "Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending." - Saint Augustine

  It’s funny how old words can still mean so much today. Just think about this: in the days of St. Augustine, 354 AD to 430 AD, there were no microwaves or computers, and the vastness of the Internet did not exist. And yet even today his words I quoted above apply not only to each and every one of us as a person, but to just about any goal we may wish to undertake.

  Saint Augustine goes on to tell us that if we wish to build vast towers, we must start with a deep foundation of humility. The first part alone demonstrates an extreme understanding of physics, and then he goes on to apply it to our humanity.

  What’s the point Tony?

  Well, I started the day wanting to write to you on how important it is to build a solid foundation with your Internet marketing strategy.

  We all have dreams of being in the top 10 on our primary keywords. We all have dreams of receiving thousands upon thousands of free visits to our website from people who are hungrily searching for our products and services. Our dreams and aspirations are vast, but what about our humility?

  You see, in this society, so many of us are into the “get rich quick” mode that we often forget how difficult it really is to achieve success. Obviously if it was that easy, everybody would be instantly successful. The “gold rush” of the Internet would be instant for each of us, and likewise as worthless to our souls.

  So how do we build our success, our towers, our top 10 rankings in Google and Yahoo? It all starts with an understanding that we must have a solid foundation, and likewise an understanding that nothing worth doing is ever easy.

  With Internet marketing, the concept is the same. Do you want huge towers hovering above the city? Do you want to be constantly visible to those who are seeking you out? Constantly standing tall above your competition? How, then, can you build these towers?

  You must dig deep. No, I’m not just talking about your wallets. I’m talking about building a deep and broad base for your website. You must create an initial strategy defining what you want to accomplish, and then look at how you are going to achieve that strategy.

  At Xeal our formula is explained very simply. “The Four ACES” stands for “Attract, Capture, Educate and Sell.” We want to attract people to your site, capture their attention and their contact information if possible, then educate them with great content and auto-responders, and, of course, sell them based on the solutions that solve their problems.

  Most people will say to me, “Tony, I don’t have thousands to spend with search engine marketing. Is there anything I can do now to get started so that sales can start coming in?”

  Absolutely, I say. “Start by building a foundation.”

  Let’s get started with the basics. With search engine marketing, you need to have as many non-reciprocal links to your site from “authority” sites as possible. These one-way links to you from human-edited (aka “trusted”) sites favored by Google, Yahoo and MSN are a great way to get started.

  Yes, you need a good deal of articles and news releases to draw publicity to your site, but if you can’t afford to build that part of your foundation, you can get started by laying out the pattern, digging the hole, and inserting the steel rods.

  We do this by focusing our attention on 20 or 30 directories that we know are getting indexed and spidered by Google and Yahoo. When Google and Yahoo discover your site through these links, they’ll give you more weight or, in this case, more strength per link. These links are the steel rods of your foundation.

  We also look for localized directories or industry-related directories that can provide you with good links. In this case, they don’t have to be big or popular, but the fact that they are localized or dedicated to your particular industry helps with the strength value of the links they provide to you.

  Notice I’m not talking about link exchanging or any of those related SEO tricks. I’m talking about looking for sites that want to feature you, because you are like them.
  
  Search engine marketing is more like a popularity club than anything. If you can be popular with small sites, then the big sites will think you’re popular too.

  The next thing we do is go through our proprietary 25-point checklist that we have developed in order to ensure that these directories not only accept you, but do so in a way which will best help the bigger search engines see you as relevant to the very keyword phrases you are targeting.

  This extensive 25-point check list is also vital to help ensure good usability and search engine friendliness for not only the search engines, but for people who are visiting your site.

  With this consulting, you receive our top recommendations and then you can choose what’s important to you. We not only recommend changes for your site based on the 25-point checklist, but also give you our input on which directories, based on popularity, localization, and industry relations, we think will give you the best impact.

  My staff can also help with title tags, alt tags, etc… I’m not talking about keyword spamming and all that nonsense that “SEO” companies do to trick the search engines, but rather essential elements that are required for your foundation to be solid.

  Nobody wants a foundation that washes away. If you rely on SEO tricks that many companies promise will get you “top 10 rankings,” you may find that you are soon to be blacklisted, banned, or simply dropped by the search engines. The last thing you want is for all of your time, money and efforts to be washed away.

  It is also vital to make sure your foundation is solid by running tests on your site. Our team will run an SEO analysis which will give warnings if a keyword phrase is used too much or too little, and also give you recommendations on how to get optimum keyword density on a page without spamming.

  Part of the analysis is waiting for the results. Right now we are also recommending that our clients allow us to install website analytics on up to 50 pages of their site, and then give them monthly monitoring so that we can tell if our foundation is properly leveled.
  
  With one client, we found that 100% of people left on one of his primary keyword phrases within 15 seconds or less, simply because that keyword phrase wasn’t prominent on his pages.

  Not only did we discover an unknown problem, but by adding that specific keyword phrase to the body of his pages, we increased the average time a person spends on his site from 3.5 minutes up to 4.5 minutes.

  You would be surprised. The keyword phrase was actually in the name of his business. But because people didn’t see the phrase they searched for immediately after coming to his site, 100% of them left in 15 seconds or less. It’s that kind of crack in the foundation that can ruin future endeavors.

  Now that you have a solid foundation, based on good quality one-way links to your site, and you have checked the site for problems, missed opportunities, or just plain mistakes, then you can start laying the building blocks for your tower. And month after month, year after year, the tower will get taller and taller.

  At this point we recommend to our clients that they start pay per click marketing, to get some instant return on their investment. Then we recommend that they start with articles, news releases and all of that. But if you can’t afford these things, at the very least, build the foundation.

  Without a stable foundation nothing will happen.

  But with a good foundation, some of the growth opportunities will build up naturally, while others you will be able to fund as your business grows.

  By the way, the entire process that I’ve described is a new edition of our service which we call “SmartSubmit Pro.” It’s a consulting service where we analyze your site before, during, and after submitting you to the major directories, and even some targeted smaller ones.

  The SmartSubmit Pro is the foundation for your aspiring internet business, because without these basic elements, you could find yourself spending thousands upon thousands without understanding why people don’t subscribe, don’t stay, or don’t buy from you.

  Pay per click marketing is an essential element to starting up your site, but you do not have to rely on it forever. It can be simply a supplement to a vast internet business that is always visible, always standing tall, and always above your competition. But it takes hard work, strategy and dedication. And that’s what we are here to provide for you.

  The SmartSubmit Pro I described includes:

  • Our proprietary analysis and consulting of site usability, compatibility, and seo-friendly architecture using our 25-point check list.
  • Targeting 20 to 30 major directories for one-way authority links
  • Targeting up to 5 minor directories that have localized or industry related value
  • SEO Analysis report on up to 50 pages showing opportunities for keyword optimization
  • Recommendations for up to 10 title tags to your primary pages and keyword phrases
  • Install Website Analysis Script on up to 50 pages of your site.
  • Monthly Monitoring and consulting by email with evaluation and recommendations

  I just hired on a new staff consultant and as of this writing, I am able to take on up to 10 more clients.
  
  To encourage this, I am discounting the price from $799 plus $79 a month to only $599 and $59 a month. This is a significant savings for an essential service.

  If you can only do one thing to promote your website, then this is what I would recommend. If you plan on doing a great deal to market your website, likewise to save money in the long run, this is what I would recommend as a start.

  As an added value bonus, if you are one of the 10 clients we accept and you order within the next 72 hours, I will give you our new “Xeal – Peace of Mind Initiative” which is valued at $399, absolutely free.

  With the Xeal – Peace of Mind Initiative, we will research your domain name to ensure that you actually are the owner/registrant of the domain, and whether the email address used to register the domain actually goes to you.

  I can not begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard new clients call me in the middle of the night because when they left their old “webmaster” they didn’t realize that the domain name wasn’t set to notify them of expiration, and in some cases their domain wasn’t even set to them as the owner/registrant.

  It is wise to go ahead and let Xeal research this for you now. In addition, we will check to see that your site “SSL” certificate is valid and secure, and at no extra cost, we will backup your site, so that no matter who you are hosting with, you have a copy of your site with the changes and recommendations that we have made with the Xeal SmartSubmit Pro.

  Ask yourself this. Can I really afford not to have a solid foundation for my Internet Marketing? Is it possible to lose all my investment to date if I don’t truly understand what my site does and does not offer the search engines? Can I really afford for my foundation to be washed away? My domain names? My business?

  If you want Xeal to provide you with our analysis, consulting, and the knowledge that your investment is safe and secure, then sign up for the Xeal SmartSubmit Pro today.
  
  Call 1-866-XEAL-WEB, or simply 1-866-932-5932.

  
• Seven Guidelines for Website Usability

  You can't break the rules till you've learned the rules

  Usability, as you hopefully know, is all about making sure that the people who come to your website can find the information or product they want, and ensuring they can find it quickly, efficiently, and with minimal hair-tearing.

  Unfortunately, some people just don't know the guidelines, or just don't follow them. This can lead to a lot of frustration on the part of the user, and if users are frustrated, then chances are good they won't be back to your site. Whether you're building a new site or redesigning an old one, here are a few usability tips you should be keeping in mind.

  Consistency

  Consistency is one of the most important aspects of usability. The page style, text style, colors and navigation should be consistent throughout your entire site. Not only does this help with usability, but it will also help with building your brand online. By using those visual cues throughout your site, people will know exactly where to look for the links they need, and they'll always know for sure that they're still in your site.

  Navigation

  According to Jakob Nielsen, a usability expert, a good navigation system should answer three questions for your users:

  Where am I?
  Where have I been?
  Where can I go?

  Keep your navigation consistent throughout your site, and this is one case where it's okay to be redundant. Provide multiple ways for your users to find what they're looking for, such as text links, graphics links, a clearly marked search function and a site map, just to name a few. Also, cookie crumbs (home > products > Product Name > features) are a good way to let visitors know where they are on your site and how they got there, so it's easy for them to go back if they need to.

  For more on useability, check out this post from Midwest Business Tips:
  http://smbtips.blogspot.com

  Content

  Yes, pretty pages are a plus, but if there's no meaty content to the pages, there's no reason for users to come back. Don't dump big blocks of text on your site. Break it up into smaller paragraphs, and organize your content with headings and subheadings so that people who are skimming the site can quickly find what they're looking for. Giant text blocks only serve to give people headaches.

  Either stick with a light background and dark lettering, or a dark background with light lettering. Contrast is the key here. Use a sans serif font (like Arial) for the regular copy, and don't make it too small. Don't make your information difficult to read, unless you really want to drive people away from your site.

  And proofread, proofread, proofread. Nothing will damage your credibility quicker than blatant grammar and spelling mistakes.

  Images

  Yes, you've got that gorgeous flowery picture that you just HAVE to have on the background of every page. But did you ever stop to consider how distracting it could be, or how the color changes in the picture could obscure the text on top of it? Unless you really know what you're doing, steer clear of background images.

  For all images, make sure that you have appropriate ALT and TITLE attributes. This is the text that shows up in an image box before the image loads, or appears when you mouse over the image. Not only will this increase usability, especially for people using text browsers or site readers, but it will also increase your keywords, which makes search engine spiders happy.
  
  Custom error page

  It happens to the best of us. Pages get removed from sites. Links get changed. Sections get taken down and updated. People enter file names wrong. No matter the reason, it's entirely likely that somebody visiting your site will click on a broken link. If you have a custom 404 error page, then you have a chance to let your users know what happened, redirect them to a page that might have what they were looking for, or just take them back to your home page.

  Plus, that way you can keep your colors and branding consistent, even on the error page. It's much more professional than having your site host's 404 page show up when somebody clicks a broken link.

  Contact and feedback

  You should have a clearly marked contact page, and there should be more on there than just a form "contact us" box. Let your users know who you are, where you're located, and give them options other than just email for getting in touch with you. If you do have a form, clearly note what information you require and make sure you don't require information, like ZIP codes, that international users won't necessarily have.

  Testing

  Not everybody using your site will be from North America, have a monitor with 1280 x 800 resolution, and be surfing via Internet Explorer. You'll have international users, users with older, fullscreen monitors, users on dial-up, users on Macs, users on PCs with Firefox or other browers, blind users with site readers, you name it. That's always something to keep in mind and a big reason why you need to test. There has to be usability across all platforms, not just the one you use to build your site.

  Get real people to test your site so that you can get an idea of how users will experience it, and you can fix any problems before it goes live. Usability testing is the only way to make sure that your site fits both yours and your users' needs. That way, you can find out what works and what doesn't, and can adjust your site so that everybody has an enjoyable, pleasant experience browsing your site.

  For a few more tips on optimizing your site, check out this post: Five Ways to Optimize Your Website for Universal Search.

  Website usability is a vast, important topic, and it's nigh impossible to cover all the applicable points in just one article. However, one of the most important things to remember about these guidelines is that they are just that: guidelines. You won't get in trouble with the Internet Higher Authorities if you don't slavishly adhere to them. Just keep your users in mind with your site design. The easier it is for them, the better it will be for you.

  

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