By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)
What does your blog design tell your readers?
If you still have that generic blue and white WordPress theme that is standard on all newly created blogs, you probably won’t get the chance to say much. An unchanged, sterile design not only gives off an air of neglect, nonchalance and antiquity, but it also gives your readers no reason to stay! This is mainly because so many spam blogs out today keep generic themes like this. If your reader’s first perception of your blog is that you look like a spammer, how likely is it that they will read on to discover that are not one? However, a lack of focus in the design of your blog may also force readers to think that you are an amateur blogger and your content will be as uninteresting and unprofessional as your theme.
In short, web design for blogs should be just as much a priority as the content it offers! Why would a visitor take the time to read your blog posts when it is physically straining on their eyes, due to bright colors, lack of color, inconsistent formatting or poor layout? Poor design forces the visitor to seek more interesting content elsewhere.
It is so easy to fix this problem! There are hundreds of sites out there offering a wide variety of free WordPress themes to plug-in to your blog.
One of the best free blog theme sites I’ve come across recently is ThemeFury. ThemeFury just launched dozens of high-style WordPress themes that fit every blogging niche. All in all, it’s just a simple blog-theme site. However, that simplicity is what draws me to it, for unlike most sites boasting “free” items, ThemeFury does not attack their visitors with banner ads, pop-up ads, or other annoying marketing campaigns.
Here at Submit Solution, we love to stay up-to-date on the latest news in online marketing, social media and technology. Stay tuned for more posts highlighting recent sites, products or trends that we’ve discovered! We love to share our passion for the industry. Thanks for reading!
By Britnee Nguyen
Barack Obama may not only be known for being the first African-American president of the United States, but also for his innovative presidential campaign using great design throughout it. In looking at the history of Obama’s website design, we can learn the lessons behind each design that was created. Websites need to cater to the audience at the time being and sometimes those audiences change over time; therefore, the website needs to change too.
Nov. 3, 2004: During the days when Obama was running for Illinois Senator, his website looked like this below. This is an archival shot of the website some some of the link buttons are missing. Other than that, I’d say his website is pretty average. There’s no dominating colors he’s chosen to use throughout his site and no logos. I also didn’t see any catchy phrases used. So overall, it got the job done of electing Obama as a senator, but it was probably other efforts more than his website that impressed the voters.
Feb. 6, 2007: Here’s Obama’s website wiped clean almost 2 1/2 years later. All it reports is that Obama is starting a presidential exploratory committee. I think this was wise to clean his website from his last campaign and start new. To only have a small explanation of Obama’s plans at that time was good for the time being as he prepared to go out with a bang when he started his presidential campaign. So although the website design was pretty much nothing, it worked for his purposes at the time.
Feb. 24, 2007: As Obama announced to start a presidential campaign, his website transformed into this. It has the Obama ‘08 presidential seal and has several places to click to watch “BarackTV”, news reports, upcoming events, and how to get involved. The best parts of this website is the red “donate” button they’ve created. Drawing attention to that helps guide potential donors to quickly see where to donate their money. Another great part about this website is the toolbar at the bottom that gives easy access to the user to register to vote, Facebook, Youtube, and Flickr about the website and campaign.
July 11, 2007: A few months later, the website still looked the same, but with extra features added such as more social networks were added to the bottom tool bar. “The Obama Story” is a new button on the page as well as “Obama Store”. If you notice in the picture, they are reporting on “Where We Stand” and thanking their current supporters. This website was designed this way to cater to the current supporters. After Obama had announced his campaign and people jumped on board, the website changed by providing ways for people to support more such as with Obama store items and mobile campaigning. Compared to the last website design, they were just trying to get the word out and get Obama’s stand on issues out. Now, they are thanking supporters and essentially supporting their supporters in their efforts.
Jan. 16, 2008: The final design of Obama’s website is the most consistent. It was consistent not only through the website, but also with his messages of “Hope” and “Change”. His website evolved from telling every issue he stood for and seeing if people would support him to a website with simple messages of hope and change. By this time, most of America knows who Barack Obama is and what he wants. So the website doesn’t really need to delve into that fact like it did in earlier designs. He just needed to stay consistent in his mission and goals and convey that through his design. In this campaign, (unlike his Illinois senator campaign) his innovative web and graphic design played a huge part in him winning the U.S. presidential election.
By Robert Lockard
Do you feel lost when it comes to Web design? You don’t need to be an expert on HTML, Ruby or other programming languages to end up with an effective design for your ecommerce website. You can use Submit Solution’s custom-design services to handle the actual design part.
But there are four steps you can take before you go to the experts to make sure your site does precisely what you want it to. These steps come from an Examiner article entitled, “Website design starter plan for clients.” That article has horrible spelling and grammar, but it has a few good ideas I want to share, so I’ll cut its author a little slack.
Anyway, here are the four steps you should take before requesting help from a Web designer:
1. Look at what your competitors are doing. Plagiarism is illegal, but finding good practices and Web-design ideas is perfectly legal. This will give you a good starting point to see which elements of a website you would like to use in your own. Try to stick to general ideas, such as navigation, structure and what subjects are covered in the text.
2. Once you have an idea of what others are doing, start mapping out your website’s outline. Start with the main pages, such as home, services, products, about us, etc. Then add subpages under the main pages to build on more specific topics. Fill in as much detail as you can about what information and messages you want those pages to contain. This will help the designers be more precise in meeting your needs.
3. Write down other tools you want to include in your website. If you want to add tutorials or other videos to your site, you should mention that you’ll need a media player in your site outline. Depending on your needs, you might consider adding any number of specialized tools to your site, such as forums, blogs, audio, etc. Make sure whatever you add actually helps visitors and doesn’t distract from your site’s overall theme.
4. Create an overall theme for your website. This includes color schemes, logo, content placement and more. Like a wedding, a website needs to have its colors chosen ahead of time to make sure everything matches and works well together. Having a strong logo is a good starting point in creating your design and, once again, Submit Solution’s logo-design services can come in handy.
When you’re armed with research and a plan, you can confidently approach a designer to begin building your website. Some of your plans might have to wait because of budget concerns or other reasons, but you will definitely have a much stronger final product than if you went into the design process with no preparation.
This is a complete version of the post on the eHarbor Blog: “What to do before you hire a Web designer.” The photo of the blue dog is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of lepiaf.geo.
By Robert Lockard
In case you haven’t noticed, Submit Solution just released an advanced new version of its website, submitsolution.com. Doesn’t it look great? The updated site now includes two new services – custom Web and logo design – as well as four ecommerce blogs and free search-engine submission, in addition to its search engine optimization and paid-search packages.
Submit Solution is already an expert at getting qualified traffic to clients’ websites via SEO and PPC campaigns. By adding custom website design and logo design to its services, Submit Solution can now help turn a higher number of site visitors into customers.
Submitsolution.com has a more user-friendly design, allowing visitors to quickly navigate its Web pages. The site boasts free search-engine submission, as well as four new blogs focusing on SEO, PPC, social media and Web design, respectively. It also provides additional Internet-marketing tools, definitions of ecommerce terms and FAQs to help newcomers learn the ins and outs of Internet marketing.
“The new Submit Solution website helps potential clients understand both the intricacies of a successful search-engine marketing plan and what we can do to help,” said Oliver Bigler, chief executive officer and founder of Submit Solution. “Internet newbies can often be drowned in a sea of conflicting information. Our website helps clients navigate their way toward information and services that fit their needs best.”
For 14 years, Submit Solution has worked in the Internet-marketing industry. Its SEO packages were recently updated to add social-media posting and inbound linking to its traditional tactics of optimizing site content, such as adding Meta tags. Other new or improved services include:
- Website design
- Logo design
- Paid-search advertising
- Competitive analysis
- Website consulting
This launch of Submit Solution’s new website makes this the second week in a row in which we’ve introduced an innovative product or service. Be sure to check out my blog entry on Magellan Commerce’s new online merchant service: “Magellan Commerce offers low-cost ecommerce and merchant services.”
By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)
September 8th, 2009
Did you know that eight seconds is all that stands between a potential customer and another lost client? Statistics say that this short amount of time is all it takes for a visitor on your site to decide whether they’re going to read on or push the “back” button in their browser. Can you guess what the most important factor is in this quick decision? Web design. If your site is clear, updated and easy to use, you will retain more of your visitors, which will help you more readily convert them into paying customers.
You only have eight seconds to convince your visitors to stay, so don’t scare them away with these utah web design faux-pas:
1. Clutter
Information overload. Nobody likes it! Don’t crowd your landing pages with too much information, too many photos or cheesy advertising. Make your home page welcoming and simple. Here is a simple design tip to improve your website’s clarity: manipulate the white or blank space around certain links, pages or content that you deem most important for your customers to notice. This highlights importance without overwhelming the eyes!
2. Hidden Links
This is a general formatting rule that is often ignored: make your links look like links and your text look like text. One of the biggest deterrents to visitors in web design is the unexpected pop-up of another page when one makes a random click on a site. Make sure that all linked words or phrases on your page follow the same format (underline, color, bold, etc) so that information is clearly available to your readers.
3. Lack of Navigation
In the eight seconds your visitors are deliberating, they should be able to quickly access and navigate your site according to their needs. Simple sidebar design with a select number of options will prove successful, as it is informational without being complicated. Keep it simple!
4. Harsh Colors
The onslaught of harsh color schemes is one of the quickest ways to ensure that your visitors will soon leave your page. Not only are bright, neon color schemes difficult to read and hard on the eyes, they also exude a sort of amateurism that does not bode well for your company.
5. Lack of Purpose
Your visitors should not have to look very far to find out who you are and what you do when they’re on your site. A small header on each page is a great way to let any reader know where the information they’re currently reading is coming from. A small slogan is also a great way to show your visitors that they are accessing information from an expert source in their field.
Although it may sound overwhelming that customers will ditch your site after less than ten seconds of being on it, all hope is not lost! Most of these mistakes can be easily corrected. They are mostly formatting errors and simple design choices. By avoiding the simple utah web design mistakes listed above, you can guarantee great success in converting visitors to quality leads or customers.
