Web Copy Migration - Expensive Cost Cutting

Eye candy is seductive. Web visitors who stumble upon a site with innovative design will stop to take in the eye-catching treat. That they have a creative design is a unique selling feature of many sites.

It’s the reason many small businesses put a strong emphasis on having a creative, “leading edge” design. There is nothing wrong with emphasising design creativity when it fits with the goals of your web site.

Problems arise when you sacrifice other important elements of your site for the sake of an off-the-chart design. Your web site’s copy and structure are just as important to your overall web design as colour, layout and effects (easy on the effects – remember the goal of your site).

As it is an important design element, you should create copy specifically for your web design, just as you do with other elements. Migrated web copy, copy taken from your brochures, sell-sheets or old web site, doesn’t fit. Not only will it make your web copy less effective, it could ruin your snazzy design and chase away your web visitors. Saving money by migrating copy can be very expensive.  

Happy Halloween, and go easy on the candy!

By Stephen Da Cambra

with thanks to New Thinking

Write for Everyman - & Every Person in Your Target Market

We recently read an interesting blog post that talks about engaging “everyman” with your web copy. The author is absolutely right; your copy needs to reach the masses and too many big words or industry jargon tends to drive the masses away.

You can also take the concept beyond your copy and use it across your entire internet marketing program. But be warned, while you have help for creating copy in layman’s terms, like keyword tools, there’s nothing similar to help you decide what web design, social media profile or viral message will work for the masses.

Beginning with your web design, you must appeal to the broadest range of potential customers. Not everyone arrives at your site looking for the same thing and they may not be at the same stage in the buying cycle. For example, if you develop a new High Tech Doodad and introduce it on your web site, you will attract a lot of traffic looking for basic information, like a product description. If you have competition for the Doodad, others will arrive at your site looking for more advanced information that will help them decide which HT Doodad is best. Fortunately, when it comes to high tech items, there’s a large contingent who simply must have the latest Doodad and they will come to your site looking to buy.

See what’s happening? Your site needs to appeal to visitors who are in search of a broad range of useful information. From looking for basic information to ready to buy, they all will arrive at your site and if you don’t give them what they’re looking for fast, you risk losing them, perhaps forever.

The same is true for all your other internet marketing initiatives. You should give the masses what they seek from you.

Get your message across to the everyman – and every person, or at least as many as you can, regardless of where they are in their search for information or products.

By Stephen Da Cambra

An Internet Search Story

When did TV remote units start controlling functions on your set that you can’t do without the remote? Lose the original and you will need a universal remote that costs more than the TV is worth – and pray that one of the programming codes works for your TV brand and model - to get all your functionality back.

Or, even better (and cheaper), you can search the internet for a replacement of the original remote. How clever I am is that? Find the model number (how do they come up with those – TVR45620pdq8pie4U?), enter it into Google and go get the remote.

We’re not sure if there is a strange trend rippling through the TV remote control corner of the web, but they could use a few lessons in web design. It makes the problem of choosing from unknown online suppliers much worse.

Credibility symbols - BBB, Verisign, etc., - are scarce, they only want online orders, so you won’t find phone numbers, and addresses are hard to come by too. Faced with an absence of the usual measures of trust, you need to find other means of choosing the right online supplier - even if it means checking out the dreaded “About Us” or “FAQ” page.

Sometimes “About Us” and “FAQs” are a waste of your time. Will “About Us” ever say anything other than how incredibly customer driven the company is? FAQs are hard to wade through, even with search functions, and are often filled with trite bits like “Do You Sell Remotes for TVs?”.

However, in situations where customers are unsure of what they are buying, or with whom they are dealing, “About Us” and “FAQs” can win them over.

Check out the “FAQ” at newremotecontrol.com. The plain straightforward language (no marketing speak), in response to exactly the sorts of questions a user might have, shows that this company probably does what it says. Newremotecontrols.com won the purchase, even though their remote was more expensive.

By Stephen Da Cambra

Maybe it's Web Design

Some will blame the economy - but it could be web design.  While the economic situation has resulted in pensive inaugurations and sober Oscar ceremonies, minimalism is making a comeback in its traditional domains of art and design. 

Behold the latest Coke bottle.  The traditional white logo on a solid field of red.  No drop shadows, keylines or highlights.  New logos and packaging from other major brands show that Coke is not alone.

So has the economic situation begun to influence fashion?  Perhaps.  But, web designers may have a little to do with it.

Unlike packaging, web design evolves rapidly, even on very basic levels.  The iconic Coke bottle has changed little in over 100 years, so the canvas remains the same for Coke’s package designers. 

Now consider the web design canvas.  In the last decade, it has doubled in size.  Enhanced graphic chips have allowed more colours, more resolution and more options.  Animations, audio and video have added new dimensions that give web design a unique identity.  It is no longer an imitation of print work.

The result?  After evolving on tighter screens, web designs are now obliged to fill a larger area.  In the best designs, the void is not stuffed with additional elements, but with “whitespace” that allows existing elements to “breathe” and do a better job. 

While whitespace may have grown from an ever-increasing frame size and improved technology, it is now a necessary part of most successful web design and layout. 

A well-known example is the Google homepage, which has remained the same for over 10 years - a multicoloured logo on solid field of white.  Sound familiar?

By Stephen Da Cambra