Showing posts with label Manipulating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manipulating. Show all posts
  1. Be Obvious. Be Simple. Be Smart: Tips for Designing a Stellar Website

    Friday, June 6, 2008
    By Andy
    You have the layout complete. The text is done. Let's Build! Wait. Make sure you have all your ducks in a row first before throwing up any old website. Stand out, be different, and showcase your product in a stellar setting. Check out these tips for designing a website that will quickly convert traffic to sales! Clean code with a crisp marketing message, coupled with a search engine friendly design might just knock the socks off any search engine that comes crawling your way.

    Slappin' Ya in the Face Obvious

    You'd be surprised by how many people say, "...but my phone number is right there!" ...But is it, really? Is your call to action on your website so pronounced that it practically hits your potential buyer-customer square between the eyes? If not, you might want to fix that. Studies show five seconds is all you've got to captivate your audience with a bright call to action, or a custom graphic to make it obvious. Hook, line and sinker them with a sheer cut, eye popping call to action! Whether it's a "Call Today", "Book It", or "Buy Now" - make sure the Pick ME cue is apparent and obvious to your target audience.

    Get Ready to Rumble...

    We're all human. Competition runs in our blood. Everyone wants to be first or "the best"... carry this attitude over to your website and you are sure to beat out your competition! Your website is your virtual store, and if you don't possess this thinking already, you need to. Invest in your website, as its seen 24 hours a day, seven days a week by potential clients all over the world. Be prepared and get educated, as a website is a terrible thing to waste. The good old days of tweaking things here and there and wham! ...top ten placements, is over. Invest your time and hire a good SEO firm to help you market your business the right way.

    Find out who's the hottest in your industry and make it a goal to beat them. With over 180 million searches on the web today, it is imperative to research keyword phrases that your competition is going after. What are their marketing tactics and are they working? Do they have an email campaign located on-site? What are their credentials? Does the website provide coupons, discounts or hot deals? It's the internet my fríend, the competition is steep and all bets are off. So, roll up your sleeves, put on your gloves, and get ready to rumble! Or, research an internet marketing firm that specializes in both search engine optimization and website design that can fight the battle for you.

    Simple Simon Wins

    Being a "Simpleton" ain't all that bad these days. Just because the world turns at record breaking speeds doesn't mean your website has to. Too much going on, whether there are words upon words, or graphics up the wazoo, can do more harm than good. Be cautious before slapping up just any old image or using too much text to get your point across. We all know that "Content is King!", but Optimized Content reigns supreme. By strategically placing the right keywords in your Title Tags, Meta Data Tags and throughout the body of your website, your business will benefit. Clean design, concise code, and fresh marketing ideas that are clear to the end user will help you get the leads and generate the desired sales you are looking for.

    Optimize, Optimize, Optimize!

    Search engine optimization... what's all the hype about!? Internet competition is booming - open your eyes and smell the code! If you have a beautiful website, but it's not converting...you've wasted your time and money. A well built website with search engine optimization in mind is a goldmine at your finger tips. What's the first step in optimization? Researching and determining a líst of keywords that will drive traffic to the site and convert into sales. Test out various keywords, find out what your competition is and let it ride. For the keywords that don't convert, bag 'em. Expand your focus to reach broad based keywords as well as long tail keyword phrases. The narrower the keyword is, the more likely the user will convert on your page.

    Widgets are In

    What is a widget? Widgets aid in the process of interacting with your target audience. When your potential customer/buyer installs your widget on their webpage, blog or social media networking profile - you wín a valuable fríend! Widgets provide a great way to strengthen the bond between your existing customers and any newbies who are interested in your product. Get new customers and provide a widget for them to interact with you. Personalization is "key". Almost anything can become a widget - from games to stock tickers or audio players - put your thinking caps on and give your customers the option!

    Smarty Pants Always Test

    This is true. Successful websites are successful because webmasters test their work. A great way to test your website to see if your design is working is through the A/B Split method. These tests run concurrently, at least for a couple of weeks to gain true results. A/B testing provides real world, data-driven, unbiased results based on your target market. There is now even an easy to use A/B Split testing program through the Google Website Optimizer tool! Check it out and win big. Go ahead - be a smarty pants... you know you want to!

    Time to Analyze

    Yes, folks - it's time to analyze. You might think the hard work is done, but it's now time to see if all your work has paid off successfully. You've created this gorgeous website perfectly equipped with clear calls to action, clean code and search engine friendly site architecture - now what? Let it ride and hope for the best? NO! Test, test and analyze your findings.

    Does your hosting company provide a stats program? If so, fire that baby up and analyze what is working, what can be tossed out and what needs to be amped up. Focus on unique visitors, time on site, referrals, and what keyword phrases are driving the most targeted traffíc. A stat program is your fríend, NOT your enemy. Embrace your website's analytics and learn from them to tailor your website, your search engine optimization and your business model after this information. Google also has a free analytics program that involves placing a simple code before the tag on pages you'd like to track. Fast, effective and proven.

    If you are a "do-it-yourselfer", I hope these tips helped you with the marketing of your business. If you are too busy and are looking for a firm to handle both the building of your website and the marketing - research a good SEO firm. Count on a professional internet marketing company to shine through and get your hard work to pay off. Good luck!

    About The Author
    Sarah Lamansky is a Search Engine Marketing Manager at Mannix Marketing, Inc. in Glens Falls, NY. Please contact us for all of your search engine marketing, website design/development and advertising needs. With a positive approach, streamlined goals, and over Ten Years in the search engine optimization industry, We Get You Found On The Web AND improve your sales. For website tips, advertising ideas or a FREE search engine optimization quote, please contact us. Got ten minutes? Let's talk.
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  2. Photoshop?? : What is Photoshop?

    Monday, May 28, 2007
    By Andy
    ~From now on i will post tutorial about Photoshop, Vector Graphics, Flash & Swish, 3D Graphics, HTML and CSS & also Web Programming. Stay Tune~

    What is Photoshop?

    Unless you just happened to accidentally stumble in here, you probably already know what Photoshop is and you're here to increase your knowledge or look for a solution to a nagging problem. However, for those of you who do not yet know the full range of what Photoshop is and what it is capable of doing, here's a quick breakdown:

    Photoshop — as its name implies — is a software package that takes all the powers of a professional photography studio and brings it into your own hands and onto your own personal computer. Debuting way back in the dark ages of computers (1987), Photoshop has grown into the end-all be-all of image editing/manipulation/creation programs.

    Photoshop has become so powerful, and its legions of loving users have become so skilled at using it, that photography — a medium that has long garnered a reputation of preserving facts — is now under question. Images can be crafted and manipulated so skillfully with Photoshop that — in many cases — you can't tell an altered image from an unaltered one.

    A fellow Art Center College of Design alumni, (well...he was a near alumni anyway) Matt Mahurin, became an unwilling epitome of this movement when he digitally darkened OJ Simpson's face for the cover of the magazine in 1994. As you can imagine — or may remember — both he and Time Magazine received a lot of flack for a move which underscored the beginning of a new era.

    So as you're probably beginning to understand, Photoshop isn't just another
    software program that you're learning; it's a culture, it's a movement, and it's
    changing the way society is perceiving reality.

    With that deep stuff out of the way, here's a short — and highly truncated — list of some of the things Photoshop CS is capable of:

    *Fix images with poor color or lighting conditions. Improve detail and clarity in washed-out images or reveal parts of an image hidden in shadow.
    *Remove the dreaded "red eye."
    *Repair old photographs. Fix up grandma and grandpa's wedding photos!
    *Creating photo composites. Remember, in elementary school art classes, when you would cut photos out of magazines and paste them together to create a new composition? Imagine being able to do that again but having the power to make it look real.
    *Combine multiple photos together to create a panoramic photograph.
    *Easily print a contact sheet to fit as many photos as possible of your daughter's first day at school onto a single sheet of paper.
    *Create business cards, letterheads, logos, flyers, newsletters, and posters using images and text.
    *Use built-in filters and styles to easily apply various effects to your images and text.
    *Anything else you can imagine, Photoshop CS can probably do.

    This Photoshop consists of the following areas :

    1.Basics and Setup
    2.Color Management
    3.Layers
    4.Selections
    5.Masks
    6.Channels
    7.Paths and Shapes
    8.Painting and Brushes
    9.Type
    10.Color and Value
    11.Filters
    12.Restoring, Manipulating, and Compositing
    13.Saving and Exporting
    14.Actions and Automation
    15.Building Web Graphics with ImageReady
    16.Working with Adobe Version Cue

    More detail about Photoshop go main page of the Photoshop Guide and the weblogs weekly with all the latest news, cool tricks, tips, and commentary. I look forward to being your guide.
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