The Silent Avatar Speaks

I’m talking web image here ( not personal image)

As someone who designs websites a significant portion of my time is spent on the Internet.

Through scanning thousands of websites, will the sole purpose of looking at the site from a designers perspective, I’ve come to know a good image from a poor image and downright %^$# awful images.

Images are the first thing the eye is drawn to, and a website with lots of graphics is encouraging to form an opinion about the website just by viewing the images.

The use of images sets the “tone” or theme of the website. We’ve all seen websites which are bright and colourfully presented, and other websites which are dark, and very business like.

We’ve also seen our fair share of “home-made” websites, produced by what I call web “hobbyists”.

These crudely designed works of art (yes.. they are a creation of their author) , brings to mind how many people haven’t discovered Joomla! or Drupal CMS websites. These “hobbyists” sites just make me cringe.

Often times I have seen a great product image, but completely lost in amongst a haze of a dozen different fonts, and hideous blinking banners and guest books.

Anyway.. that’s getting a little off track… Images.. ah yes…

Good images convey the intent of the image.

If the intention is to show a good product image, it should be a great product image.

Take into consideration how the image presents from a site visitors perspective.
Does it “sell itself”?

Consider a suitable size of the image.
Consider the size in context to its surrounds.
Consider the impact of the image
Is it too big or too small?

Consider editing the image in something like Photoshop, where you can enhance the brightness, contrast and sharpen the image so it is crisper.

Consider the background of the image. Does it detract from the subject (like a product), or does the background enhance the product or subject?

If using product images are the images all the same size and is the subject centered? Images which are taken without considering uniformity in the site presentation produce sites which are a bit “higgledy piggeldy”.

These are critical issues you need to consider when taking photos to add to a website.

An image really does speak a thousand words…

It tells a site visitor if they are dealing with a professional, the images portray the “tone of the site”, they evoke emotion in the site visitor, and Text Images can instruct site visitors what to do and a way which engages them with the site.

Great images don’t just happen (unless you are on a sunset beach in the Caribbean each day) – they are planned. And if you have a product plan to sell your product in the best possible way, with the best possible image.

Having said that…

How many words does a video speak?  Yep.. and that’s where we are heading. Though images will be around for a while.

have a good look at your website and consider some of the points I have offered when next looking at your site. You may find with a few changes in images, your whole site can take on a new look and a new “vibe”.

What do you think?

Tags: Web Design by the silent avatar
No Comments »

No doubt taking a business online is a decision which shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s easy to get caught up in all the hype of the Internet, but the bottom line is “will you see a return on your investment”?

One of the biggest headaches can be getting traffic (aka customers) to your site, and eBay already has that covered.

Here are the traffic statistics from Alexa.com

Of course there is a multitude of ways to drive traffic to your site. Most take time to do, others you can pay money for and get moving straight way. All should be monitored (especially if you are spending advertising dollars to get the customers) as to how effective they are for you.

So here are a couple of scenarios which you may want to consider…

1. Open an online shop and either hold physical stock or drop ship.

2. Sell your products for a competitive price (including postage).

3. Advertise your site using free classified, forum posts, Pay Per Click advertising, etc

or

1. Research your market on Ebay
   Log in and go to “Advanced Search”. Input your product (be specific). Check “Search Title and Description” and Check “Completed Listings Only”, and check “new items only” (if you sell new) – then search. This will return you a listing of SOLD items which have been listed for sale on eBay, which are more than likely products you would offer to sell.

   Note: Search through “all Categories”, then refine down your listings using “Narrow your results” (which is accessed by going to the left of the window)

   Only review the listings highlighted in green (these are sold items).

   Now… Start a spreadsheet or pen/paper and input the data from the sold items.

2. Enter in the following:

· Item Name ( you want to know which items are the biggest sellers)

· Sold price – (because you want to know the lowest/highest price you can sell for

· Date sold – you want to know which day/s things sell more of than other days.

· Time sold – you want to know which time is the best sale time.

· Postage – you want to know what postage is reasonable (though you shouldn’t make money on postage – it should be flat postage fee plus an amount to cover packaging and getting to the post office).

· The seller (the best seller may have tricks you can use)

Armed with the information from Ebay you have a much better idea what people are willing to pay for the item you are going to sell. You also have a good idea what day you should be listing your items, and what time you should be listing them to get them in front of buyers, and how you should be listing them (I’ll go into that next post).

If you have found that the price people are willing to pay is something that you can work with, the next step is to use this information and set up a listings on Ebay of around 30 products (they don’t all have to be individual products) and list them on the day and time that your research has turned up as being the best time to sell. Don’t list the same items one after the other.

Do this for 1 month and see how sales go.

While you are doing your research you can also be checking out other auction sites like oztion.com.au and do the same thing.

You can also check out forums in your selected niche (let’s say you want to sell Xbox 360 video games). You can simply Google search for “Xbox forums”, join up and have a look around the forum for anyone who is talking about where they buy their games. You can also get a pretty good idea about what products they are buying.

While this might sound a little tedious it will pay huge dividends and either confirm to you the project is viable, or scrap it as you can’t compete with what is already out there (and lets face it with imports from china it’s getting harder and harder to compete)

Having said that… all is not lost if the price issue is looking pretty grim.

If you specialise in a “niche” (and I’ll use the video games as an example, you could “specialise” in games for only Xbox or a certain type of game ie; racing car, war games, etc.

If you determine you have a viable product and can sell at a price which is comparable to your competition, you are then good to go…

You can either set up your own website and market traffic directly to the site or set up a full eBay store and run it as a business, or, you can keep listing products (using the research you have done), and just list single items to sell.

Over to you….

As always feel free to post a comment or question for me to answer.

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Traffic Generation by the silent avatar
No Comments »

Today’s blog is in answer to a question not uncommon to those who are venturing into a web presence, and a common thread is “I have no idea what I want, or “I’ll leave it to you to decide”, or, “I don’t know where to start”.

In a lot of ways designing a website is a bit like having a baby.

First there is the thought you would like to have a one. You’ll consider if you have what it takes to handle a baby – you research what’s required.

When you decide that you do have what it takes to have a baby, you then you move into the “conception stage”. The conception stage is laying down the DNA. It’s the blueprint for the baby (this is the design process stage).

Then the “birth” stage commences – the design work is undertaken to bring it to launch status (when the site goes live).

Then after the birth (the website launch), we move in to the “teething problems” stage, monitoring any problems and tweaking the site until things settle down.

Then there is the growth stage – When you actively grow your site by increasing visitor traffic.

And last of all comes maturity – that time when the website is just about on auto pilot, where the plans laid down in the conception days start to bear fruit.

So the laying down the blueprint stage is the most critical. It will determine how your “baby” proceeds once the blueprint is determined. You efefctively are charting a course for birth.

One of the messages in “The Secret” (and if you haven’t heard about The Secret” I suggest you have a look here), is “our throughts create our reality”.

So the best place to start is imagining what you end goal is like. Start imagining.

If you have other areas of your business which are demanding your attention, then leave the “planning” of your website until your mind is clear and focused on the process of designing the website. Your whole attention needs to be focused on the preparation .

Of course you could leave it all to the designer, it’s just that in order for the designer to get an idea of what you want involves questioning you about your expectations for the site.
Leaving it up to the designer will still involve input from you in some way.

So focus on your tasks at hand which have a higher priority at this time, mindful of the tasks that a designer is required to undertake when designing a site so you can marry what you are doing now to what may be required later.

For an overview of the process just click here

One of the areas which you may have never given any consideration for is how many vistors to the site do you expect?

If you currently don’t have a website this is probably an unknown , however with a bit of maths you can get an idea of what you need to make the site a viable business to bring you sufficent income to support you.

To do this you need to sit down with a pen and paper.

Start by deciding how much income you would like to make from your website.

This is a figure only you can determine, but for the purpose of this excercise let’s say $1000 a week.

Now if you sell widgets which cost $10 each, this means you would have to sell 100 widgets to make this income – and you have to have available 100 widgets to sell!. You will also have to consider your “outgoings”, and factor them into the equation.

Now based on 100 sales you may find you need 400 visitors to your site each week to generate 100 sales (conversion rate of visitors to sales is 25% in this case). Typically conversion rates are lower, oftentimes around 5%.

Doing this excercise will focus you on what the goal is. It will also probably scare the hell out of you. You’ll probably think” how on earth am I going to get 400 (or more) visitors to my site consistently”?

Remember… we are starting with the end result in mind. We are looking to build a site which will handle this number of visitors (minimum).

Don’t worry about how this will happen at this point. If a designer has this information, then the functionality of the site can be geared towards this end result.

Every website comes with ability to track how many vistors come to your site. Monitoring this figure will determine whether you need to up your traffic generation strategies. (You can click here to see my tips on generating traffic at no cost).

Of course a designer can offer their expertise in determining what your site should have, but they still need an overview of your expectations. And you expectations are related to the end result. That’s the purpose of a design questionaire.

For those who already have a website and it’s not performing to the level they want, it’s usually better to scrap what is, and start again. Certain elements of the existing site can be usedagain, however if the site is not meeting your standard to what you envisage as your end result then you can see that things need to change radically or need to start over again.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The planning stage of the site is the most critical. It’s a project. It’s not something you do when there’s nothing else to do. If you have other projects on the boil wait until you are free to give it your attention.

After all it’s your “baby” and you are the creator. Give it the attention it deserves and you will reap the rewards.

Tags: General by the silent avatar
No Comments »