Usability influences whether many users will return to a web site, how often they will use the web site, and how happy they are with their overall experience at the web site. There are millions of sites on the Internet and they are all in competition for users’ time and attention. Users get their expectations for usability from the best of all of these other sites.

• Design is a key determinant to building online trust with consumers. For motivated users of an information site, bad design (busy layout, small print, too much text) hurts more than good design helps.
• Layout on a web page (whitespace and advanced layout of headers, indentation, and figures) may not measurably influence performance, but it does influence satisfaction.
• Experience matters: Blue links are easier to click than black ones, even though black ones have higher visual contrast and are easier to see.
• It’s important to consider the users when you have a choice of icons, links, or both. Initial performance is best with the link alone. Frequent users can use either equally effectively. Icons are not faster, relative to text links alone. –
• Rules of thumb for icons: Make them as large as feasible, place frequently used icons in a persistent task bar, and arrange them either in a square (first choice) or in a horizontal layout.
• The acceptance and impact of animation is enhanced when users are warned to expect it and allowed to start it when they want.
• Use of whitespace between paragraphs and in the left and right margins increases comprehension by almost 20 %.
• A format of 95 characters per line is read significantly faster than shorter line lengths; however, there are no significant differences in comprehension, preference, or overall satisfaction, regardless of line length. –
• Applications vs. websites: In general, visual layout guidelines for GUIs also apply to the web, but there are differences to be aware of. For example, dense pages with lots of links take longer to scan for both GUI and web; however, alignment may not be as critical for web pages as previously thought.
• Narrative presentation enhances comprehension and memory. Narrative advertisements produce more positive attitude about the brand and a higher incidence of intent to purchase.
• On sites with clear labels and prominent navigation options, users tend to browse rather than search.Searching is no faster than browsing in this context.
• Users will wait longer for better content. Users will wait between 8-10 seconds for information on the web, depending on the quality of the information.
• Consumer purchase behavior is driven by perceived security, privacy, quality of content and design, in that order.
• Users have clear expectations about where to find the things they want (search and back-to-home links) as well as the things they want to avoid (advertising).

First, it is important to understand the importance of keyword selection and how to use your keywords on your website in order to enhance your marketing strategy.

Keyword research is one of the most basic steps in a good search engine optimization design and without it all SEO efforts will be wasted. Also, it is important to perform a thorough keyword research before you start placing keywords on your webpage.

SEO Keyword Research

Keyword Research is the process of identifying a list of keywords and then selecting those keywords that accurately reflect your products and services. It involves finding out which are the most popular terms searched by Internet users, how widely they are searched and how many and which other websites run on those keywords.

It is also important to think in terms of how your target audience would search for products or services on the Internet. For instance, if you have a website promoting a golf club, then it would not make much sense for you to target keywords like “golf” or “golfing” because these keywords are extremely general and have tons of competitors. Also, since you are targeting only people who are looking out for a golf club, using a general keyword like “golf” will bring in a lot of irrelevant traffic. This is because visitors may be looking for anything related to golf, such as golf history, golf tips, golf news, and so on. Typically a person who is looking out for a golf club will type in “golf club” and related terms instead of the single term “golf.” So from this example it is evident that the best choice of keywords for you would be to use phrases like “golf club” instead of single and general keywords.

You can use keyword research tools (free and paid) that are available online in order to see what users are searching for. There are several such tools which contain data on search queries performed by users over a period of time. These tools will help you get an idea on the kind of terms that are searched for and also their frequency of search. Any keyword research tool will let you enter a word and show results on similar terms including variations, synonyms, misspellings, singulars, and plurals. Not only do these tools provide information on search volume but also show data on the advertiser competition for keywords.

Once keyword research is done and you have built your keyword list, these keywords can then be placed at appropriate places in your webpage content to achieve a high ranking in search engines. However, avoid placing too many on the same page as search engines consider this practice as keyword stuffing and may penalize your site for it.

SEO Keyword Tactics

Keyword Research will help you get the most popular, lucrative, and top SEO keywords which may be searched by thousands of users in a day. However, if there are several competitors for the keywords you have chosen, then it will be very difficult to beat those sites and get the top ranking in the search results. Conversely, if you choose keywords that are very specific or niche that no one searches on them, then top ranking for your site is wasted as there would be none to see it. The idea behind choosing the right SEO keywords is that they should help you achieve top ranking with reasonable efforts and budget. If your site fails to show on the first or second page of the search results then it would really not be worth the time and effort that would have gone in optimizing those keywords.

You will most often find that the best SEO keywords are already being used by a large number of competitors and these high volume keywords may be very tempting to use but may not always fetch you the ranking you desire. Therefore, the catch here is to fish out those keywords that have strong relevance to your website, high search volume, and relatively less competition because these keywords will be more rewarding than just high volume competitive keywords. It is quite possible to achieve a good search engine ranking while staying within your budget and with minimal effort using low volume less competitive SEO keywords when compared to high volume ones. To do this, you need to find out how tough it is to get a good ranking for a specific keyword and this can be done using keyword difficulty tools.

You can draw the reader’s eye to your ad by featuring the face of an attractive, happy person looking straight at your readers. A human face is the most effective visual magnet available.

If you are selling a product, then your product is the hero of your ad. Hire a professional photographer to stage your photo and take a high quality photograph. Include people in your product shots, a satisfied customer for your service. Good photography can double the response rate of your advertisement.

Each media is unique. An ad that is effective in the phone book makes a terrible postcard. An excellent newspaper ad will fail in the yellow pages. You must design your advertising around your media.

If your ad is bigger or smaller than it should be, or if it simply blends in with the other ads on the page, your advertising is less effective. If your ad runs too often, or not enough, or in the wrong place, or at the wrong time, your advertising is less effective. Understanding and using your media wisely increases your customer response rate.

An effective advertisement is personally significant to your reader. An ad that features a specific problem and solution will get a good response from people who have that specific problem. A general ad that simply lists services is often overlooked. A targeted ad is noticed.

People decide what they want to read by scanning the headlines. If you want people to read your ad, write a great headline. Identify your target audience, list benefits, give news, and promise solutions in your headline.

A great headline can double or triple the response rate to your advertising.

 The offer your ad makes is incredibly important to the response you will get. No offer – no response. Poor offer – poor response. Always make the strongest offer you can: a discount coupon, a free consultation, a better service, a 100% guarantee. A strong offer brings a strong response to your advertisement.

People respond to ads that create an emotional response or desire. Emotions are much stronger than logic. Advertising can make people laugh, cry, sing, scream, lust, feel angry, feel happy, feel nostalgic, or feel nothing. It’s in the words that you use. Sex. Money. Fear. Love. Free. Fast. Easy. Now.

The stronger the emotional response you get from your readers, the higher your response rate will be.

Poor design reduces the response rate to your advertising. Top designers understand how to use font, color, balance, contrast, space, and emphasis to hold attention and increase reader comprehension.

A good designer knows how people read and gather information from the written page, and will make your ad look balanced, organized, and easy to understand.

To the public, your advertising is your business. You want your advertising to be as professional and polished as your product or services. Poor quality advertising reflects badly on your company, and it can make your potential customers question the quality of your services.

You must measure results if you want to know which of your efforts are successful. You want to code your coupons, use exclusive phone numbers, or set up other methods to track your response to a specific ad. If you don’t track your ads, you will never know where to invest more resources to maximize response rates and minimize mistakes.

Advertising has been studied and tested for over 100 years, and there is a great body of knowledge about what works and what doesn’t. At West Coast Creative, we have the knowledge and the skills to double your customer response rate. Contact us to set up your free marketing analysis. ]]> http://westcoastinc.org/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=12 0 http://westcoastinc.org/wordpress/?p=1 http://westcoastinc.org/wordpress/?p=1#comments Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:23:25 +0000 admin http://westcoastinc.org/wordpress/?p=1 Leahy’s Law states that if a thing is done wrong often enough, it becomes right, and as a result, volume becomes a defense to error. When advertising fails to sway consumers, most advertisers follow Leahy’s Law by increasing the frequency of the advertising hoping that more of what is not working will somehow work when consumers are subjected to more of the same.

Use the following 10 simple rules to evaluate the advertising you encounter. You may be disappointed, but don’t be surprised when you discover that most advertising fails to follow any of the rules.

1. Does the ad tell a simple story, not just convey information?

A good story has a beginning where a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation, a middle where the character confronts and attempts to resolve the situation, and an end where the outcome is revealed. A good story does not interpret or explain the action in the story for the audience. Instead, a good story allows each member of the audience to interpret the story as he or she understands the action. This is why people find good stories so appealing and why they find advertising that simply conveys information so boring.

2. Does the ad make the desired call to action a part of the story?

A good story that is very entertaining but does not make a direct connection between the desired call to action – the purpose of the ad – and the story is just a very entertaining story. The whole point of the story in advertising is to effectively deliver the desired call to action. If the audience does not clearly understand the desired call to action after seeing the ad, then there is no point in running the ad. Contrary to popular belief, having an entertaining story and clearly delivering the desired call to action are not mutually exclusive.

3. Does the ad use basic emotional appeals?

Experiences that trigger our emotions are saved and consolidated in lasting memory because the emotions generated by the experiences signal our brains that the experiences are important to remember. There are eight basic, universal emotions – joy, surprise, anticipation, acceptance, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust. Successful appeals to these basic emotions consolidate stories and the desired calls to action in the lasting memories of audiences. An added bonus is that successful emotional appeals limit the number of exposures required for audiences to understand, learn, and respond to the calls to action – people may only need to see emotionally compelling scenes once and they will remember those scenes for a lifetime.

4. Does the ad use easy arguments?

“Jumping to conclusions” literally gave our ancestors an advantage even when the conclusions that made them jump were wrong because delaying actions to review information could have deadly consequences. Easy arguments are the conclusions people reach using inferences without a careful review of available information. Find and use easy arguments that work because it is almost impossible to succeed when working against them.

5. Does the ad show, and not tell?

“Seeing is believing” and “actions speak louder than words” are two common sayings that reflect a bias and preference for demonstrated behavior. This is especially true when interests may not be the same. Assume audiences are skeptical about any advertising and design advertising that shows and does not tell.

6. Does the ad use symbolic language and images that relate to the senses?

People prefer symbolic language and images that relate to the senses. People are far less receptive and responsive to language and images that relate to concepts. Life is experienced through the senses and using symbolic language and images that express what people feel, see, hear, smell, or taste are easier for people to understand, even when used to describe abstract concepts. The language and images used in advertising should “make sense” to the audience.

7. Does the ad match what viewers see with what they hear?

People expect and prefer coordinated audio and visual messages because those messages are easier to process and understand. Audio and visual messages that are out-of-sync may gain attention, but audiences find them uncomfortable.

8. Does the ad stay with a scene long enough for impact?

People have limited mental processing capacities. Quick cuts to different scenes require people to devote more of their limited resources to following the cuts and less resources to processing each scene. It takes people between eight and ten seconds to process and produce a lasting emotional response to a scene. Camera movement or different camera angles of the same scene can engage people through their orienting responses while providing enough time for them to process the scene.

9. Does the ad let powerful video speak for itself?

Again, the processing capacity of our brains is limited and words may get in the way of emotionally powerful visual images. When powerful visual images dominate – when “a picture is worth a thousand words” – be quiet and let the images do the talking.

10. Does the ad use identifiable music?

Music can be a rapidly identified cue for the recall of emotional responses remembered from previous advertising. Making the same music an identifiable aspect of all advertising signals the audience to pay attention for more important content.