May 23
First of all my apologies for not putting up any content for the last month. I had exams going on for most of April and after that I have been really busy working on my Mechatronics Senior Design Project. Most of you who have signed up for my newsletter already know that my ebook is 95% complete and I will be launching it by the end of this month…if all goes well! (It is already presold!)
My new site for ePromoteX is also 80% done (with minor updates and video editing left) and I’ll try to launch it by early July. So keep your eyes open for that!
Anyway, back to our minisite design analysis today I’ll just build on of the key facts from the last post:
Choosing a good colour scheme. So when I talk of a good colour scheme what does it really mean? What seems good to me, might not be so appealing to you…but thats not what I am talking about! Direct response minisite design involves some basic elements and “Good” here refers to the colour scheme that initiates action…something that creates an impulse feeling in your website visitor.
Whenever you start designing a minisite targeted for a niche market, try to stick with a general background colour or a gradient rather than a picture background. This gives a professional look and since no picture file is used, your page will load very quickly!
Using a dark blue,teal or maroon background is recommended for minisite designs that focus on a service rather than a download product. A downloadable product such as an ebook or software will most probably have a nice picture background as this requires more branding and area of focus is just one product.
Also, try to use GIFs and high quality PNGs for your background.
Its getting late here 3:15 in the morning actually…more on this stuff tomorrow…I am still working on my project , but I’ll try to post more often.
Apr 16
Ok so in the last post we were talking abou the elements required to design an effective page front. Direct response minisite design is different from designing other commercial websites. The layout thus needs to be very focussed.
Focussed layout means that the website should be very tightly knit in terms of contents. The layout should have the following features:
- Centered on the screen
- Layout to be between 750-800 pixels
- Complimentory colours for background
- Easy on the eyes (choosing a good colour scheme…more on this later)
Centered layout has a distinct advantage of capturing the reader’s attention. This is both a physiological and psychological fact.
The advantage becomes apparent when you consider the headlines for your direct reponse website. The headlines that are crafted for a direct reponse website are usually centered. This requires the website layout to be centered as well to make the overall content consistent.
It would be odd to have a centered piece of text in a left alligned table or layer. Physiologically its been proven that people pay more attention to a object where they have equal exposure from both eyes. This makes a better image in the human brain.
More on this topic in coming posts.
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Apr 14
In the last post I was talking about two major aspects of a direct response website design. Let’s take this one by one and see how we can optimize these factors for maximum results.
For the first part we need to design a visually appealing “page front”. Now you must be wondering why I put the “page front” in quotes. This is because I want to make it absolutely clear as to its meaning. When I refer to a “page front” I mean the full screen of a website that you as a website user sees when it is first loaded or accessed. It does not mean the first page of the website, but just the portion of the minisite’s first page that is visible wihtout scrolling down.
This is also known as the the portion of the website that is “above the fold”. From now on whenever “page front” is mentioned in this blog, it means the portion of the first page that is above the fold.
The page front section is without question the most important section of a direct response minisite. Some important design features to consider when designing the page front are:
- The overall layout itself (allignment, size, colour, texture, navigation etc.)
- The elements (header, cover graphic,testimonial,links etc.)
- Positioning of the elements (self explainatory)
- Body (Text, pictures, links)
In the next couple of posts we’ll see how this is done the right way. All for now.
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Apr 13
When I say “Snapshot” what do you picture in your head?
A camera flash, a click may be?
This is exactly what we want when we design a direct response website - The element of quick capture. As soon as the visitor lands on your website there should be a quick visual representation of your website’s product or service.
Buying, subscribing and user actions along these lines are impulsive in nature. In addition to this, the time you have to capture your visitor’s attention is way too short. This places 2 design constraints on a project:
- The need to design the page that is visually busy and conveys your message
- To design the page such that all of the above is achieved in a short time
In the next couple of posts, I’ll go over some much needed
minisite design techniques to get the desired results.
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Apr 13
Using this blog, I plan to share tips, secrets and resources needed to create a highly appealing website. The focus will be more on marketing site of things as you may already know how important it is to design a site that sells…I mean who wants a site that does nothing in terms of generating profits!
I’ll be covering some very important topics starting from basics and then moving on to more advanced stuff as time goes by.
So sit back, relax and learn how to design direct response minisites and graphics!
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