4 Secrets of a Great Page Layout

Designers especially the newbies go frantic on how to go about it. It has to be attractive, engrossing, user-friendly and functional. Thus, unraveling the secrets will definitely bind the website.

So, what are these layout secrets?

Together let us unfold them one after another…

1. Centering it all is no good. The secret is doing the contrary and not centering everything. The latter will just make the page disorganized, strewn and drab. The alignment may also seem weak and wanting.

2. The use and mastery of contrast is indispensable. Contrast is one thing that makes the page attractive. The use and mastery of it in color, value, size and weight will greatly affect the site’s appearance and edge. In fact a typeface may appear bigger with the use of contrast in color. The latter can also affect the look of organization of the page. At a glance, a page may appear organized or the exact opposite. That is the secret of contrast.

3. Apply deviations if necessary. Most of the designers practice nowadays is to develop a ‘uniform-pages’ look. They try to use same background colors and other peculiarities to establish similarities to the homepage or other pages. But the fact is that viewers can be easily bored with that scheme. Viewers always want something new and by giving them a repetitious work, they are pissed off and transfer to another site where they can feast both their eyes and mind.

Placing lines in between contents also manifests division. Instead of using these lines, use blank ‘buffer zones’. This way what are created are invisible lines to make the effect subtle. 

4. Do not forget that functionality is the king of web development. Moreover, keep the content and information full, tight and pretty useful. Use the space, don’t waste. Only leave a small percentage for blank spaces. Use the space cleverly in order for the website not to look crowded at the same time loose. Multiple columns are also advisable in order to maximize space.

These four topmost secrets in page layout are so crucial that to break them may spell disaster or the end of your precious site.

3 Ways Coaches Can Use Their Site To Get More Clients

Coaches have a big challenge when seeking clients. They are selling the unknown.

By unknown, I mean that most people who can benefit from coaching, whether it be business coaching or personal coaching, either never heard of it or don't really understand how it works. 

When people work with a coach for the first time, there usually comes a point when they say “a ha!” and are better able understand the value they can get. 

So trying to get clients can seem like a catch-22. In order to hire you, they need a strong sense of what you do. But to get that sense they need to work with you first! 

It's because of this hurdle that direct selling or direct response methods like cold calling or placing ads don't work. Those channels don't get you clients directly. 

Dealing with this challenge can be frustrating for many new coaches. They really want to help their clients succeed in their business or in their life, but getting the prospect to sign on the dotted line doesn't happen as often as they would like. 

So how can coaches deal with selling the unknown? Make it known and use your web site to do it! 

Here are 3 ways: 

1 – Write web site copy in terms of “what they do know.” 

Prospective clients can relate to their pains and troubles. Their pains and troubles might include not having enough time in a day, trouble sleeping at night, or not making enough money. 

They can also relate to where they want to be in the future. Some examples could be having lots of income, having peace of mind and having a happier life. 

So when you are writing about your services, be sure to start with things your prospect already knows about, such as their pains and their desires. 

Additionally, case studies and testimonials of others you have helped would further your prospect's understanding of what you do. These examples are most effective if they are written in terms of initial problems and end results. 

By explaining what you do in terms they know directly, you better communicate what you do. When prospects clearly see what they can get from working with you they are more excited and more interested in working with you. 

2 – Give away free information. 

Compile an article or report that is helpful to your target prospects. Choose a topic that is directly related to their problems or situations. Then make that report available on your web site for download. 

This strategy has a lot of value: 

• Everyone likes free helpful stuff, so they will take action to get it. 

• Once created, giving it out takes almost no time to do. 

• It tells the the prospect that you know their about their business, thus making you a good choice for helping them. 

• Sending people to your web site creates another relationship building “touch.” 

• People can refer this report to other people, increasing your visibility. 

3 - Give away a free online assessment. 

Create a series of questions on your web site. Then invite your visitor to answer them in return for a score and an interpretation of that score. This gives them helpful information about themselves and gives them a sample of what you do. 

This technique has a lot of value similar to the report idea. It's free, doesn't take a lot of time or money to implement, it is automated, it gives value, and it can be referred to others. 

Additionally, you can determine which prospects have stronger needs based on their responses. With that information, you can target your sales efforts towards them and increase your closing rate. 

In conclusion, use your web site as a tool for educating your prospects. Doing this will gain more trust and grow the relationship until they eventually become your paying client.

3 Steps To Your First Small Business Website

When planning your first small business website, there are three essential questions you should ask yourself:

1. Who is your target audience?
2. How will your target audience find you?
3. How will you convert your visitors into sales?

These questions sound obvious, but it's amazing how many people don't bother...and then moan that "our website doesn't bring us any business". 

  1) Who is your target audience? Give a great deal of thought to your target market. Who do you want to attract to your website? Why? The answer to that is more than likely to sell them something - a product, a service, or an idea perhaps. Claiming that your market is anyone and everyone is far too vague, and your website will lack focus, and fail to maximise its potential. Ideally you should be aiming to create a niche. 

  2) How will they find you? Creating a niche will also help you with the search engines, and drive hot leads to your site. Consider what keywords your target market might type into a search engine to find you. Actually do the searches yourself. Who comes up in the top 30? Because that's where you need to be. Are your competitors there? Look at their sites. Do they work? 

How can you improve on them? Identify something unique about your business that sets it apart from the rest. Those keywords - or keyphrases to be more accurate - need to be incorporated into your pages of your site - in the page titles, in the headings, and in the internal links. Be specific with your keyphrases. They will be less competitive than the more general single word searches, and will more accurately target your market. 

You may have to localise or specialise to get in that top 30 - and the top 30 is where you need to be to drive traffic to your site. As I am sure you are aware from your own experience, if you haven't found what you are looking for in the first 3 results pages, you look elsewhere. The key to achieving high search engine rankings is building inbound links to your web pages - that is pages on external websites that link to pages on your site. 

Crucially this link acquisition should be a natural growth - where inbound link count increases at a gradual pace. The pages that link to yours should be relevant, on-topic and ideally contain the same keywords - especially in the linking text. Search engines rank pages based upon their reputation - your ranking will be determined by what other (preferably high ranking) pages say about your page. 

  3) How will you convert your visitors into sales? Don't just tell them what you do or sell. Tell them why they want it (yes, want - not need). Offer incentives, freebies, discounts - anything to get that dialogue started. Current research indicates that the human brain makes a judgment about a web page within a twentieth of a second! That doesn't leave you very long to make an impression. 

So, make sure that you have your Unique Selling Point (USP) clearly visible on your home page - and preferably prominent on every one of your other pages. After all, it's not a given that the home page will be the first page that the visitor sees, particularly if they have found you via a search engine. Then make sure that you list your bullet-pointed guarantees. Visitors have to understand why you are different from the rest, and why they should deal with you and not your competitors. And as we've discovered, they have to understand this pretty much instantly. 

Lastly, make sure that your site has a funnel-like structure. Identify your important pages - usually the "call to action" or purchase pages - and make sure all roads lead to those pages. Your internal links - like their external equivalents - should describe the target page. If you sell blue widgets, don't call your products page "Products", call it "blue widgets", and make sure that the links pointing at this page also say "blue widgets". This will not only help the search engines identify and rank the most important pages in your site, it will also lead your visitor to that all important conversion.