UltraPing Blog

A continuation of what NOT to do on your site: common mistakes that I see
daily during my work as I surf the internet.

Although this is becoming more popular, I am not a fan of framed pages. I find
it annoying when various parts of a page move, and other parts don’t. This also
restricts the amount of information that can be available at once.

TIP: If you are looking for link partners, and your links are on a framed page,
many people will reject you immediately.

Shorter pages are always better. People don’t often bother to scroll down.
Spiders don’t go down very far either. If you have several ideas, make them into
several pages.

If the site you are making is personal, and only for the benefit of your
friends, then you can ignore this next part. Do not include pictures of
yourself. To be blunt: no one cares what you look like. Unless it is a
professional photograph and you look like a model, this will detract from the
appearance of your site.

When sites have fancy ways to switch between pages and it occurs every time I
click on one of their links, it looks amateurish, and it takes a lot longer to
get from page to page. I’m going to leave their site right away.

These tips are to help you make your site look professional. A more positive tip
is: pay for a really good logo. Avoiding all of the above mentioned mistakes,
and using a good logo, your site will be attractive to all customers, and can
still be spider-friendly.

Rebecca Naylor has been building websites part time for over two years, resulting in six high-quality information sites related to home décor. These three articles have been written from a list she compiled of things she would avoid in her own sites. Three of the home improvement sites include Personal fitness trainer, Wooden garden benches, and Futon bunk beds

Attract More Visitors To Your Artworks.

Web traffic matters a lot in online artwork selling, but not completely. What matters is a combination of targeted good traffic looking for artworks. For an example, if a person is willing to buy a digital camera, then what are the chances of his buying an oil painting? Of course very less! But, in the case of a visitor looking for home decoration items is more likely to buy that oil painting. There are lots of methods to attract more targeted traffic to online gallery. Some of them are listed below to assist artists:

1. Artwork Promotion:

There is no replacement for artwork promotion. This brings your artwork more viewers. The more the viewers, the more the chances for sell. Promotion is like advertisement and for which you may have to pay little amount but it worth. This helps you in many ways. Some of them are:

a. Increases exposure.

b. Reaches to targeted viewers.

c. Increases probability of sell.

A targeted traffic to your art gallery will boost the visibility and increase the chances of sell.

2. Submit good quality & multiple pictures:

Many artists submit ordinary quality picture of their artworks. Art lovers see the artwork very minutely and hence it is suggested to give them a reason to buy, by providing high resolution pictures. Ordinary quality pictures hide brush strokes which art lovers may look for. Remember, high resolution pictures take more space and many website may not allow uploading of such high size picture. There are many photo editing softwares available in the market and some of the trial versions are also available on internet. In cases, artists are not comfortable with photo editing on computers then www.artilysis.com does editing work on behalf of registered artists absolutely for free. All an artist needs to do is to e-mail the pictures to sales@artilysis.com

If this is a craftwork or sculpture then, try to submit more than one picture taken from different angles. The purpose is to provide a 3-D view of artwork. Just take an example, keep yourself in buyer’s place. Now, you are searching online for some good craftwork or sculpture for your home, office, hotel, restaurants whatever it may be. You have shorted out two good craftworks and you have to finalize one. One craft is shown in single picture and other one is given three images taken from different angles and giving you full 3-D visuals. Now, which craftworks you will likely to buy? Of course the second craftwork has got more probability. The same way, multiple pictures help buyers to visualize the craftwork and chances for sell goes up.

3. Provide an attracting title:

i. Artists know their artworks more than anybody else and hence provide attracting titles to your artworks. The title is the second most important factor after the artwork, where an art buyer or collector looks at.
ii. Every artwork is created in different moods and a good title helps an art buyer or collector understand your idea. The title or theme is one of the most important factors which differs your Artwork from a Product.

4. Provide a little write-up about your artwork:

People who love art are more likely to read or listen a little about your concepts. It is suggested to provide a short description of your each artwork. Also, providing small details of previous exhibitions, responses, media attentions etc helps a lot. There is nothing to loose by providing short write-ups but definitely adds value to your artwork. Remember, the visitors visiting your gallery are interested more on the artwork and less on the write up and hence avoid long write-ups. If the exhibition is in an Art Gallery (Not online) then, ensure for a suitable font size of write up so that it can be read easily.

5. Money back guarantee:

Artworks are priceless. Money back guarantee encourages people to buy your art. This also reflects the authenticity of artwork and develops a trust in you and attracts more viewers/visitors to your artworks.

6. Encourage queries:

Encourage visitors to send their queries to you. The faster you resolve their queries more the chances to win the sell.

7. Do not replace the sold artwork from your online gallery unless there are some restrictions. Keeping some of the sold artworks in your gallery adds value to your other artworks and generated interest and trust in buyers. (source: www.artilysis.com)

Disclaimer: Successful art selling depends on many other factors also and hence there is no guarantee for sell. Readers may or may not agree on the content of the article submitted.

This article is submitted by a volunteer working for http://www.artilysis.com

One of the best ways to make your site easier to use is to
provide hints to your visitors everywhere you can. You might
think that sounds simple enough, but the amount of time required
to do it and the number of things to consider puts a lot of web
designers off.

Visitors Don’t Know Your Site

You have to consider that the overwhelming majority of your
site’s visitors are likely to be visiting for the first time -
some of them may be loyal visitors, coming back over and over
again, but the modern web lends itself more to being dipped in
and out of using search engines and links from other sites. If
there’s some kind of process visitors need to go through to
accomplish something on your site, you can’t assume that they
have any familiarity with it at all.

For this reason, it’s important to scatter hints across your
site. Whenever there’s something that could seem mysterious if
you hadn’t used it before, hints should either appear
automatically or be easily accessible, in case the user needs to
know what to do.

Question Mark Icons

One of the easiest ways of doing this is to put question mark
icons next to things that you think might be confusing. For
example, at a website that lets people pay their water bill, I
saw this:

Register for Online Billing First name: ____ Last name: ____
Account no.: ____ [?]

Notice the question mark next to the input box for account
number - this was provided because, of course, not every
customer is likely to know their account number by heart, or
where to find it. Clicking the question mark popped up an image
of a paper water bill, with an arrow pointing to where the
account number could be found. Unless you want customers to
wonder ‘what account number?’, that’s the best way of doing
things.

Alt Text

Alt text is the contents of your images’ alt tags - that is,
text you put in your image tags’ alt properties, like this:

The main purpose of this text is to provide an alternative form
of display for browsers that don’t support images, and blind
users. However, it also has another purpose: as ‘tooltips’, to
provide hints. If you have a small icon of a printer, for
example, and clicking it causes the current article to change to
its print CSS and then print, then you make make the alt text
look like this:

Now, when users hover over the printer icon, the text “print
this article” will appear as a tooltip - that is, black text in
a yellow rectangle. This is useful for letting users know what
will happen when they click parts of your site, without having
to have text next to everything - especially good if you’re
limited for space, or you expect lots of people to use your site
from mobile devices like phone and PDA browsers.

Javascript

Finally, one of the best ways to make your hints
context-sensitive is to use Javascript. Not only can you enhance
the alt text boxes to look nicer with Javascript, but you can
also display hints entirely automatically. For example, you
might have a form that asks for someone’s state and date of
birth:

State: _____ Date of Birth: _____

Using Javascript’s onfocus event, you can easily write a little
code to not only highlight the box the visitor is currently
typing into, but also provide a hint next to it - so when I’m
typing my state, the hint can say ‘two letters is fine - just CA
or NY’, and when I’m typing my date of birth the hint says
‘dd/mm/yyyy’.

What does this approach achieve? Well, it lets you provide hints
when they’re needed, without having to clutter the page with
them or put them in small, faded text that makes them hard to
see. Making your site sensitive to context when it comes to
helping the user get things done is one of the big keys to
better usability.

Autoresponders are one of the most widely used promotional tools on the Internet. They’re also known as mailbots, automatic email and email on demand. They were derived from the very popular fax on demand and designed to automatically respond to any email message received with an automatic response.

Autoresponder programs vary from autoresponse messages set-up within an email program to a script that runs on a server. This script may run a web-based autoresponder system that utilizes a web page form or it may run with a pop email account on a server.

Autoresponders can assist you in automating many of your daily tasks including:

Customer Follow-up

Following up with your customers is an important part of providing good customer service. Not only is it an essential part of developing a good relationship, but it will also enable you to introduce new products.

Although sending out a personal message to each of your customers may not be possible, an autoresponder can provide them with the illusion that your message was personally sent.

Order Confirmations

If you’re processing orders online, manually sending each of your customers an order confirmation can be very time consuming. By creating a standard letter and placing it within an autoresponder that allows personalization, you can eliminate the need to manually respond — while at the same time, provide good customer service.

Articles for Publication

Writing articles and allowing them to be freely published, with your bylines, is a highly effective promotional strategy.

If you would like to enable your visitors to have access to your articles around the clock, place them within an autoresponder. This will enable your visitors to send an email to a specified email address and instantly receive your article.

Autoresponder Courses

In addition to the standard autoresponder systems, there are also autoresponders that can send an unlimited number of follow-up messages. These follow-up messages can be automatically sent out at predetermined intervals. In other words, you can set up your autoresponder to automatically send out a new message each day for as many days as you would like.

This powerful technology is currently being used by some of the top online marketers to reach thousands of potential customers. As you may know, it may take up to seven contacts with a potential customer before closing a sale. By setting up an autoresponder and offering a free autoresponder course, you can completely automate a portion of your marketing efforts.

Selecting a quality autoresponder service:

When selecting an autoresponder service, there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration to ensure maximum performance:

• Personalized responses - Gives the recipient the illusion that your message was sent specifically to them.

• Automatic follow-ups - Studies have shown it may take up to seven contacts before closing a sale.

• Unlimited text length - If you are inhibited by the amount of text your autoresponder may contain, you may be forced to revise a successful sales letter, ultimately costing you business.

• Free Unlimited updating - You must have the ability to update your autoresponders.

• Automatic Notification - You must have the ability to track your ad’s performance. You should be instantly informed each time someone requests your information.

Although many web hosts provide their clients with one-time autoresponders, if you’re planning on sending out follow-up messages, you’ll want to use a more advanced autoresponder.

GetResponse
An advanced autoresponder system that will enable you to not only personalize your messages, but it will also enable you to send an unlimited number of follow-ups.

Cost: Advertising supported

SendFree
A one-time autoresponder system with a unique advertising opportunity. This autoresponder is also an ad exchange that enables autoresponder owners to receive free promotion by exchanging ads. Your ad runs on other members’ autoresponders and their ads run on yours.

Cost: Advertising supported

AWeber
AWeber provides an outstanding autoresponder system that will enable you to take complete control over your autoresponder marketing campaign. This professional autoresponder service provides you with all of the following:

Send HTML or text messages
Subscriber signup via email or web form
Easily import and export opt-in subscriber lists
Automatic removal links within each message
Unlimited message length
Completely personalize your messages
Advanced autoresponders with six follow-up messages
Statistics and graphs

If you’d rather have your own autoresponder system that resides on your server, I recommend using AutoResponse Plus.

Autoresponders are one of the most widely used marketing tools on the Internet. Although they can’t completely automate your business, they can certainly save you hours of valuable time, and increase your profits considerably.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

About the Author:

Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, “Web Design Mastery” (www.webdesignmastery.com) and “eBook Starter - Give Your eBooks the look and feel of a REAL book” (www.ebookstarter.com)

Visit www.Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to eTips and receive a copy of Shelley’s acclaimed ebook, “Killer Internet Marketing Strategies.”

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook, or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.