It’s a crazy world in the Internet and we’ve become accustomed to connectivity, visibility, and ‘reach ability’ that we never dreamed of. However, when it comes to site visibility and having browsers find your niche, there’s quite a population to contend with. There is millions of us out there, looking and wanting to be seen.
So how do you stand out? What will help your site catch their attention, and keep their attention long enough to evaluate your product and /or services?
I like the word balance and using balance, having attractive catch phrases, a well designed site, useful information, easy navigation are the ‘pillars’ of good site design but – what more?
We know that blogs have become a primary resource for entertainment, information, and promotion. What’s so special about Blogs ? They have become our third person referral, the Not – in your face direct sell. In this world of open source and sharing details of your work challenges with strangers across a continent, it’s typical to learn something, something really useful, beneficial in your work from an online forum, from a post, from a Blog.
Much like the company you keep, the tone and beat of your Blog promotes you passively with your association. As a web designer I regularly run into new issues, challenges, constantly updated technology and one of the first places I go when I’m stumped – need I say is – to forums, to sites that support my issues, and yes, that first stop is usually Google – because it works.
When I look at the comments on my blog, the most popular keyword is this obscure error message I received with an Adobe application upgrading to Vista. The error message isn’t terribly meaningful, logic didn’t really help me figure it out – but when I did, the solution was so simple, I posted it in my blog. I get great responses, ‘Your solution saved me at crunch time’ – this simple problem solution ‘sharing’ helped many other developers, and this is much of what our Internet experience is now.
We get to help each other out, a lot, and there’s not always a direct link between the information you share and the next sale you get on your services, but it all goes into the mix, and your blog speaks of your experience and Web savvy.
As it turns out the Google-meister loves blogs and the leading blog tool, WordPress is flush with open source and free goodies, one of the other amazing qualities of our Internet life – very talented programmers create plugins, and widgets, and special apps, and search engine friendly tags, resources that are available in popular blog applications…for free! As a developer I know that sense of figuring out some code, just to see it work but the Internet and blogging in particular has become a veritable library of free goodies and as soon as there is something notably missing, a need for a new shortcut or plugin…someone creates it, and makes it available to the general public.
So…that leaves us with the special effects and what can I can say? There’s nothing more annoying than an otherwise useful site that completely distracts you with noise and motion. Distracting marquees, pop-up windows, looping movies you can’t turn off – but these effects…well these aren’t what I would call special…they’re just effects.
I advise all my web clients that it is their product that is the star of the show, their service that everyone wants to hear about but – special effects provide the ‘window dressing’.
Once you have your product well illustrated, once your site does the job of clearly presenting ‘what you’ve got’ , this is where the special effects come in and they are, to some degree autonomic – like that pleasing color, or the well designed landscape that appeals to your senses but you don’t really ‘process it’.
We might call this ‘right brained’ but the text falling out of the sky with a little Hollywood glisten, the soft motion backdrop enhancing one of your images, some clever animation using your logo – these ‘extra’ effects, when done tastefully, add polish and professionalism to your site.
The notion that first impressions are made in the first few seconds certainly predates the Internet, using tasteful special effects only enhances these first, these lasting impressions.
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