(This is a follow-up to the Affiliate Summit wrap-up from Monday.)

Everyone is guilty of committing a landing page design sin, including ourselves, the pros. That is why it is important to always be testing your pages by using Google Website Optimizer, for example.

What is a landing page?

Any page where traffic is directed to for some specific purpose – to prompt a certain action. The point of a landing page is to get the visitor to take your desired action. The visitors may be coming from organic search results, pay per click, email newsletters, banner ads, etc.

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I attended the session entitled “7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page of Design” presented by Tim Ash, President & CEO, SiteTuners.com (Twitter @tim_ash). Here the seven deadly sins of landing page design, outlined by Ash in a very humorous fashion:

1. Unclear call to action.

Focus your visitors on one thing. What it is that you want people to do on each of your pages? 1-800 Flowers is one of the big companies that was messing this up (on their product detail page).

Use Attention Wizard heatmap to find where people are looking on your page.

2. Too many options – steps.

Reduce the friction between the user and the product they are seeking. Show main categories that are most popular on your page – not every subcategory and product on each page.
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What are the right colors for you business? To discuss this topic, one has to have some understanding of the psychology of color. Different colors affect moods and attitude in different ways. Furthermore, one has to take into consideration the culture of your targeted demographic, as different colors have different psychological (conscious and unconscious) meanings within various cultures.

Red

Red is the most emotionally intense color. It stimulates an increased heartbeat and breathing. It is also the color of love.

For a long time the corporate color of choice was red. It was known as “corporate red.” This can be shown in the logos of companies such as: Shell, McDonalds, Exxon, Target, Johnson and Johnson. Red was a popular choice because of the eye’s natural attraction to the color red.

Red clothing gets noticed and makes the wearer appear heavier—so be careful with those red bikinis, ladies! Since it is an extreme color, red clothing might not help people in negotiations or confrontations. I know that you have heard that red automobiles are the most targeted cars to get stolen. Also when used in decorating, red is usually an accent—most decorators say that red furniture attracts attention, helping round out a bland room.

An offshoot of red—a pale red, pink is the most romantic color and is more tranquilizing than red. Sports teams sometimes paint the opponent’s locker rooms bright pink, so that they will lose energy. A little tidbit, the practice of assigning pink to an individual gender began in the 1920s and from then until the 1940s, pink was considered appropriate for boys because being related to red.

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No.

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Wireframes are an essential stage in building a website. The wireframe is a large part of the blueprint for the site whether it is hand-drawn or in digital format. It should give a clear understanding of what elements are on each page, where they should be displayed and why–to achieve the most cohesive balance and overall structure. As we always say, building a custom website is like building a custom house–you wouldn’t want to pick out your dining room wallpaper before you even decide if there will be a dining room!

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(source: Stabilo Boss)

Being an entrepreneur and doing something extraordinary while thriving in this economy is a common ambition. The ability to succeed is rarer. Some commentators say the economy is hindering the startup community, but startup maven Paul Graham says, “the state of the economy doesn’t matter much either way… [startups] succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it’s rounding error compared to the founders.” This ultimately means that it’s up to the founders. Founded during the recession of the 1970′s, Microsoft, Apple, and Fedex still succeed today. Companies founded in the late 90′s boom? Not so much.

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For over forty years, La Grenouille has delighted diners with traditional French cooking with a dash of more modern meals. The owners approached Blue Fountain Media to help craft a website that showcased their creations for a new audience, without alienating their loyal customers.

Before:

A fairly simple flash design, with an emphasis on the restaurant’s history. Light on content and interactivity.

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At Blue Fountain Media, we do web development and web design for many different kinds of sites: some of our clients want to build a purely informational, brochure-style site. Some of our clients build web applications or online communities. And an increasing number of our clients are building ecommerce sites, which are able to sell products more cheaply and efficiently than traditional physical stores.

But just building an ecommerce website is not enough. There are several key elements of ecommerce website design that can bring in more visitors, and turn more of them into customers.
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R.A.G. website has record-breaking month thanks to our SEO work

New York clothing store, R.A.G. New York continues to see record traffic and sales on their website thanks to the search engine optimization performed by Blue Fountain Media between April and September 2008.  Our client was even mentioned in the NY Daily News thanks to our work.

See Blue Fountain Media in the NY Daily News

Currently, the website is not running any type of marketing program except through its 6 stores in New York City. The month of April broke all preceding records as can be seen in the two line graphs showing total visits and sales to the website since March 2008:

These results are both due to our re-design of the website as well as an extensive search engine optimization campaign which included months of link building, analysis, and a results-oriented team of dedicated individuals.
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(source: laszlo-photo)

This is a continuation of yesterday’s blog post - reviewing travel sites. Today we’re going to look at some travel sites that need a little help. (more…)