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mario ogas

Web Site Promotion Technics and Tricks

The most important task to properly promote a web site (or any other product or service) is to reach top quality design and content before promotion is targeted. In the following article is explained how to perform step by step the requirements on the subject. Tips are based on the product/service to target audience relationship for the web site development.

On your marks… June is almost gone and I haven’t found the & time to write ARTANDATA MONTHLY EZINE issue #2 !

So I left apart some work to become, once again, an ezine writer.

As I promised this issue deals with web site promotion, perhaps the hardest thing to accomplish even for a web site or for & any development, let say enterprise, books, events, etc.

I must say that I’m not a web marketing guru but I’ve been in the field for so many years that I surely have some experience to share.

So if you feel like some benefit can be obtained reading this ezine fold your shirt leaves and let’s start promoting your own site !

To start let’s imaging that we do not have a web site to promote ! how ? yes ! you’ve read well !

Forget all about your web site ! we are going to build an estrategy right from zero, nothing, nada, niente !

Why? Just becouse I want you to enter the broad view, the broad way before start thinking on how to promote your site Ok ?

Well…so we have nothing. That’s good! Isn’t it ? what do you think about ?

Well, what I meant is having nothing to promote! Not even the need to promote anything.

Let’s go one step beyond:

Now, suppose you’ve got ‘something’ in your mind…shapeless…dark…confuse…but you feel like that ‘thing’ could become something great, wonderfull, unknown, wanted… But you don’t yet know what’s that ! your creature is just on it’s birth time…you have to feed it, caresse it, let it make it’s first step, build it up, etc. soon you’ll find that you’ve got a project your creature became a project !

Rule #1:

To successful promote a product that product MUST BE well formed and attractive for the target audience .

This first rule is the essence of all promotion works, because if your product isn’t good enough you are probably wasting your time because the target won’t be interestet on it. I will explain later in this ezine some good technics to promote but it’s absolutely necessary get understanding of the first rule.

The next step is to imaging that your product NEEDS a web site. I’ve tried to imagine a producto or service that doesn’t need a site but I can’t figure it. This leads us to a very different point of view on how to create the web site under a PRODUCT OR SERVICE to TARGET relationship.

By the way : is your web site developed under this approach ?

Rule #2 The product need to reach the target. The target wants to get the product.

Two nice postulates conform rule #2. Here is where promotion fits. By promoting the product reachs the target. By promoting, the target knows the product and may be wants it. That’s all. Simple! Very simple! In theory at least.

The keyword of rule #2 is WANTS. We must focus on this word when building the web site for your products or services. If we cannot reach that the target wants the product we are lost. There won’t be any

effort we can do to promote our producto that can lead to any benefit if the product isn’t enjoyed by the target. If so, we need to redesign our strategy or our the product or both, or forget the project.

I can’t tell here how to get your product/service to be wanted by the audience, that’s your job. The most I can say is that you have to jump into the target roll and watch your product on that point of view.

Also you need to make surveys on the product and ask for others to help you on the task.

What I do try to explain is how to build a web site for benefit. Let’s start viewing the mening of promote. You’re reading this ezine to get tips and tricks to wisely promote your web site, so it’s very important to understand what is to promote for our porposes.

As you probably guessed promote is action. Promote are the ways and estrategies we perform to COMMUNICATE TO OUR TARGET (or targeted audience). But here is the point: once the communication channel is established you are definitively communicating. Showing your identity and image to others. So when promoting you can also reach a negative impression at your target.

Think about ! how many times you clicked onto an attractive link (attractive becauso you expected nice information beyond the link ) just to find, some seconds after, that the site wasn’t worthy your time becouse had nothing interesting, looked like designed by an ape or just displayed our well known “site under construction" animations.

So here is the valued key:

To sucessfully promote your site you must develop a killing design site filled with attractive information or/and resources that the target surely wants.

At this point I recommend the lecture of my other job “the creative process" that can be usefull to get ideas for the site development estrategy.

The communication process

As said, promote is communicate so let’s remember the ‘actors at stage’ into that process:



This is a simplified diagram of the communication process. Basically you have an identity to be shown and you develop messages that are fired to the target. The communication channel always have a given amount of noise that modify the messages before they are reached by the target. Then the audience give feedback to you (even the lack of feedback is a kind of response to be evaluated). Zero feedback may indicate that your messages must be odified.

Then your product/service identity must be adequate to the target preferences. This identity must be properly shown at the site’s home page. Main inside links must be placed to give access to interest

contents. All this tasks have to be done by a professional web designer to warrant a functional site from the visual point of view.

By last let’s talk on the different ways to promote your site. Basically you probably think that reaching top ten position at the main search engines will give you all the benefits but this is not always the truth. Top ten position can be very much expensive and surely there are other ways to promote that can compliment a not so good ranking at search tools giving you additional promotion that can also be so beneficial resources to your needs. Some examples of these other ways are:

• Media advertising campaigns
• Viral marketing presence
• Free publications
• Panphets
• Promotion at the signature of your e-mails
• Public relations
• Events
• Stationary set
• Commercial printing
• Merchandising
• Other

In all of these promotion channels must be a reference to your product or service to assure that the target or addresees can arrive to your web site. Well…at this point we have a nice product to give to the target ! congratulations!!!

Now starts the technical stuff…

A well formed web site to promote

If you search the web you can find zillions of pages and sites explaining how to build a well formed web site to make it ‘search engine friendly’. I’ll try to synthesize those knowledges and write them easy for you:

About meta tags and page contents.

Meta tags are special html tags that are used by search engine crowlers and robot to get information on site or page contents to rank them at engine’s data bases. The most importan tags are:

Description : Is a brief sentence providing information of page contents

Syntax for description tags is like: 

<> meta name="description" content="your_text_goes_here" </>

example:

Tips: Limit to 150 characters in length, inclusive of letters, numbers, symbols, punctuations, spaces, and carriage returns. Avoid keyword stuffing (random listing of keywords). Use complete sentences and good grammar. Be as descriptive and enticing as you can, since some search engines will use this summary in your displayed search results.

Keywords : are words of short phrases that designer think that people should use for searching information porpouses.

Syntax for keywords meta:

<> name="keywords" content="your_keywords_list_goes_here" </>

Title tag and heding

Other importan elements to be placed into the page are title and first level heading because search engines look at them comparing if words present in the meta tags are repeated in these tags.

Title syntax:

<>title<>"your_title_goes_here" <>/title>

Example:

<>title<>"all about tango <>/title>

Heading syntax: 

<>h1 > "your_heading_goes_here" <>/h1>

Example:

<>h1 >all about tango <>/h1>

Tips: if you find that font size for heading tag is tooo large you can control the size using the font tag.

Content of page It’s also important that your page have text enough and to include most appreciated keywords repetead into that text. The best place is the first paragraph. Avoid using framed pages or flash pages on those prepared for search engine tools.

Name the images present in the page with relevant keywords linked by hyphens “-“.

Example:
<>img src="img/logo.jpg" alt="tango-dance-classes"/>

all the examples above were taken from the site tangomia

If you want, you can subscribe to artandata monthly ezine for free to be delivered to your e-mail box every time a new issue is warmly taken out of the oven for you.

Thank for your time! I hope that these tips are helpful for you. See you at the next issue.

Best regard,

Mario Ogas

www.artandata.com

About the author:

Mario Ogas is designer graduated in Argentina having much experience on cad systems, multimedia, graphic design, web design and programming Worked almost 24 years at O.R.T.Technical School and O.R.T. Institute of Technology teaching those subject at high school, college levels. He also was professor (universitary level), webmaster and Multimedia Lab Director at I.T.B.A (Buenos Aires Institute of Technology). At this moment, Mario Ogas owns his design company (Artandata Group) in Sao Paulo Capital – Brazil.

the creative process (tips & tricks to produce ad material)

The Creative Process

About the author:
Mario Ogas is designer graduated in Argentina having much experience on cad systems, multimedia, graphic design, web design and programming Worked almost 24 years at O.R.T.Technical School and O.R.T. Institute of Technology teaching those subject at high school, college levels. He also was  professor (universitary level), webmaster and Multimedia Lab Director at I.T.B.A (Buenos Aires Institute of Technology). At this moment, Mario Ogas owns his design company (Artandata Group) in Sao Paulo Capital – Brazil.

Let's go...

Time ago some friends and business related people I know told me that It would be a good idea to write technical letters on the subjects I know (mostly by every day working challenges) to help other people on their needs given them tips and information.

The point was: “I do not have the time to do this ! “. So the years have passed out…I’m my own boss…so I (like a boss) said to me (as the employed of myself that I am) “Mario, got a job for you…sit down at your desktop and do not move your ass from that chair until a nice first technical letter is cooked out of the oven. No matter the theme or subject ) I know you’re good for choosing the thing…”

So ….as my boss asked me: “I’m sitted here until this letter be done and published”. Let’s go to the subject that I’ve choosen to be the first:

AD Banners: The Creative Process

If you, like I do, are a webmaster, web designer or your job is somehow related to advertising and promoting goods or services on Internet, may be that you need to create your own AD Banners ( or at least have to get the idea of what the hell you want showed on that banner to explain to the person that will perform the hard job). Of course you can always go the alternative way that is: call a well known Design Company, pay a fortune or a half and let them perform the whole job while you rest in a park, looking the clouds and the sky for a couple days until your banner is ready.

If you think this last alternative fits you ok, quit reading this e-zine and contact artandata. Hahaha just teasing !

If you’re still here I need to explain (the best I can) how I and my collaborators walk (sometimes run and others climb) the Creative Process:

First, you’ve got the problem to be solved, becouse without a need for an AD Banner you probably won’t be much interested on this tutorial.

So, you’ve got a problem…but also you’ve got ( or you can research for ) a lot of information that can trigger your creativity.

Better than words are examples so I’ll explain on a real case study:

“…my site offers courses on design but most people told me that they can’t find the information on those courses in the site. How can I solve this problem...can you help me ? …”

the former paragraph has the expression given by the client but It has no tips for solutions only describe the problem and sometimes you have clients that don’t even know exactly which is the problem, in this case “they only describe symthoms but don’t recognize the desease”.Like that patient that goes to the doctor saying “oh doctor, I’m so f…ill !!! if I touch here my stomach…if I touch here my neck also pains…again if I touch by here my knee pains. What a hell is happening in my body? I’ve never see a desease so rare and killer !”

then, the doctor said : “don’t worry my friend. What you have it’s not so rare: YOU BROKE YOUR FINGER !!!!! “

 Some other times they give a diagnostic approach wich is wrong like “my car has some problem in the break because it always cross red ligths…”

(back to the tutorial).

Here, really starts our Creative Process !

The first thing you have to do is “write down the problems” I mean get a peace of paper ( or open a word doc) and put in a written sentence only the problem. The best you can. Like:

“most people can't find the information on courses in the site.”

We have isolated and described the problem. Great ! Now we have to detect the cause of the problem because not always the solution is an AD Banner. ( It could have to change the punctured tyre! )

Possible causes are:

• The user writes a wrong URL on his/her browser
• The hosting server is sometimes down
• The link pages (or some of them) to the information have broken links to.
• The information is hidden for the home page
• The information is hidden to many clicks down from the home page

There are some other choices that wouldn’t be considered, like:

• The user has no conexion to internet
• The user is blind
• The page exists but the owner didn’t realised that the information doesn’t.
• Most of your clients lie.
• Etc, etc.

In this point we better go to the site and try by ourselves to find out which is the reason that better fits. I won’t explain here how to test the URL because I suppose you know how. We can discard the first cause qoute before hand unless the URL is something like:

http://www.myzisipilinky.com.uk/tryTotYpeThsURL/coursersOnDesingProgram.htm

(don’t try it. It won’t work):

In wich case the solution is to make a redirect page easier to be written.

Once broken links are discarded we have to center attention on the last two possible causes. In this case study ‘both of them’ are true ! ( you’ll see the page and the solution banner! be patient ! )

So we can evaluete possible solutions:

• Move the program course page to be the site’s home page (no way ! )
• Move that page one or more levels up so it isn’t so hidden any more (this could improve somethig but not all)
• Put a text link on the home page ( sounds reasonable, isn’t it ?)
• Put a pop-up or pop-under window on the home page (also good)
• Put an AD Banner on the home page. ( smiles & applauses ! )

Last three possible solutions are what we can suggest to our client. So call him/her explain and let decides the best. (you know pros & cons of each solution to explain to the client)

You’ve got it ! our client has chosen the last opt. !

Diving into the Creative Process Itself

Stages:

• ANALYSIS
  • Collect information on the subject to be advertised
  • Collect information on the Company Design (typography, colors, style, etc)
  • Ask your client for ideas
• DESIGN
  • BrainStorm for a while
  • Define the banner contents & features
  • Look for resources

• IMPLEMENTATION
  • Development
• TESTING
  • Testing
  • Validate
  • Publish
  • Bill your client and enjoy the payment J
  • Show other clients (or friends ) your masterpiece (just to exercise your proudness)

Collect information on the subject to be advertised

Any way to find information it’s OK. Evident ways are:

• Ask your client
• Visit the page you’re to build the banner for.
• Search internet for subject related pages of the kind
• Search books, media, etc
• Ask your friends, collaborators, etc

Include in your search gathering any other way you think it’d be fine.

Now, what we collect this kind of information for?

The answer is just because without this bagagge we, probably make a wrong AD Banner or a banner that’s out of focus  and easily could be improved.

Suppose we are mechanics and we are told to construct a car for a race. If we do not collect adequate information we’ll be sending a Ferrari F1 to compete to the Dakar-Paris Rally. (poor Ferrari F1) or to send a 4x4 big tyres turbo engined Ford F-350 to the next Interlagos Grand Prix with no chance to win there (but the driver will enjoy so much to see how many F1’s goes away by the horizont) J

Inquiring your client, visiting the client’s site and specifically the page to advertise for you’ll find lots of usefull information to step on. Don’t miss them.

You can also consult books and magazine.

Collect information on the Company Design (typography, colors, style, etc)

Tips given  for subject collect applies as well for Company Design Information gathering. But, in this case we focus on design and art items like:

• Corporate Image Style
• Corporate Colors
• Corporate Site
  • Layout
  • Site tipography (family, color, styles, etc.)
  • Visual Resources used (shapes, lines, etc.etc.)

I hope you can understand what I mean: If you’re creating a banner just for a friend...let’s say a teen-ager that loves skating... may be you don’t have a “Corporate Image Style”...but your skatter friend has a site, a personal site that conciously or not was made under some kind of rules (even if it seems to be absolutely randomic, disordered, unpredictable,etc. You’ll find putting it under the Lens that there is a wirl case of design rules or layout.

Ask your client for ideas.

Now you can collect information directly from your client. May be you wonder why I didn’t include this task  in the first item (collecting information on the subject) or into the second (collecting information on the Company’s Design. Have a reason !

You can ask your client any time, but if you do that first, it’s problably like you won’t get good information because you:

• Didn’t see the company site and named pages
• Do not have much knowledge on the subject

Understand now why I left this task until this point ? great ! J

BrainStorm for a while

After you put down on paper or powerPoint all the information formerly taken, is time to sit down around the round table with your collaborators (like Arthur and his Knigth) and brain storm your brains !!!

You can find lots of pages explain how to brainstorm (I found 827.000 matches at google for this word) so I have nothing more to say on brainstorm.

Define the banner contents & features

And now the cooking !

After the brainStorm process you have an idea of the contents the AD Banner will have, so the hardest part is done ! J

But my own experience indicates that there is a feedback corridor between desing and implementation stages.

Let’s take this same case for example:

After brain storm we clearly decide to make : an animated banner with pictures on school classes containing links to the courses program page.

Look for resources

Taking the definition sentence for the banner and it’s contents & features you need to look for the resources. I mean :

• Phrases or slogans to put in the banner
• Images, pictures or photos
• Making the storybord (only for animated banners)
• Creating the timeline and the timing
• Choosing the right size for the banner
• Choosing the style, layout and typography to be used
• Determining the banner location on the page
• Some other staff..

Well...I said before that there is a feedback corridor. In this banner project I had to change or saying it better increase the definition sentence after the search for visual resource (images & and photos) for the banner.

I had to find royalties free photos of classrooms, students, teachers, and so on to include. I found some in my own library but it wasn’t enough to make me happy. Then I went to my favorite search engine and tried out some words like class.jpg, school.gif, teacher.jpg,etc,etc.

It’s not necessary to say that I found lots of pics (in this point is good idea to say that you have to be sure the pic you’re downloading is freaware. Not registered or limited on use)

What happened ?

Searching the pics I discover a pic of ‘South Park Children at school ‘ that triggers again my imagination and said to myself: “the definition sentence is NOW changed to ‘an animated banner with pictures on school classes & cartoon (south park) pics containing links to the courses program page’“

As you can see the sentence didn’t change soooo much but the final result is absolutely different from the original idea becouse all the work is on the South Park basis.

That why I say that you needo to be alert while you are into any stage or task in the process for getting any other idea, resource, fact, etc that appears on the fly and could be fine for the project. Don’t be afraid to dig into the changes or modifications needed in the project, they will improve the final creature !

IMPLEMENTATION & TESTING

When you enter this stages the Creative Process is likely to be done.

Sometime will occur that you need changes on the project but rarely this changes are due to Creative affairs, mostly the obey to client defined reasons like “ ok guys, taxes in this state have raised so the new price to show in the banner is $120 instead of $ 29 that we have at the banner” J

This happens. Or I also need to put my banner into a banner ex-change program and it’s so big...to much expensive for the program...please reduce it to the 1x1 px size” (microscope size oftenly cost about $10 ^-100 for impressions wich result cheap enogh for anybody --- hahaha – just teasing)

Of course there are lots of other considerations to be resolved but those are beyond creative process and are clearly technical driven decitions (may be in some other letter I write on those specifications)

Lastly, as I promised I give you the whole url of the page containing the banner:

Campaign name: Back to School

Author: ARTANDATA

Type: AD Banner

Size: Button #1 ( H:120px   W: 90px )

Client: For Company Use (published)

Publishing period: 15/03/2004 to [not defined]

Go to the page

Final words:

Well, if you had been so patient to keep reading until this point I really don’t know how to thank you for that. One thing I can do for you is to give you my own e-mail address so you can inquire (free of charge , of course) on any doubt or question   you have on this reading. I’ll promise to reply an answer (this offer is valid while I can response all mail sent . once overloaded I’ll make FAQ’s )

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