POLYSORT INTERNET MARKETING INTERVIEW
with Tom Speer

 

I was recently contacted by Ms. Jen McCann of PolySort Inc., an internet marketing firm in Akron, Ohio.
Ms McCann is the editor for their electronic magazine, "Targeting Trends." Jen asked for Tom's advice on Internet marketing and web design considerations for companies developing business web sites.
Jen agreed that the content of our interview might prove very useful to other businesses considering web sites of their own. What follows are the questions and linked answers from our correspondence.

Q. When a company decides to build a web site or redesign an existing site, what are the essential design elements that first must be considered?

A. There are numerous design issues that come into play when developing a business web site. From a purely "executive level", the following issues should be resolved prior to beginning any actual design work. Answering the following "design questions" will lay the foundation by which the entire site will be developed.

First ­ Define your target audience and purpose. Will your intended audience consist primarily of new prospective customers, existing customers, or perhaps focus on staff and employees. Will the site offer products and services, customer support, or simply serve as a company "presence" on the web.
Determining how broad (or narrow) of a market segment you intend to focus on and what your motives are will directly affect the copy you write, the level of interactivity, your promotional efforts, and your marketing strategy.

Second ­ Determine the general theme and presentation method you would like to employ in your design. Do you intend to portray a strictly professional presentation of information, products or services? Do you wish to establish a formal or casual rapport with your intended audience? And finally, will you make use of the latest technology or utilize conventional design methodologies (the bottom line here is that the "bells and whistles" look and sound great but you run the risk of alienating a certain segment of your viewing audience. The development cost is also much higher… a budgeting issue discussed later).
Regardless of which target audience you select, user friendliness is an essential design element for a successful web site. No amount of useful information and valuable services or products will guarantee a successful site if your customers cannot find what they are looking for.

Third ­ What incentives can you offer someone to visit your site? It is not enough to simply build a site and wait for customers to come to you. You must offer some incentive to motivate them to not only visit your site, but to even search for it in the first place. Something as simple as a discounted product or service for purchasing from or visiting your site (easily offset by the reduced marketing costs of using the Internet), free information, weekly newsletter, or other "low cost" incentive will significantly enhance the likelihood that they will "choose" your site over a competitors. Deciding what you have (or are willing to) offer early on will add greater focus to the overall design of your site.

Fourth ­ What resources do you have to build (and maintain) the web site? Many a web design project is approached as a budgetary afterthought, only to wither on the vine because of poor design and maintenance. Establishing what level of personnel and financial resources you expect to devote to a project will directly affect the efficiency of your design (and ultimately the success or failure of your site). The old saying, "you get what you pay for" rings particularly true in the field of web site design and Internet marketing. Executives must "buy into" the project early and be prepared to wait for an acceptable ROI. The most profitable and successful sites on the Internet today are a result of patience, innovation, and consistent promotional efforts over time.

Part II

 

Q. There is a lot of talk about how frames can be a bad idea. For example, many search engines don't index framed sites which make it difficult for users to find the sites. Can you explain your view on frames, noting both the benefits and drawbacks?

A. Framed sites have a bad reputation because the design method is often used ineffectively. There is a frequently used saying in web design… "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should." This holds true for frames. In considering the use of frames in your site design, you should first refer back to your answer regarding who your target audience will be. If your target group will be primarily existing customers who are likely to find your site through other promotional means like business cards, correspondence, and outside advertising… the use of frames is a good way of providing additional informational structure and ease of navigation to your visitors. However, if you are building your site primarily to develop new customers and draw in prospects through search indexes and other listings, frames do offer a few design challenges that are difficult (but not impossible) to overcome. Search engines will not typically index a framed site all that well but you can design a "frameless version" within the framed site that can just as easily be indexed. There is also evidence to support the notion that some designers are making effective use of frames to add additional keywords and descriptive content to pages that may not be viewed under normal conditions. For instance, a left frame that is fixed at 100 pixels wide and contains a site menu may also contain 200 key words that only display if the frame were expanded to its' full viewable width of 640 or 800 pixels. Overall, effective use of frames can add great utility and ease of use to your site if you are willing to accept some of the drawbacks that come with them.

Part III

 

Q. Can you explain how color plays a part in creating a web site's mood?

A. Just as we use color to convey certain meanings in our everyday life, we also associate colors with specific moods and settings. Some colors invoke certain feelings or expectations relative to the culture or society we grow up in (in parts of Asia, white is the color of death for instance). Other colors convey a universal meaning life (red = warning, yellow = caution). How you choose colors for your web site will have a significant effect on how your viewers perceive your message (and whether they come back for more...). Marketing and advertising departments take the issue of color choices very seriously. Consistency in color layout provides an impression of professionalism and stability in a site (and subsequently, the company). Your choice of web colors should be complimentary to your choice of colors in other aspects of your company like business cards, magazine ads, television commercials etc. Take a look at IBM for instance (big blue). When you look at anything that has to do with that company, you're looking at a consistent use of colors (blue and white in most cases). There are basically six categories of
color combinations (actually a few more that are seldom utilized) that can be used as guides for establishing the theme of your site. Depending on the type of message you are trying to convey to your audience (professional, energetic, cutting edge, lively, traditional), you'll employ one of the following:

Warm colors are best suited for sites that utilize an energetic or bold theme. The vivid nature of these colors coupled with the appropriate background can offer excellent contrast. Be cautious when using this color group so as not to overwhelm your content with these eye catching hues.

Cool colors are well suited for conveying a lower key message. They give a soothing impression of calm and seldom overpower the main content of a page. With a complimentary font color, they offer an effective combination of contrast and color variation.

Analogous colors offer a palette of well blending colors that are generally compatible in any combination. You can use this color grouping when you want just enough variation in color to offer separation of the elements without straying too far from your theme.

Complimentary colors offer high contrast and should be used with caution. Like warm colors, this stark difference in tone and hue can be eye catching, but if used wrong, can give an eyesore effect to your design. The bottom line here is to use complimentary colors in moderation.

Monochromatic colors are what you might call "low risk" colors. Because you are using all of the hues of a single color, there is little chance of overwhelming your content or conflicting with another color selection. Like cool colors, the subtle changes in hue can give a calming effect but you also run the risk of giving your pages a generally "boring" appearance. This group offers very little contrast or variation and may not be suitable to many themes.

Triadic colors give your page a sense of balance. You have sufficient variation to support most any thematic approach to design without much conflict between color combinations. The triadic group could be considered a "middle of the road" approach to color coordination.

Part IV

 

Q. Do you have a rule of thumb when it comes to graphics? How big should the file size be? Are animated graphics okay?

A. Graphics can be a wonderful site enhancer or an undue burden on your design. A general rule of thumb is to never do with graphics, what can be done just as effectively with conventional text. There are two basic graphic formats in use on the web. These are GIF's and JPEG's. Each has it's own benefits and limitations. One of the greatest determining factors in using either format is the actual file size the final image translates to. For higher resolution images and photographic quality pictures, you'll probably get the bets results from JPEG's, utilizing the variable image compression built into the format.
For less detailed graphics like icons or clipart (or images that require a transparent layer), you'll probably want to make use of GIF's. In general, your ideal page size should be limited to around 45-50K.  The more graphics you add to a page, the greater the total file transfer time you require of your visitors. It is up to the designer to achieve that balance. Animated graphics can take up significantly more bandwidth for what is often a limited benefit in terms of page aesthetics or clarification of meaning. The unfortunate tendency in novice designers is to put every "interesting" bell and whistle they find on a single page, often with total disregard for whether it is actually contributing to the page in some way (well, it just looks neat…). A single animated banner with 3-4 rotating text messages can account for as much as 70K alone… this is excluding the actual content you intend to add to the overall page. The bottom line with animated graphics is to use them sparingly and only when necessary. They should ultimately be an enhancement, not a distraction.

Part V ...

 

Tom Speer has 22 years of experience as a freelance graphic artist and cartoonist (designing political advertisements at the early age of 15).
Tom also has earned a dual Masters degree in Computer Information Systems and Business Management. If you have a web or graphics design project that requires a personal touch, Fortress Web Design and Hosting can deliver! Thier rates are very competitive and an initial consultation is free so contact Tom for more information at webmaster@fortressdesign.com or just stop by his site and browse thru the excellent design lessons and examples.

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