Effective Internet Article Writing October 29, 2009
Posted by ferventseosolutions in E-commerce, Outsourcing, Web Design, Web Development, Word Press Design and Development.Tags: eCommerce, Flash, Logo Design, SEO, Web Design, Web Development, Web Services, Web Services of India, Word Press Design, Word Press Design Tips, Word Press Development
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On the Internet “content is king”, and the real guts of content is the written word. If you are managing a website you need readable text for your onsite articles, for articles in your promotional newsletter or ezine and for promotional articles to be published on other sites or in other ezines. While these writing tasks can be outsourced to professionals, it is also possible for you to do it yourself if you follow a step-by-step process that is outlined in the following ten tips.
1. In the first paragraph clearly state what the article is about. In standard journalism you would tell who, what, why, when and where an event is happening. In web articles you oftentimes state a problem, such as “how to get good written materials for your website”, and then explain how the article is going to solve the problem “by showing a simple step-by-step approach to writing”.
2. Organize your material in a point-wise fashion. Before you begin writing think of the points that your article is going to cover. You may not necessarily show the points, as I am doing in this article (calling them ten tips), however, for your own outline of the article you should know what you are going to say before you begin writing. Write down these points and then make sure you include them as you begin the writing process.
3. Put the reader at ease. You are not writing for a scientific or literary society, but to your peers on the Internet. Write in a simple style and if you introduce new terms, define them for your readers.
4. Explain your points in short paragraphs. Short paragraphs are easier for the reader to follow. No one likes to look at a long block of solid text. Three, four or five sentences are usually enough for one paragraph.
5. Emphasize the benefits of your product or service. When it comes to selling, it is the benefits that sell, rather than the features. Sure, you are selling garden supplies, home décor, clothing, gifts and jewelry on your website. These are features. But the benefits are that people can get these items in one place without shopping around, that they can save time and money, etc.
6. Give resource information to your readers. Give the addresses of websites where your readers can get more information on the subject that you are talking about. These may be your own websites or they can be other resources. In case you are worrying about losing customers, good outgoing links from your website are also helpful to your site’s page ranking and positioning in search engines.
7. Keep your most important information near the beginning of the article and summarize what you want to say at the end. Editors usually cut things near the end, so keep your most important points and ideas in the beginning of the article. At the very end of the article you can summarize what you set out to accomplish in your opening paragraph.
You may not win a literary prize, but if you follow the steps that I have outlined above you will be able to produce effective written content for your website and for your promotional outreach via your own newsletters and through articles published on other websites. These articles could become the key to success in your Internet endeavors.
Graphic Design October 13, 2009
Posted by ferventseosolutions in E-commerce, Outsourcing, Web Design, Web Development, Word Press Design and Development.Tags: eCommerce, Flash, Logo Design, Web Design, Web Development, Web Services, Word Press Design, Word Press Design Tips, Word Press Development
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Graphic design is the process of creating the appearance of a publication, presentation, or web site in an attractive, logical manner. When done successfully, it attracts attention, adds value to a message, enhances readership and readability, simplifies, organizes, provides selective emphasis, and creates unity. Steps in the Graphic Design Process:
- Analyze the audience.
- Determine the purpose of your message.
- Decide where and how your message will appear (whether it will be a printed publication, presentation, or web site).
- Establish goals.
- Organize text and graphics.
- Choose an appropriate format and layout.
- Select appropriate typefaces, type sizes, type styles, and spacing.
- Add and manipulate graphics.
- Organize text and graphics.
- Proofread
- Refine and fine-tune.
10 Basic Tips For a Logo Design That Works October 6, 2009
Posted by ferventseosolutions in E-commerce, Outsourcing, Web Design, Web Development, Word Press Design and Development.Tags: eCommerce, Flash, Logo Design, SEO, Web Design, Web Development, Web Services, Word Press Design, Word Press Design Tips, Word Press Development
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Designing logos is just like any other type of design work, to be professional you’ll need to pay attention to details. Even a great idea can be ruined by not thinking about simple things, the following tips will help you to keep your concepts safe.
1.Work with vectors
This probably sounds obvious to most designers out there, but it isn’t to everybody so I repeat it as often as I can to avoid receiving those damn jpeg logos. Vector formats are the ones that will allow the most variations for your logo.
2.Don’t use more than 2 fonts
There is many nice fonts out there and we would all love to use as many as we can. Unfortunately using too many fonts will most of the time result in a loss of coherence. Using two different fonts can be good to create a contrast, catching the eye.
3.Keep it readable
If people can’t read your logo, it’s useless to have one. This sounds like dumb advice again, but it’s easy to get caught in creating letters or distorting a font until it becomes unreadable. Always stay aware of that when working on your logo.
4.Test sizes
Your logo should resize well at any size, whether it’s huge on a truck or tiny on a badge.
5.Adapt it for dark backgrounds
So you’ve got a wonderful looking dark logo, but now your client want to get it on his black car. It’s usually not too hard to adapt it, but you’ll look more professional if you already got that case figured out.
6.Make sure it works well in black and white
I have a very simple technique for that: I work every logo in black and white before adding any colour. This way choices are made judging by the shapes and you are not distracted by anything else. It makes it much easier to know that your logo will work well in shades of grey afterwards.
7.Don’t include photos in your logo
Well… this one goes along with the first tip. First, photos are not vectors. Photos also don’t scale, have no branding value and are hard to adapt for any use.
8.Look at it upside-down
This is a tip I got from my teachers in graphic design school, looking at your logo (or any printed design really) will get the meaning out of the way and give you a new look at the design’s balance and white spaces. Try it!
9.Don’t follow trends
It’s often hard to escape trends, especially if you’re passionated and love to look at inspiring logos on design sites. Your logo has to work on the long run, so try to avoid the web 1.0 swoosh or the web 2.0 reflection.
10.Get specific feedback
Asking people’s opinion is worthless if you don’t know what informations you want to get, so when getting feedback, try asking specific questions (eg. does your logo expresses the industry of the company?).
Tips to Writing Blog Entries October 2, 2009
Posted by ferventseosolutions in E-commerce, Outsourcing, Web Design, Web Development, Word Press Design and Development.Tags: eCommerce, Flash, Logo Design, SEO, Web Design, Web Development, Web Services, Word Press Design, Word Press Design Tips, Word Press Development
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Having a great blog template, domain and/or blog name, and the knowledge to generate traffic is only the beginning of what needs to be done to have a great blog. Even when writing to inform or promote a business, writing for a blog can be more like writing an entry into a diary. The earliest blogs were just that, “A day in my life…” or “My thoughts about…”. The common theme was that they were written by a person about their personal experiences.
Blog Writing is Personal
Successful blogs continue to be about “my personal experiences”. Find any of the highly popular blogs and you will find first-person langauge. Unlike traditional term-paper, article, or website content writing, everything is about I, me, you and us rather than people, individuals or the often unidentified they.
Blog Writing is Conversational
Blog writing is like conversation where everyone takes a turn speaking. The blog writer begins the conversation with an explanation of how to do something, their opinion on some topic, or what they did that day. If the blog is written in an interesting and engaging manner, site visitors will feel compelled to leave a comment.
When writing a blog entry, write like you speak. Most everyone has a set of words they use in everyday conversation and another more-educated, complex set they use to impress. Incorporating a commodious lexicon of literary morphemes and employing them in your blog writing will only lead to sounding professorial and boring. Use of fancy, multi-syllabic words will also make it difficult for those whom are not native speakers of your language.
Take just enough of that impressive vocabulary to sound intelligent and blend it with simpler conversational words and you will become a better blog writer.
Write Blog Entries With a Bit of Humor
Writing engaging blog entries is helped by a sense of humor. Think about what happens when getting together with friends. Everyone enjoys sharing their personal experiences and laughing about the fun things in life. Everyone likes to laugh and blogs written with a sense of humor are more likely to be recommended by others. The effects of Digg, StumbleUpon, and any number of social promotion websites are a testament to the power of a referral. An informative blog has a chance of getting one of these social referrals, but a blog written with a hint of humor will reap far greater rewards than one written in a purely encyclopedic fashion.
Blog Writing Can Break the Rules
Perfect grammar and punctuation are always preferred, but when it comes to writing blog entries; many such errors are simply overlooked. And, sometimes it is simply more appropriate to keep the conversation flowing by starting a sentence with and. But, don’t go overboard and drift towards the unreadable. Readers will be turned off by blog entries written so poorly that they couldn’t even be read aloud.
The last thing every blog writer should do before pressing that publish button is re-read the entire entry. If writing does not come naturally to you and editing is even more difficult; reading your blog entries aloud will help you find incomplete thoughts, sentences and missing punctuation. If you have to take a breath mid-sentence; chances are high you are missing a comma or semi-colon somewhere or should consider rewriting the sentence entirely. No red correction pencils here, but do make things readable.
Writing Blog Entries is Easy
Blog writing is not that hard. Most everyone has something worthwhile to share with others. The more frequently you write blog entries, the better your entries will become. Do read some of the blogs that have been around for years and you will see some patterns in language, writing style and overall feel or each entry.
