This does not mean that you should send the exact ad to Facebook or Twitter every day.  Change the photo, change the look, but get the same message to your customers over and over.

“Repeat It, Believe It”

Fact: This sentence will become more and more truthful every time you read it.

Studies suggest that repeated statements are perceived as more truthful than statements made less frequently, “presumably because repetition imbues the statement with familiarity.” In simple terms: frequency breeds familiarity, and familiarity breed trust.

So not only do consumers remember a statement that gets repeated, they are more likely to believe it, and think it is the popular opinion.

Have you heard the following expressions?

Got milk?
(used for 21 years, starting in 1993)

Just do it.
(used for over 26 years, starting in 1988)

What happens here, stays here.
(used for 10 over years, starting in 2004)

Tastes great, less filling.
(used since the 1970s)

Good to the last drop.
(used for over 97 years, starting in 1917)

Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.
(used for over 60 years, since 1954)

Breakfast of Champions.
(used for over 87 years, starting in 1927)

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is.
(used for over 43 years, starting in 1971)

Depending on your age, many of those advertising catchphrases should sound familiar. Some you may have heard hundreds if not thousands of times.

In advertising, the term “effective frequency” is used to describe the number of times a consumer must be exposed to an advertising message before the marketer gets the desired response, whether that be buying a product, or something as simple as remembering a message.

More frequency = more effective.

There is no single “right” answer as to how many times you need to tweet out your phrase before it becomes a household phrase in your town.

How many times do you need to tweet out your phrase before it becomes a household phrase in your town? Many Marketers believe in the rule of seven.  Why not six or eight?  Who knows.  The point is that you have a clear, clever, catchy,  informational, or bold phrase and repeat it until the message gets across to your customer base. 

Was “Where’s the Beef?” a bit irritating?  Yes, but you’ve remembered it since 1984!

Stats in this article were taken from a variety of articles on the internet.

The post Repeat Your Message appeared first on Websites by Robyn.

Headline

Your website needs to answer “What does this website offer?” within the first 3 seconds a visitor sees your site.  Keep your headline simple and to the point.

Sub-Headline

Your sub-headline should be a brief and concise description of what you are offering.  Don’t use clichés or over-used common phrases.  Be sure to describe what you can do for your customers without just bragging on yourself.

Benefits

You must explain to people “why” they need your service.  Explain the advantages and benefits of having your product or service.  People may not be ready to buy at this time, but you can offer resources in this section where they can learn more of why they need this product or service.

Call-to-Action

Having multiple “Calls-to-Action” is a great way to engage your audience.  Offer a “free demo” or “free sample”.  Be sure to email the freebie to them so that you are capturing their email address for further discussions.  Have a “read more” and a “buy now” button on your home page.  Calls-to-Action create interaction.

List Features

Bulleted lists are a great way to sum up the features you or your product offer.

Customer Satisfaction

Reviews/Testimonials are essential in today’s marketing.  Make them short and to the point.  A photo or name gives even more validity to the review.

Success Indicators

List or show logos for the awards, recognitions, and relevant education you have received.  This gives your audience a reason to trust you.

Menus

Your website menu should be easy to find at the top of the page.  5-7 tabs with sub-tabs organized below them will allow your customers to find anything they need easily.

Images and Videos

People are visual.  They want to clearly see what you offer.  Don’t use stock photos!

Secondary Call-to-Action

At the bottom of your website page, add a banner with a Call-to-Action to “Buy Now”, “sign up for our FREE Newsletter”, “Get Your FREE eBook”, etc.

Information Area

The footer of your website used to contain just your copyright information and possibly the name of your website designer.  Now-a-days, there is a pre-footer that contains important information such as navigation.  The navigation lists all of your tabs and subtabs in outline form so that at a glance your customers can find where they want to go.  The pre-footer also typically has a map, showing exactly where your shop or office is located.   Also include all of your contact information:  owner’s name (with letters after is applicable), business name, phone #’s, address(s), and a link to your contact page.

The post 11 Important Elements Your Homepage Must Have appeared first on Websites by Robyn.

People form their opinion about your site in milliseconds. It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not, whether they’ll stay or leave. (Recently Google confirmed the 50 ms number in their own research.) The first second on your website might matter more than all other seconds that follow. Make sure that second makes a great first impression. This first impression depends on many factors: structure, colors, spacing, symmetry, amount of text, fonts, and more. 

Make your web design simple and familiar (follow conventions – e.g. people have a fixed idea what an e-commerce site should be like). If you go for innovative, unconventional layouts – people are less likely to like them.

Eyetracking study —  Researchers monitored eye movements as subjects scanned web pages. They  then analyzed the eye-tracking data to determine how long it took to focus on the menu, logo, images and social media icons before they moved on to another section. They discovered that the better the first impression, the longer the participants stayed on the page.

The website sections that drew the most interest from viewers were as follows:

• Logo (6.48 seconds)
  • Main navigation menu (6.44 seconds)
  • Search box (6 seconds)
  • Social media icons (5.95 seconds)
  • Main image (5.94 seconds)
  • Written content (5.59 seconds)
  • Bottom of the website (5.25 seconds)

Elements that kill a design are complex, busy layout, lack of navigation aids, use of inappropriate colors, pop up adverts, slow introductions to site, small print, too much text, corporate look and feel, poor search facilities.

Good content is extremely important, but the visual appeal and website navigation appears to have the biggest influence on people’s first impressions of the site.  You gotta hook ‘em with design and then wow them with content.

Usability was the second most significant driver of first impression formation, followed by credibility.

It’s as simple as this:  People want to get inspired — DESIGN; they don’t want to waste mental energy on figuring stuff out – USABILITY;  and they want to be sure the website is legit – CREDIBILITY (which you give them with your content).

The post HOOK ‘EM with Design, WOW ‘EM with Content appeared first on Websites by Robyn.

The reality is that you don’t have to spend hours perfecting your writing skills. You just need to write less, and style your content to be read easily so it attracts and holds people’s attention.

People are impatient. They want information quick, organized and easy to read.

If your subject is complex, break it up into a series of subtopic posts. Structure your paragraphs in the inverted pyramid style. This means stating your conclusion first, then supporting it with the sentences that follow. This helps readers to move from point to point, and decide where they’d like to dive in deeper.

Once you’ve done that, use the following easy design techniques to make your content reader-friendly.

1. Line breaks  

Feature a point per paragraph and keep them to one to three sentences.  

2.  Subheads  

You can write out your headline and subheads first in order to outline the content you want to cover. A strong headline is vital to getting readers to come check you out in the first place. And solid subheads keep the reader engaged, acting as “mini headlines” to keep them moving through the rest of your content.

3. Bulleted and numbered lists

• They are easy to scan through for content.
• It’s a great way to present multiple points.
• They look different from the rest of your text, so they provide a visual break for your reader.
  1. Numbers are an incredibly effective way to both capture attention and to keep the reader oriented.
  2. Number your main points.

4. Relevant links

Internal links back to your own content will keep people on your site and reading your best material.

External links demonstrate that you’ve researched the topic and want to highlight other experts.

5. Formatting

Making important concepts bold brings emphasis to particular points you want to make.  You readers will be able to scan through and pick out the most important information at a glance.

The post 5 Easy Ways to Get More People to Read Your Blog appeared first on Websites by Robyn.

So, we’ve all heard over and over again that CONTENT on your website or blog is the most important way to attract attention from the search engines.  And having engaging, interesting, new content on a regular basis is imperative.

Your content needs to be applicable to your readers and your business. But what happens when you feel you’ve run out of interesting ideas to write about?  Even the best of the bloggers hit this wall sometimes.  Coming up with content that will connect with your audience, rank well with the search engines, and therefore make an impact on your business with traffic, revenue and brand building, takes time and expertise.  You can do it yourself, or hire a content writer, but one way or the other you must have constant new content on your website or blog in order to rank high with the search engines.

Over the years of writing weekly magazine articles for Snippetz, I have come up with a list of ways I prod myself to come up with good topic ideas for content.

1.  Read everything you can find on topics surrounding your business.

No matter what your business, there is always more to learn, a lot to read, and tons of information to assimilate.  All of this current information that you read will help you generate great topic ideas for your content.  Be careful not to plagiarize, but quoting someone and stating the source (even linking to the original article) is great for your search engine ranking.  Search the web for topics that are hot that concern your business.  Blogs are the best place to find the most current hot topics.  Read other’s opinions on those topics and then write your own twist on the subject.  Facebook groups and online magazines are also great places to find hot topics.

2.  Create lists.  

People love lists.  “10 Ways to…..”, “The 5 best….”, “20 Kind of….”  Lists sum up content without requiring your readers to read paragraphs.  People love creative writing, but love precise lists even more.

3.  Create “How to….” articles.

A fun way to write this type of article is to research other “How to…” articles on a subject that relates to your business.  Then take the 3 to 5 best “How to…” articles, make a compiled list of “How to…” steps, add all your own knowledge to the content, reword completely any ideas you pull from the sample articles, and most importantly delete all the information for which you disagree.  Then rearrange the steps to be precisely accurate.  Read over your new “How to…” content and picture yourself doing everything step by step.  Another way to make sure your “How to…” article is accurate is to picture yourself teaching someone.

Acting like you are teaching is the best way to learn something.  “While we teach, we learn,” said the Roman philosopher Seneca. This type of content is best with a lot of images.

4.  Get Controversial and use your Personal Experience.   

Theory, hypothesis, speculation, assumption, philosophy, ideology…. These are fun to read because it gives us a new slant, a different perspective on ideas we thought were unshakable.  Being completely controversial is risky, but explaining a different viewpoint and breaking the rules is engaging and fun.

The post When you don’t know what to say…. appeared first on Websites by Robyn.