There are lots of ways to make sure your website is successful.  One of the most significant ways to ensure this starts with the forms. Generating interest from web consumers in products and services is no easy task.  Good web marketing is as much an art as it is a science, and takes a lot of work.  The worst thing to do is ruin all that effort with irritating forms.  The rules below are some of the best ways to effectively get positive results from your site.

1. Only ask for the information you absolutely need for the task at hand. People care about their privacy and you should to. Facebook, MySpace and YouTube ask for next to nothing to set up an account and considering they practically own the internet we should all take note.
2. If you have to ask for a lot of information, break up the form into logical, organized, and manageable chunks. People will be more willing to fill out a form if it looks short and sweet.
3. Never assume your users know what you are asking for.  Most web users are fairly smart, but nobody is a mind reader.  Provide clear, concise instructions each step of the way.
4. Make sure previously entered information is there if the user needs to revisit the form. Of the things that will cause a user to leave a site, a long, daunting, unfriendly form is nothing shy of an invite to leave. There are exceptions to this rule, most notably when financial information is involved, so just make sure to use common sense.

So here are some words to live by when designing web forms.  If the form allows the user to quickly and easily connect with the products you offer and they are interested in, everybody wins.

It doesn’t have to be anymore…

Just like with anything else in today’s society, the web design industry has come a long way over its years. Advances in design, advances in development, and most importantly to me, advances in the way we get things to work!

I remember a time, where I would be given a completed design, wondering “how am I gonna make this work”, the only problem, was the client had already approved it, so I had no choice but to make it happen. My choices in graphics at the time were JPG and GIF. JPG’s were great, as long as the design didn’t call for any transparencies. And GIF’s would be suffice, in the event a minor drop shadow was used on something that wasn’t a solid color, but they gave you a nice little edge around it, that you hoped the viewer wouldn’t notice. PNG files existed, but not that you could use on the web.

So we fast forward a couple years, to a time where we now have Firefox & IE7, being the most popular, we’ll even throw in Safari for the sake of example. As graphics have continued to advance, and designs become more detailed and involved, the use of PNG’s are becoming more and more popular, and lets just say ‘our best friend’. Well, for me, as a front-end developer, they have. But wait, there is browser that we must not ignore, the infamous IE6, how could I forget. Needless to say, it hasn’t always been easy to please this browser when it comes to more advanced designs; however we have now managed to discover a way to integrate the use of PNG files, while keeping all browsers happy, including IE6.

Now, I’m not much for loads of JavaScript files and lots of lines of unnecessary code, and when building a site, simplicity within your code is key. With just 3 basic lines of CSS, we allow the integration of PNG’s amongst all browsers, everyone’s happy, user doesn’t know the difference, and the end result is permission for the use of more advanced graphics. Here’s the proof:

The following images are the exact same PNG image, only difference is, one has the CSS integrated, and the other doesn’t. The graphic on the left is how you would see it in IE6, without the CSS applied, gives a shade of blue background to anything that is supposed to be transparent. The one on the right is how you see it properly in all browsers accepting of PNG’s, and also how you will now properly see it in IE6 once the CSS is applied to it.

Just put this in your CSS and you’re good to go:

.logo {width:325px; height:155px;}
html>body .logo {background:url(images/logo.png);}
*html .logo {filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src=”http://www.website.com/images/logo.png”);}

Here’s the break down:

Line 1 - apply all your attributes, other than background image
Line 2 - insert background, this is for browsers that display PNG’s just fine
Line 3 - insert background using a global link, this is for all the IE6 users

See, now that wasn’t so bad!

You’ve spent the money on a beautiful new Web site, you’ve put in tons of great content, and you’ve launched the site to rave reviews! Now you just want to know one thing - is anyone coming to my site?

Being able to track and properly analyze the traffic your site receives is crucial to the overall success of your Web business. Fortunately, Google provides a terrific tool that is simple to install, easy to navigate and also completely free!

Google Analytics has quickly become one of the most popular methods of analyzing data, as it pertains to Web site traffic. But let’s say you’ve installed Google Analytics (or better yet had lifeBLUE Media install it for you) and now you want to know exactly what you’re looking at when you log in. Fortunately, Google Analytics makes it easy by providing four basic categories of information for you to use. Let’s discuss each category and what you can learn from them.

The first category of information that Google Analytics provides is basic visitor attributes. This information includes the basics; like where your visitors reside and what language they speak, but you’ll also be able to find out technical details about their computer system such as their Operating System, their Web browser and the speed of their data network. All of these can be crucial when you’re trying to plan out a new feature that you want added to your site.

The nuts and bolts of the visitor attribute section is the information about how many unique visitors have come to your site, how many pages have been viewed and how long an average user spends on your site. You can’t possibly know if you’re reaching your target audience without this crucial information.

The second category of information that Google Analytics provides is traffic sources. Think of this information as “how my visitors found me.” Google breaks your traffic down into three categories - direct traffic (people who directly type in your URL or have it bookmarked), referring sites (other sites that link to you) and Search Engines (you know all about this). By analyzing the sites that link to your site, you’ll be able to not only know the domain of the site they came from, but the exact URL as well. This becomes useful information that you can use to analyze the online habits of your visitor and potential customer.

You can also see exactly which search terms are being used to find your site in search engines, which can help you further develop your SEO (search engine optimization) campaign. What’s more, if you already have a Google Adwords account, that data is seamlessly integrated into Google Analytics so you can properly determine if you’re CPC (Cost Per Click) campaign is on target.

The third category of information displayed in Google Analytics is traffic information about your content. Think of this as your sure-fire method for determining what is popular on your site and what could use a little help. Information included in this section includes the top landing page (what page users are first coming to on your site), top exit pages (the last page they were one before they left your site) and a list of your most viewed pages. Again, this can be crucial information as you plan your future content strategy.

The final category of information is one of the most powerful yet underused aspects of Google Analytics - goal tracking. Google Analytics allows you to designate specific goals that you want users to accomplish on your site and track the conversion of that goal. Maybe you have a site that has a contact form that you want visitors to fill out. By putting in a few lines of code, you can track exactly which part of your traffic made it to that form and actually submitted it. Or perhaps you have an e-commerce site and you want to track exactly how many people are buying a particular product based on a new banner ad campaign you instituted - again, Google Analytics comes to your rescue.

Google Analytics isn’t the only traffic analysis tool on the market, but it does have a lot going for it. It’s easy to implement, a snap to use and costs you absolutely nothing. Using it as a tool to help you build your Web content and marketing strategies going forward can provide numerous benefits and help ensure that your online business continues to thrive.

In today’s illustrious technology age, one must always stay competitive in their respective marketplace. One of the most cost effective means of reaching a targeted market has become Pay-Per-Click advertising. There are several venues out there such as MSN and Yahoo, but lets be realistic. 95% of searches come through Google so lets discuss Adwords. Short and sweet here is 10 reasons why everyone with a website needs to be engaged in online advertising.

1. Targeted Traffic- Imagine if you could direct everyone who came to your doorstep and take them to the exact place in your store where they wanted to buy something. With Adwords you can direct people to the exact web page based upon the keyword they type in.

2. Geo-Targeting- With Adwords you can only focus your ads to people within a given location radius. Whether its Hong Kong or Washington D.C. you can minimize extraneous costs by only displaying your ads to consumers within your specified locality.

3. Low Cost- Spend as much or as little as you like. You can set up daily and monthly budgets that automatically stop displaying your ads when you max out your budget. Longer keyword sets can cost as little as 5 cents a click!

4. Flexibility- Are you the only person that works within your business? Turn your marketing efforts on and off based upon your workload. Therefore you are not spending costly marketing dollars when you can’t even handle the business.

5. Reporting- With Adwords reports you can see what keywords are effective based upon cost, how many sales you had, and even how many people searched the terms you are bidding. No other type of marketing gives you these kind of details.

6. Features- Adwords comes with so many features such as keyword generation tools, language preferences, budget recommendations, traffic estimation tools, and more. Its a one stop marketing shop. And best of all, they are free!

7. Reach- If you can think of a phrase related to your keyword, odds are someone is probably searching for it. The more keywords you have related to your business and/or product, the more likely you are to grab a piece of the market.

8. Testing- Using Google’s Optimizer tools you can test which landing pages, ad copy, and keywords work most effectively so you can get the most out of your marketing budget.

9. Easy to Use- Anyone can get started in a matter of a few hours with an Adwords campaign. Its instant marketing and all it takes is a little dedication and just a handful of dollars.

10. Effective- The bottom line is that Google Adwords is one of the most effective marketing techniques that exist anywhere on this Earth. Why else do you think Google is a multi-gazillionaire?

Sign up for a free account today and be sure to tell them lifeBLUE sent you!