Creating Content
You will need to supply your designer with content so they can create a site which is appropriate for the material you want to exhibit. (If necessary you can use “Locum ipsum” in place of text. (Latin) until you finalise your own words so the designer has an idea of how many words you plan to use.)
The written word also needs to be used with respect to the user. Reading from the screen is not as relaxing has reading from paper. This is due to the nature of RGB as to CMYK.
RGB is additive colour. So there are 3 beams of light that interact to make the colour. CMYK is the opposite where light is shone onto white and the ink limits the colour that is reflected.
So reading from a screen is like staring into a beam of light and reading the shadows, while reading off paper is more in tune with the light source that is in the environment that surrounds the content.
Pictures and video are clearly more suited to the RGB media.
So being able to print the content without background images and colour might be important for your audience.
Making the most of Google
If you plan to utilize Google as part of your marketing strategy then, this needs the highest priority for you and you will need to have a strategic plan has to how you are to incorporate the key words and phrases you intend to target in Google searches.
This step is vital if you are in a highly completive placement area in the Google results. In many cases, the alternative is the use of Google add words which incur a cost. This can cost $1000’s per month and out strip the cost of the website. If your content is not relevant to the add words there will be no conversion to a sale.
Clearly, the content needs to be logical and readable by the user and not just written for he search engines.
RSS feeds
RSS feeds are used to inform people of information updates that they are keen to be informed about.
A popular example would be news sites where the user can download the RSS fed to their browser and instantly be updated with current articles.
They are also used to add content to a website in which case the site developer might create a style to help identify the content.
Changing content
If you want people to return to the website then there needs to a reason.
Regularly adding and updating the information is essential. However, there needs to be a realistic approach as to how much time you can invest in keeping your content updated.
This can be achieved by utilising RSS feeds or you could expand your exposure by making your content available to other websites by creating RSS feeds of your own content.
The disadvantage of this type of content is that it will take you user away from your website to another website where you may have no control.
Using Flash in Your Content.
Using flash in your content is a great way to bring character and style to your website but there are always limitations that you should be aware of.
Flash is a way to show your images, text and media in a unified presentation known as a movie.
Flash is a standard tool in websites, but it is not supported on iphones and is reliant on the user being able to download the latest version of the plug-in for their browser. For this reason, relying on flash to access navigation to the site is a big mistake.
Some large corporations do not allow their users to download updates to individual machines, which means that you are left with either a non functioning space on the site or you need to design an alternative image to replace the flash component.
Another limitation of using flash is that search engines such as Google can not access the menu meaning the links cannot be optimised to increase the relevance of your website in the eyes of Google.
So the use of Flash needs to respect the user’s capacity to access the content and your overall goal or purpose of the website.
We all love a bit of Bling, but stay true to the objective.