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Choose the Best Colors for your Web Site

admin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:26:56 +0000

Choosing the right color scheme for your new website might be the most important single decision you will make in the start-up phase of your new web site.

But, how do you make sure that the colors you choose are right for your web site?

Don’t Choose The Colors that you Prefer

The best advice is to not determine the colors based on what you like. It doesn’t really matter. This is especially important if you are not part of the demographic group that you targeting.

You want to choose colors based on what sells the most or what keeps the visitors at your web site the longest and allows them to leave with a positive perception of the web site.

Overview of Web Site Colors

Let’s take a look at the rainbow of color possibilities you have for your web site.

Red

Red is the most powerful color available. It is associated with energy, aggressiveness, passion, and danger. It is friendly and attractive. Red enhances metabolism and raises blood pressure.

Red is often used on web sites that:

Promote increased energy and enthusiasm.

Are for children.

Red is great if used as an accent color to stimulate visitors to “buy now” or “click here.”

Orange

Orange is a powerful color that is the most undesirable to women. It offers happiness, courage, and success. It is funny and bold. Orange combines the energy of red with the cheerfulness of yellow. Orange increases blood supply to the brain and stimulates thought.

Orange is best used on web sites that:

Wish to increase appetite (food products).

Stimulate enthusiasm.

Promote positive thinking.

Wish to increase creativity.

Offer relief from boredom (games).

Have a youthful audience.

Promote toys.

Yellow

Yellow is sunshine, joy, creativity, cheerfulness, and intelligence. It also is symbolic of cowardice so it is not an ideal color choice for men. It is also a highly communicative color.

Pure yellow puts more strain on your eye than any other color. Therefore, it is recommended that yellow be used sparingly. If used too much on a site, it may fatigue the visitor and cause them to leave sooner. That being said, yellow is often the color that the eye will gravitate to first. Hence, it is a great color to use in banners or for “can’t miss” text.

Yellow is best used on web sites that:

Appeal to children.

Promote leisure products.

Promote improved memory.

Promote relief from personality disorders like depression.

Do not need to appeal to men.

Green

Green reminds the user of nature. It is symbolic of prosperity, wealth and safety. It is flexible and harmonious. Green is the most restful color to the human eye.

Green is best used on web sites that:

Propose change (Surprisingly, the primary color of Barack Obama’s web site is blue.)

Give new ideas.

Offer protection.

Promise financial success.

Are for a nature group.

Blue

Blue is the color of the sea and the sky and is the most conservative choice you have for a web site color. When in doubt, choose blue and you won’t go wrong. Blue conveys trust, loyalty, confidence, and intelligence. Studies show that the color blue relaxes the nervous system and increases productivity.

Blue is best used on web sites that:

Appeal to a wide demographic of age and sex.

Wish to relax the viewer.

Offer new information.

Are for businesses.

Have an international audience.

Are related to cleanliness (water purifiers, cleaners)

Promote precision high-tech products.

Offer diet products (blue suppresses appetite).

Avoid using blue for any small text or thin line diagrams on a web site. Small blue print is difficult for the eye to perceive.

Purple

Purple offers a web site a sense of sophistication, dignity, sensitivity, and romance. It is admired and intuitive.

Purple is best used on web sites that:

Offer spiritual fulfillment (religion).

Want you to use your imagination.

Offer a calming effect (some vacations).

Target pre-adolescent children.

Target women (especially light purple).

White

White is associated with cleanliness, simplicity, and youth. It’s hard to imagine a business-oriented web site without any white on it.

White is best used on a web site that:

Requires significant reading of text

Is high-tech, but wants to appear to be easy to use.

Promotes a charitable organization.

Sells medical products.

Sells diet foods or dairy products.

Black

Black is authoritative, reliable, and constant.

Black is best used on a web site that:

Is formal (banking)

Is authoritative (legal)

Sells art or photography products (it will make the pictures stand out).

Choose Colors that Your Visitors Can Actually See

This seems like simple advice, but web browsers don’t have an unlimited amount of colors available to them. Web browsers can show 256 different colors; of those colors, 216 are common on all major web browsers.

If you don’t use one of the 216 colors, the browser has to attempt to mix the color that it does not support. This is known as “dithering” and the results are often less than satisfactory.

More Color Tips

Take a look at a white web site with black print. It’s the easiest to read, and its very business-like, but there’s certainly nothing attractive or exciting about it. Start by thinking about putting a dark font on a light background.

In addition to white, another safe background choice is gray.

Extremely bright colors such as greens, reds, yellows, or blues will cause eye fatigue and chase visitors away prematurely.

Avoid mixing blue and yellow or blue and red.

It is best to limit a site to five color choices. Certainly, there should be no more than seven for a larger site. Use the same color shades consistently throughout the web site.

When using a dull color such as gray or black, make it pop by adding a bright color like orange for an outstanding effect.

When in doubt, use white for the background.

The younger your audience is, the more vivid colors you should use.

Men prefer blue and orange to red and yellow. Women prefer red and yellow versus blue and orange.

Another good color for a male-oriented site is brown. Brown promotes masculine qualities.

Color-blindness is prevalent in men. In fact, one in twelve men have some form of color deficient vision. If your web site is aimed at men, make sure your color scheme is simple and clear.

Women are far more likely than men to respond both positively or negatively to a web site based on its color. Women prefer softer pastel colors. Women are more likely to view contrasting colors negatively.

Colors mean different things internationally. White signifies bad luck in China, Japan, and India. Purple is associated with prostitution in Arabic cultures. Dark green, while symbolic of money in the United States, does not have the same appeal in foreign countries where money is multi-colored. The safest color that appears to not have any negative connotation in any country is blue.

Gold is another good choice for a web site color. Gold evokes feeling of prestige and quality.

Choose the Right Colors

The goal of your web site is to connect with your visitors. It really doesn’t matter what you like or what your significant other likes. What matters is what colors your audience likes. Your color scheme must be carefully selected, because choosing the wrong color scheme can adversely affect your visitor’s experience and decrease your sales.

By choosing the right colors that your audience desires, you can invoke increased feelings of a positive reaction to your web site and actually increase sales.

Your color selection is the single most important first impression that your site will give your visitors. Make a great first impression by using the best possible color scheme for your target audience.

Research for this post was done while creating a new mobile marketing web site for Advanced Telecom Services.

Discount Promo Codes for July 2008

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:26:54 +0000

Best of the Web promo code for 20% off through July 31 is FIREWERX.

Text-Link-Ads promo code for 15% off in July is JULY15. You may also want to use this one after July, 2008; its PREMIUM for 15% off.

GoDaddy discount codes: Use source code gdp0646y to get 20% OFF* your order of $75 or more when you order online at GoDaddy.com . Also, .COM is the perfect domain for all this and so much more. For ONE MORE WEEK you can register or renew as many .COM domains as you want for $6.99 – that’s 30% OFF* our regular price of $9.99/yr!

FaceBook — Not Just for High School Anymore

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:20:36 +0000

Facebook is young, but not all of it. Social media is growing quickly so if you plan on sitting on the sidelines much longer, you may miss out on this expanding phenomenon.

In fact, 13% of American Facebook users are over the age of 30. In Canada, 34% are over the age of 30. With 25 million American members, that’s over 3 million Americans 30+ who have Facebook accounts. It’s the same 3 million population in Canada where middle age users are already all over the premiere social networking site.

Social networking is here now. If your target market isn’t quite there yet, it will be soon.

Google Continues to Dominate Search

admin — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:53:47 +0000

Google continues to dominate the business of internet search and only seems to be extending its lead over rival Yahoo. According to the Nielsen Report for first quarter, 2008, Google has a 61% market share in the USA followed by Yahoo at 18% and MSN at 5%.

What is more astonishing is the continued dominance of men over women when it comes to search. Google’s percentage of searches come from the mice of 65% men; Yahoo has a 63% male gender gap.

Online Advertising Revenue by Channel

admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:35:06 +0000

Below are statistics for online advertising for the year 2007.

1. Search 41%

2. Display Ads 21%

3. Classifieds 16 %

4. Rich Media 8 %

5. Lead Generation 7 %

6. Sponsorship 3 %

7. E Mail 2 %

8. Digital Video 2 %

(Source: PricewatherhouseCoopers)

More GoDaddy Promo Codes

admin — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:01:30 +0000

GoDaddy Promo Codes for 2008

I just tried several of these and they worked!

hash2 = $5 off $30 or more

hash1 = 10% off anything

OYH1 = 10% off anything

BTPS7 = 20% off $50 or more

Internet Advertising Spend By Category

admin — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:31:53 +0000

Online advertising spending according to eMarketer.

Text-Link-Ads Discount for May

admin — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:53:03 +0000

Text-Link-Ads is offering a 15% discount for text links purchased in May. Just use the promo code MAY.

Linking Tips for SEO

admin — Mon, 05 May 2008 03:35:45 +0000

Every now and then I read an article that is so good that I feel compelled to share it with the readers of GetClickz. This article by AudetteMedia on Link Building is that good.

Best of the Web Promo Discount Code

admin — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:52:10 +0000

Whenever I see a place online where you can enter a promo code, I have to go on a mission to find one. When you do this, you often find a lot of expired promo codes which I did when searching for a new promo code for Best of the Web.

Best of the Web is one of the few directories where you can still get a bang for the buck. The thing I like most about Best of the Web is that I only have to pay once for a lifetime membership. There’s no renewing your contract every year like many directories demand. That’s why BOTW is my favorite directory.

So click here and when you check out use the Best of the Web promo code of LPROCKS. It will get you a sizzling 40% discount off of Best of the Web directory listings.

Add a Photo Image to a WordPress Blog

admin — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:47:53 +0000

WordPress is the source of the GetClickz blog, but it may not be obvious for beginners to know how to add a picture to your WordPress Blog.

There are two ways to add images to WordPress blogs. The easier way is to simply add the picture from another source URL. The negative to this is that if that site ever goes down, you won’t be able to serve the photo from that source. The picture of the Golden Finch is done this way.

To Add a Picture to a WordPress story from another URL:

1. Go to Google Images or similar and find the photo that you want.

2. On Google Images, you’ll come to the page that hosts the picture you want.

3. Click on See full-size image at the top of the page

4. Copy the URL on the page that shows just the image.

5. Go back to WordPress and put your cursor where you want to place the image.

6. Click on the green tree logo in the WordPress toolbar.

7. Paste the URL of the image you wish to use.

8. Add an image description and choose alignment (this comes from your cursor’s position).

9. You can now choose the dimensions you want. Most pictures need to be made smaller for your blog posts. Keep the ratio of the dimensions the same if you downsize.

10. You can choose to add a border around the picture if you desire. You do this by inputting a number in the box.

The other way of adding an image to your WordPress blog is if you have the image hosted on your computer. Since we added a Golden Finch in the above method, we will add a Jennie Finch in this method.

Add an Image from your Computer to a WordPress Blog:

1. Save an image on your computer.

2. Go to Upload File below your WordPress writing tool.

3. Click on Browse then on your My Pictures image from your computer.

4. Fill in the title and description.

5. Click on the dots for Full Size and File if you want the image inserted into your WordPress blog post. You’ll be able to adjust the size of the image later.

6. Click Send to Editor.

7. Click on the image in the post.

8. Click on the green tree in the WordPress tool bar.

9. Adjust the alignment, dimensions, and borders as needed.

10. Save and publish.

Opening Day Drives Baseball Traffic

admin — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:54:48 +0000

Today should be a national holiday. It’s the opening day of the Major League Baseball season.

Here’s a list of search engine terms driving traffic to the baseball category.

1. MLB, MLB.com, MLB rumors — 5.33%

2. Chicago Cubs — 0.97%

3. Los Angeles Dodgers — 0.94%

4. ESPN — 0.93%

5. Seattle Mariners — 0.84%

6. New York Yankees — 0.70%

7. Chicago White Sox — 0.70%

8. Cincinnati Reds — 0.63%

9. Boston Red Sox — 0.63%

10.Houston Astros — 0.63%

(Source — Hitwise)

Search Engine Marketing Growth

admin — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 15:52:29 +0000

Search Engine Marketing growth continued in 2007 and actually exceeded expectations, according to a study by Intellisurvey.

For 2007, total search engine marketing was $12.2 billion, up from $9.4 billion in 2006. The study concludes that search engine marketing will be a $25.2 billion market by 2011.

Of the total in 2007, the lion’s share of the revenue came from paid search at 87% followed by Search Engine Optimization at 11%. Paid inclusion accounted for less than 1%.

Internet Usage by Country

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:39:54 +0000

While the United States still has the greatest number of internet users in the world, China is closing in on the USA and will soon take the lead. Internet Users Listed Below in millions.

USA 208

China 162

Japan 87

India 60

Brazil 42

Germany 38

South Korea 34

United Kingdom 33

France 31

Italy 28

Russia 25

Canada 22

Mexico 22

Spain 18

Iran 18

Vietnam 17

Indonesia 16

Australia 15

Netherlands 14

Taiwan 13

Text-Link-Ads Promo Code

admin — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:43:53 +0000

If you’ve ever purchased text link advertising, you’ve probably heard about Text-Link-Ads. Text Link Ads is offering a 15% discount with a promo code in the month of march with the Text Link Ads promo code of (who would figure?) MARCH.

USA Search Engine Market Share

admin — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:10:52 +0000

Search engine market share continues to flow to Google, according to statistics from HitWise. For February,2008, Google hit an all-time high with 66.4% of the overall search market. Despite this new high, Google stock is in a tailspin.

There are also rumors of a merger between Yahoo and MSN which would make the combined company a more formidable competitor with 28% market share. Ask, which has been doing some heavy advertising recently, showed no significant gain.

Google — 66.4%

Yahoo — 21%

MSN — 7%

Ask — 4.16%

46 others — 1.87%

Search Engine Market Share

admin — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:04:30 +0000

Search engine market share as analyzed by the share of total searches made in the USA.

Google 53.0%

Yahoo 17.5%

MSN 15.1%

AOL/Time Warner 5.8%

eBay 3.8%

(Source: conScore December 2007)

Why SEO is SO Important

admin — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:29:14 +0000

Ever wonder why search engine optimization is so important? If you’re not a believer now, check out these stats from Forrester Research (2006):

* 93% of all internet traffic is generated from search engines.

* 97% of searchers never look past the top three positions. (This seems high to me, but it’s their results nevertheless.)

* 76.7% of Google users use the natural organic listings rather than the paid pay-per-click listings.

Best of the Web Promo Codes

admin — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:11:14 +0000

Most directories aren’t worth the trouble to sign up for them for SEO value any more, but that’s not the case with Best of the Web. You can still get some SEO bounce for registering your site with Best of the Web.

Best of the Web is offering a discount promo code for March only when you register. The promo code gives you a 25% discount on any services purchased at Best of the Web. Just enter SAVEBIG in the promo code box when you check out at Best of the Web. The Best of the Web promo code is valid in March, 2008 only.

See GoDaddy’s Rejected Super Bowl Ad

ballparkbob — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:41:10 +0000

Please. Is this really too racy for television? Don’t you think GoDaddy just loves getting its advertisements rejected?

See the rejected Danica Patrick GoDaddy advertisement that Fox didn’t want to air.

It will definitely make you want to watch more auto racing.