Content is crap, and bells and whistles are everything.
Thinking more and more about how people use the web, and how reading (more than a couple of sentences) has simply become a thing of the past. I wonder how valuable content really is unless it’s simply screaming look at me!
Take this half a million dollar hunk of clay for example. It’s a monument at the Cesar Chavez Park in the city of San Jose, CA. Continue reading »
Maybe it’s just me, but when I review websites I find I always seem to have a soft spot for websites with smiling faces. Last week I was asked to check out this Denver photo booth rentals website, and the first thing that catches my eye is the smiling faces. Maybe it’s the; see someone else smile, I smile factor. Regardless of why, this site nailed the essence of what they are trying to sell with smiling pictures.
The website rents photo booths. Is that what they are really selling though? If you go to their home page, Denver Photo Booth Rentals, you will find 12 pictures, and only one of them is the actually photo booth. Continue reading »
Here is a good general rule when making a blog post. Limit the number of pictures you include on it. Unless your post is titled something like “Top Ten Pictures of…” you should really avoid using too many images in just one post.
I spent some of the weekend looking for good traits of a blog post using my sites stats, and the popular posts listed on some of the most popular blogs on the net today. Here is what I found. Avoid using more than one image in your post.
Adding a picture to your post does seem like a good idea. Most of the popular posts I found had at least one. Nine out of the ten most popular posts on this site had exactly one picture. Looking at the other bloggers, pictures did seem essential, but finding a popular post with more than three images was pushing your luck. Sure their are plenty out there with more than three, but I am looking at the top posts out there.
Images do draw a crowd, but they don’t neccessarily reduce the bounce. Because I am only able to use my own sites for statistics on the bounce rate I can not say this for everyone, but it seemed pretty clear that the number of images in a post directly correlates to the number of bounced visitors. Meaning, the more images in the post, the higher the bounce.
Using this and another blog I have for the statistics I looked for posts with over 100 views. Looking at the ones with the least bounce rate the best posts had no pictures at all, and a high percentage of the remaining had just one picture. Note to self, use just one pic.
Do you do any photo sharing or file sharing with your friends? Keep and Share offers both, and it’s free to join. You can store thousands of files, and they can be public or secure. Think of it as your computer briefcase while you are on the road. Besides storing files or pictures, and you also have a public, or not, calendar. I personally use Outlook, and my phone, but the calendar option is great if you running group events where you want to share it.
One of the things I particularly liked about the photo sharing is that you can put your photos in a journal like blog. This can make it a little more fun for your friends viewing them. Competitors usually just allow you to title, or add a small caption. They allow 1,000 x 1,000 pixel images which is enough to fill most monitor screens, and they allow as many as you want.
Cool little tool, and can be handy when you are on vacation or on the road. I know many times my wife and I like to upload our pictures while we are still on vacation. This is just the tool for that. Keep and Share
I did a study a while back that some of you may have remembered. I visited a 1,000 blogs to see what got me to read more. At a 200 a day pace your site had better do something special to get my attention, at least you would think. Well, when the study was done, I had found plenty of things I hated, but the one thing that always seemed to grab my attention was images. Images naturally draw your eyes attention, and if you want to see more of the same thing you just saw, the best place to start is where you already are. This lead me to one idea though, who wants to look at zits?
You saw it, you can’t un-see it. Here is an example of a site using images, images of politely put, acne. The site is LexLi Acne Kit. The site sells acne treatment and its supplies. Do images still work here? I mean, who really wants to look at zits? People looking for a cure or a product that cures acne, that’s who.
If your traffic is not targeted, or you are not selling acne products, I doubt anyone wants to look at that, at least not the before picture. Images do draw in visitors though, and if your traffic is targeted they can very easily turn that bounce into a few more pages views, even a sale. On this particular site the image links to even more before and after pictures. If you have acne bad, and are in need of a fix, I think you are not far from making a purchase at that point.
If you missed my post about my 1,000 blog analysis here it is: Forcing Eyes Into Content. Strangely, and by total coincidence, it was about skin products as well. Acne for me? No, usually just whiskers.
In a quest to give new life to my old laptop, I decided spend a few bucks and bump up the MEMORY. Yes, that was a flat out plug in hopes I can get memory cheap. During that quick search though, I realized that my site is missing something. The PUMPKINS!
Memory suppliers had the pumpkins on their front porch already, and I completely forgot that I wanted to start doing the same for my site.
Cool little designs are what makes a website fun, and could also be what keeps that visitor for at least one more page view. You don’t want to overwhelm your site with crazy images all over the page like Homer Simpson did as Mr. X, but a little hint of season can’t hurt. If you have been reading my posts for a while now, you might remember I did a 1,000 blog viewing a while back. I looked at a 1,000 blogs writing down what got my attention, and what didn’t.
Pictures are what got my attention, and the sites that had them in clear view, were the ones I most likely checked out more. Images talk, and not only that, they talk really fast. A simple pumpkin might make a nice seasonal display, but why not show a scarecrow buying memory, or mom taking pictures of her trick or treaters (they sell SD cards as well). Have a little fun with your graphics, and try to make it tell your message as well.
Now it’s time for me to get to work carving my pumpkins.
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