Description:
Best Web Image analyzes your website by testing its usability and design aspects. Increase your sites performance by eliminating common mistakes, identifying accessibility issues, and improving its image.
Contents:
Best Mojizu
So you may be thinking right now what the heck is Mojizu? You don’t know? Don’t feel bad, neither did my dictionary. Mojizu.com is a contemporary style character design community.
Moji War
 So what do you do in a character design community. At Mojizu, artists submit their work to the site for the world to see. Not the most unusual concept. What makes it better? Moji War. Moji War is where the artists compete amongst themselves for the best work. They are currently on week three of yet another contest, and some of the stuff is pretty cool. Moji War
Moji Community
Now if you into this kind of artwork there is more to this site than battling artists. It is actually a community. There is a blog, an active forum, and profile pages for the artists. Mojizu also offers stuff the the average visitor. You can download free art, screensavers, and misc items. They have a store, with some very cool t-shirts, and even have wall paper for your cell phone.
Cool site, and hope the site gets some more attention. I know the artists like it when they work gets high visibility. What is Mojizu again? It’s a character design community. Submit your work today!
Related Posts
Landing Sites
I was doing a review of this credit card processing site this morning, and saw something many of us don’t take advantage of. Making every page a landing page. CardAccept sells credit card equipment, and it’s easy to tell that simply by looking at any of their pages on the site.
Every page they have on the site sells, even on their contact page. It’s not plastered with the normal “Buy Now” junk, or filled with highlighted text everywhere screaming at you. They simply have a basic, very short form that asks the perspective visitor to fill out the information to get them started with their equipment. It’s highly visible, above the fold, and is consistently placed throughout the site. The form is also complimented by a great big 800 number found in the header directly above. I have said it many times before, having that phone number obvious and in the header will drastically improve credibility and sales.
Having a landing page is a good idea when you are trying to sell something specific, especially on a large site where a visitor could very easily be distracted. Landing pages are also specifically designed to move the visitor to complete the desired action. Ocassionaly though, you have site such as CardAccepts, where the site itself if a landing page, or should I say landing site. The owners have clearly considered the purpose of the site, to get prospects to fill out that form, and did not deviate. Great job!
Popular Posts
Writing Your Tag Line
Hopefully after reading my last two posts, you are on your way to writing a tag line. Don’t have one yet? Don’t know how to write one you say? It’s not always easy.
Herefordshire Canoes has allowed me to use them as an example. If you look at their home page you will see they have a tag line, “Canoes, kayaks, fishing boats, inflatables, paddles, equipment” in great big text. It looks more like a keyword list to me. A good reminder here is to design/write for visitors not search engines. Playing the search engine game came be a difficult task, if this was their intention, and I would simply not play it.
An Example
Here is a great method, search engines like it, and it will read well for your visitors. If they had used, “Canoes, Kayaks and Inflatables”, we would still be able to quickly understand what the site is about, the search engines would get it, and your site would be a little more readable. Why? Because it is short, and it’s to the point. One of the other reasons you want make a short is because it can easily be used as a common anchor tag. Canoes, Kayaks, and Inflatables makes a much better link than “Canoes, kayaks, fishing boats, inflatables, paddles, equipment”. An ideal link should make the anchor text match the title of the link page. Herefordshire needs to take advantage of this. If they were to link to their fishing canoe page, their title should match with “Fishing Canoes”, not “Herefordshire and Borders Canoe Kayak - Fishing” like it currently is. Keywords will match, and visitors are not confused by mixed messages.
So How do You Write One?
So here is what I like to do when coming up with a tag line. I first write a brief, three to four sentence description of the site. I really work on it, making every word count. Then I edit it down to just two sentences. At this point you should really like it. You should even be able to use this as your introduction message. A little hint here. If you look at Herefordshire’s site you will see the word “Welcome” in their introduction message. Welcome would not be a valuable word to a tag line or an introduction message. Seriously use every word as if you are paying for them. At this point it’s still to long though, so now it is time to edit it down to just one short sentence.
By the time you have it down to one sentence we can throw out the grammar, and really define your site to just a few words. Best Web Image, Web Usability and Design. Herefordshire and Borders, Canoes and Kayaks or Canoes, Kayaks, and Inflatables.
A Little Credit
On a final note, and to give Herefordshire a little credit, the tag line “Canoes and Kayaks” is in their logo. A good choice as far as I am concerned. The reason they have created a second tag line on their home page though, is because their more brief tag line was in graphic format. Search engines can’t read it, and that is not good if you are trying to get search engine traffic. My suggestion, make the tag line match the logo and lose the confusion. Density for your preferred keywords will also improve.
Related Posts
Defining Your Home Page
 So on my last post I wrote about the value of defining your site, and if you don’t you could be wasting your time and the money marketing it. So what makes a good example?
Key Elements
There is an endless list, but I recently came across a site that really slam dunks it, Home Information Packs. If you open the thumbnail I have included of the site, you can see the key elements that they included to define it. They have included: their logo, a tag line, a brief introduction, and a mission statement that helps give reasoning why you should use their service. It’s all very clear who they are, what they do, and why you should use them.
Don’t Forget the Other Pages
Now don’t forget the who and what you are on the rest of your site though. Digging around a little more on this Hip Consultant site I notice a little slipping when visiting their blog. If you compare an inner page on their main site, Commercial EPC, you will noticed the tag line is still there, but if you visit their blog, UK Property Blog, site definition is nearly lost. Don’t skip out out your blog, it could be one of the greatest marketing tools you may have. Inner pages are also often the pages that draw your visitors into your site through search engines. Clearly define your site, and avoid that targeted bounce.
Related Posts
Targeted Bounce
So you may be asking what is a “Targeted Bounce”. I don’t think there is a known popular definition, but I certainly have one.
A targeted bounce is marketing to random visitors with the hopes they will enjoy your site.
If you market to anyone and everyone, you will have a targeted audience that will most surely bounce off of your site. Additionally, if you market your site without clearly defining it, your visitors are as good as random.
Having a Tag Line
You hear it a lot, having a tag line is important. Even the blogging software I am using to write this post, WordPress, has a spot for me to enter a tag line. It asks for the blog title, and the next thing it asks for is the tag line. You got to have one, and not just because it’s cool. You have to have one because it defines what you do. Best Web Image - Web Usability and Design, “Web usability and Design” my tag line. By reading my tag line you should quickly understand that my site is about usability and design, and not the best web images.
 Check out EduBook. It’s an article marketing site. Notice the screenshot I took of it. No tag line, and in fact, you might think it’s about horse training if you read the first post title. It’s not. Their specialty is really not even apparent at first glance. Here is what they do:
The only way you can really tell that their site is about article marketing would be to visit those categories. The category is then obviously filled with articles and titles that you would expect. A few of them pretty good as well. So this is the killer for me. You spend a whole bunch of time writing quality articles, but your site fails you because you have not clearly defined it. Visitors show up, they think “What is this site?’, find no visual clues, and bounce.
Define Your Site
Take the time to define your site. Add a tag line, offer a brief introduction paragraph, give your visitors a clear reason to be their. You may bounce the ones not interested in your niche, but that is OK, they are not interested in your niche. Grab the ones that are interested, and don’t let go. Don’t target a bounce.
Related Posts
MySpace Fans
Any MySpace fans out there? I tried it a long time ago, have an account, but honestly never use it anymore. Time is the main reason, but another reason is that incredibly poor layouts that people come up with. Music, tons of animated graphics, and just complete craziness in most cases. Well here is a site for you MySpace lovers that could help you out: MySpace Layouts.
MySpace Layouts have three cool things for MySpacers. Lots of layouts, lots of add-ons, and a toolbar for your browser where you can get the latest layouts and codes. I would imagine you would need to be a hardcore MySpacer to use the toolbar, but it was feature rich. The toolbar also has a Google search feature in it. This could be good if you have the Google Toolbar already. You could simply remove that one, and add the MySpace one. In addition to their layouts and add-ons, they have lots of free MySpace graphics, code to tweek your layout, and forum.
For you anime lovers they had over 100 layouts. NFL fan? They had your category, but no layouts to be found. Taking a look at all of them, they have at least 400 different layouts to select, so I think these guys can help you out if you are in need of a makeover. Pretty good helper site MySpace users, and if you have no clue what MySpace is just visit their site: MySpace.com.
Related Posts
Pictures and Your Audience
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?
Targeted Traffic
 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.
Types of Pictures
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.
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Site Feedback for LetsSermo.com
It’s Friday, and it’s time for some site feedback. If you are new to Best Web Image, and the Site Feedback Posts, it’s about giving some feedback on the site listed below. The best way to improve a site is listening to visitor feedback!
Today’s Site: LetsSermo.com 
Description: Let’s Sermo is a blog where you can read about articles ranging from the latest technology, entertainment, humor and blogging tips to Search Engine Optimization and life.
Visitor Feedback: Please take the time to look at their site, and let them know what you think by making comments on this post below. Positive and negative comments are welcome, but comments like “it sucks” or “it’s nice” have no value because you don’t say why.
Your Site: If you want your site to get posted here let me know. Just make sure to include your email, the url, and why you think I should pick your site. It’s free, just not everyone is going to get picked.
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How Life Works
 How Life Works is a cool new website packed full of easy to read articles about, you guessed it, life, or should I say tips on improving your life. You can find helpful tips on everything, from saving money on your grocery bills to relationship advice. Money and love, pretty important topics for life.
You can probably find plenty of advice sites out their, but there a few things I really like about this one. The first, which I am sure you saw already is their great big Search form. Having a search function is a great tool for users, and on this site they should have no problem finding what they are looking for.
 The other two items I really liked was their listing of Recommended Articles, and their listing of Recently Featured Articles on their home page. Having a recommended article section is a great way to sell your site by showing your visitors your best work. If it’s your best work, or most valuable content, odds are good your visitors will like it as well. Having your recently featured content is also a great tool. It’s great for those returning visitors who made have already read your new content, and have returned to reference it in some way. It can also help draw in the new visitor, and give them an idea what happens on this site.
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