Maximizing Your Website - Entries from July 2010

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MonMondayJulJuly19th2010 Why Add Highlights?

How Highlights improve the look and function of each page on your organization website.


Each page, news item, and event on your organization website has five "slots" to insert highlights. Highlights are other pages, blog entries, news, events, or content that you select as a highlight when you create it. To maximize your website's potential, it is important to fill each page with as many relevant highlights as you can.

Look

Although you may have heard that empty space is a good way to break up text on a page, allowing too much space can make your site look empty and unimportant. Each inch of space is valuable real estate--don't waste it by forgetting to add highlights.

When creating a page and selecting it to be a highlight, add a thumbnail. Thumbnails provide you a chance to be make your site pop by breaking up text with images (people love images!).

Be creative. Choose a theme for your thumbnails and run with it. Have all your thumbnails feature:
  • People from your organization or business
  • A consistent color scheme
  • Symbols and imagery from your organization or business (ex. Dentist websites: toothbrushes, floss, teeth, etc.)
  • A similar look-and-feel
  • Or a mixture of all

Function

Highlights help your users find related information as they explore your website–content they might not otherwise have found. For example, on your About Us page, highlight your Contact Us page so visitors can easily navigate there to send you a comment or question. On an news item about your new location, highlight the page with your map, directions, and location information. On your upcoming donors event, highlight a page where visitors can donate online.

Using highlights as links to other content on your organization website makes it easier to keep your menu clutter-free. Partnering highlights with hyperlinks, resource pages, and widgets keeps you from adding every page into your menu. Your users will thank you for this ease in navigation. Not necessarily in verbal (or e-mailed) praise, but definitely in repeat visits to your site.

OTHER RESOURCES ON HIGHLIGHTS

What Is A Highlight? – Support Document
Adding Highlights (Video) – Support Video
What is a Thumbnail? – Support Document
MonMondayJulJuly5th2010 Using Your Website to Promote Your Brand

Bad News, Good News

Bad news: The amount of time spent by visitors on your organization or business website can be measured in a few short minutes. And because of the modern Web-surfer's short attention span, it has become critical for organizations to focus more on building and maintaining their brand on their website in order to keep visitors there for longer.

Good news: TriplePixel's Skin feature makes developing and maintaining your brand on your website a few easy clicks away.

Your organization has undoubtedly spent countless hours building and protecting your brand: a logo, colors, imagery, and key words and phrases that convey what you're "all about." Carrying this brand over to your website is just as crucial as the initial building process.

Your website is often your bridge to prospective clients or members and is your best way to broadcast your vision and how you go about achieving it. You want people to know what you're all about from the moment they see your homepage and to remember your site long after they’ve left. To accomplish this, you have to establish your brand identity on your site.

Establishing Brand Identity on Your Website

1. Logo and Colors
Think of your organization's focus. Think of the words, phrases, visuals, and colors to help convey this theme. Create or use your existing logo as a symbol for your mission.

Keep these colors and themes in mind when selecting a TriplePixel skin or when developing a custom skin for your site.



Acucare Total Health had us create a custom skin to incorporate their new logo and to convey the same holistic, natural feel of their services. To do this, they used earth tones, wood textures, and nature images throughout their site.

2. Logo Use: Size and Position
Now that you have your logo to represent your organization, it should be the first thing users see when they visit your homepage. Display the logo large and prominent, usually in the top left corner of your homepage and continue that pattern on each page of your site.

With TriplePixel's Skin feature, the majority of the work is already done for you. You can add your own header, and inside of it you can place your logo so that it appears on each page.
Acucare Total Health used a custom skin and header to display their logo prominently in the upper left corner of their homepage and throughout their website (see image above).

3. Consistency

Use your logo, colors, and visuals to envelop your site with your mission. Use the same fonts, graphics, relative positions, and proportions for each web page on your site. A uniform navigation scheme coupled with a good color scheme can also help reinforce your brand image.

Pick a style and go with it. Be consistent in your content voice and style.

The use of Headers, Ads, and Thumbnails can help to achieve stylistic consistency. All of these features are included when you choose TriplePixel for your website needs.



Acucare Total Health relies on their website's branding to gain new clients. To achieve this, they needed to use consistent imagery, keywords and phrases (as seen in their website header), and theme (as seen in their skin).



They used closeup images of their herbal treatments, and tied it together with their wood textured skin, to continue their "natural" feel.



And chose closeup images of doctors with patients to establish a trust factor with their clients.

Sources for this Article/Other Resources Regarding Branding:

The Significance of Establishing a Prominent Brand Identity for Your Website: OneExtraPixel