source: Mac (Makoto) Funamizu

Than consider when the last time was you actualy spoke to the people you send your last 10 e-mails too …

source: stapledesign

How many Tweets do you reckon? Enough that if you read them all it would take days to get through them all.  And forget about Facebook with 700,000 messages you could be there for weeks.

source: http://www.socialjumpstart.com/2012/02/60-in-social-media/

The folded lightweight aluminum table top and legs form a stiff framework for the grass, soil and stones (needed for drainage). The picNYC table creates a surreal experience of nature in the city that literally transforms dining. Suddenly spilling water becomes a necessity instead of a problem, wine glasses need coasters not to prevent ring stains but to avoid tumbling.

Included in the rural experience is the maintenance of the grass. No table grass mower yet exists and the grass therefore needs to be cut by hand.
Based on the number of cuts, maintenance, usage, sunlight and season, the PicNYC table responds with a variety of colors to the conditions set by the owner. However, the color can always be reset to bright green since fresh sod is available year round.

Based on the concept of transposing natural experiences to the apartment, endless alterations are possible with flowers, herbs or even vegetables. Depending on the needs and green thumbs of the owner, the PicNYC table brings various degrees and qualities of the rural experience into the urban residence. As a consequence, the PicNYC table transforms dining into a feast at a new intersection of nature and city.

Design by: HAIKO CORNELISSEN ARCHITECTEN

On the left you see the best example of a clear message on the homepage, and this also happens to be the most popular website on the whole internet…  It shows a form with only one field, a button that says search and some humor in the button next to it saying “I’m feeling lucky”.  But now think about what you expected before you landed on this page. You where looking for information on the web, you needed some help to find this so you went to google with only one goal…   fill in the search form and find the website that offers you the information you are looking for! And isn’t this exactly what this homepage does?

Of course not everybody has a clear “one trick” proposition like Google, so take a look at Amazon and see how they are doing. Ugly website isn’t it. But again it does the trick and it does it very well!! The overload on information you get on this site has only one goal, getting you away from the homepage as fast as possible. It forces you to go search a product (prominent search bar on top) or to click on one of the many offers they make. Don’t have clue what you are looking for, see the “What Other Customers Are Looking At Right Now” section to find the most popular products.

So next time when you have 5 minutes left, have a look at your homepage and imagine you are a potential punter looking for a specific product/service you are selling and ask yourselves the following questions:

•  Is it clear what your website offers
• Is it clear what your main products/services are
• Is there a clear navigation structure
• Do you give the visitor the information he expects to find

Remember that this visitor came through a search on the web, a link in an e-mail or a reference link on another website, with a specific need for information and you have less than 1 second to convince him he is in the right place!

Thanks to Peter Ros from Admium for the inspiration for this post

In general the success of a website is measured by the amount of traffic of a website. The same phenomenon is seen in social media where people collect followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook. It is the general opinion that if you generate enough traffic, your on-line strategy is successful.But in our opinion the real value of your on-line presence is measured by the conversion rate. Meaning how many people who visited your website actual grabbed the phone, filled in a form, inscribed for an event, downloaded a PDF or whatever other goal you set to make this visitor a customer.

A big part in turning visitors into customers is the visitor experience. In most cases he came on your site after a Google search,a click on a link in an e-mail or tweet. And from the moment this visitor lands on your website you need to make things as easy as possible. You want to direct him as fast as possible to the information he is looking for and present him this information as good as possible. If a visitor has to search how to navigate to other pages, has to fill in forms that ask to many irrelevant questions or there is no call to action, it can make the difference between a new contact or a lost visitor.

So next time you look at your website, don’t think about what you want to have on there, but think about what a potential contact expects to find and how you can help him as fast and good as possible. Ensure a smooth user experience, from the moment a potential client clicks on a link to your website until he dials your number and everything in between.

The second thing you should start looking at is when you have set your goals for your website (inscribe for that newsletter, order a product, etc.) is which visitors you attract. If you have a local company, there is no use in attracting all kind of foreign traffic. So make an ideal client profile and match this to the visitors you attract. This will result in lower trafic ratings, but in much better traffic quality and a better conversion rating!

So in the future when somebody asks you how successful your website is you can say, 1 out of … visitors becomes a contact/client!

James Basson from Scape was very clear in the fact that he thought that a picture says more than a 1.000 words. So our task was to give the image material a prominent role in the design.

Using 2 different page templates for more or less copy and big images with thumbnails to start a light-box showing all images did the job.

The second challenge was to have James, who is an excellent landscape designer but no techie, to update and maintain his website. By implementing some specific back-end features in an already very user friendly CMS, James was capable to fill the websites with content without any problem!

The best thing is to have a look for yourselve at: www.scapedesign.com

An online educational mp3 seller wanted to expand its offerings into several “long-tail” keyword niches. In order to make its new niche products profitable, it would be important to not only sell the products on the company’s main website, but also to create highly focused websites targeted to the new niches. In addition, a top google ranking would be necessary for each new website.

Objective

The first goal was to launch one product “Eliminate TMJ Pain Now,” and to do so both quickly and cheaply so the potential for new niche products could be ascertained. As the company already had the product created as well as some initial sales copy, it would only be necessary to register an appropriate URL, create the website and engage in search engine optimization.

Action

Keyword research and consultations with the company’s owner yielded two simple keyword phrases that would match the exact intent of a searcher looking for the website. Luckily, both keyword phrases were available as URLs. The shortest URL was chosen and a website was created. Given the desire to keep costs low, a simple WordPress blog was used as the core for the site.

A static landing page was created as well as several blog posts related to the product and its keyword niche. On-page SEO was done. This included optimizing the title tags, image tags and text in order to send a clear message to the search engines regarding the landing page’s main keyword. As this project was primarily a test, incoming SEO links were not purchased, though the company was able to create links to the new website from several of its own web properties.

Result

Within the first week the website achieved a #4 listing for its most important keyword phrase and it sold 3 of its new products. This was in addition to 3 sales for the product made on the company’s primary eCommerce store.

And So…

Though the sales for the new product were small, they were more than enough to justify the investment in SEO and landing page creation. The company plans on creating more niche mp3 products and selling them via the same strategy. Next steps are to increase the current website’s google ranking by increasing the number of incoming links as well as to increase the website conversion rate via landing page optimization.