1. Call-to-Action
A call-to-action phrase or button encourages users to click on your ad and clearly lets them know what is coming next. While direct call-to-actions such as “Buy Now!“ may be common, they can also be too insistent. Using indirect call-to-actions like “Explore Now” help encourage action without being too demanding.

2. Call-to-Action in Every Frame
Include a call-to-action & key message in every frame of your ad – especially the final frame. This ensures that you get across these two very important points no matter when the user’s attention is drawn to your ad. When your animation stops, your ad will continue to compel action from users.

3. Company or Brand logo
Keep your brand or product logo in front of users in all frames. If this isn’t possible, include your logo in the final frame of animated ads to ensure your brand shows after animation has ended.

4. Pricing and Promotion
The more information on pricing that a user can gain from your display ad, the better. Consider providing promotional pricing to the audiences your ad is reaching. If users don’t like the price or terms of your offer, they won’t click on your ad. Pre-qualifying users can save you the cost of that click.

5. Clear Value Proposition
Include a clear, compelling message highlighting the benefit of your product or service. Users should feel as though they are missing out on something by not clicking.

6. Sense of Urgency
Create a sense of urgency in your ad. Referring to deadlines or limits in quantity and availability can persuade users to give your message consideration right away.

7. Coordinate Colors & Images
Customize the color scheme of your ad to match your image or logo, and use easy-to-view colors for backgrounds and fonts. Extremely bright colors can be unpleasant and difficult to read.

8. Balance Text & Images
Take advantage of both text and images to convey your message. Text and images are processed by different parts of the brain. Integrating both into your ad – harmoniously – can help you influence viewers cognitively and emotionally.

9. Relevant Landing Page
Direct users to the most relevant landing page where the product or service is described in detail. The message on the page should match the message or promotion in your ad. This can have a positive impact on your users, conversion rate, and quality score. Remember to match the look & feel of your ad to the landing page.

10. Cast a Wide Net
Create your ad in every standard size or format to ensure that it reaches all of the highest performing corners of the Google Display Network. Because some sites only accommodate specific formats and ad sizes.

To read more about these tips or to see examples for each tip, click on the following link:
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/09/display-creative-checklist-building.html

1. Less Use of Flash

Today, websites need to have a clean, uncluttered design, fast loading and above all must be Search Engine friendly. This is a problem for Flash and now with the coming of the new web coding languages of HTML5 and CSS3, together with the explosive growth of web surfing on mobile devices perhaps it is the beginning of the end of Flash in web design.

2. Simpler and Cleaner Design

Simple. Minimal. Uncluttered. There’s nothing quite as “attention grabbing” as an honest, straightforward message on a quiet backdrop.

3. Mobile Ready Design

Smartphones, tablets, netbooks, the list goes on and on. If you do not offer this option or if your original site is not optimized to mobile standards, you are simply not ready for 2011. Forecasters predict that smartphones will outsell personal computers this year, and by 2013 more time will be spent surfing the internet on a mobile device than on a personal computer.

4. Large Photographic Backgrounds

Massive images were once taboo for web designers, but thanks to better image optimization, faster internet connections, and smarter loading methods, designers can gain a lot in some sites by pushing image sizes to the maximum.

5. QR: Quick Response

You may have noticed those square barcodes (looks like lots of squiggly unrelated lines) popping up on business cards, magazines or elsewhere, so you may already know that they are a hot trend for 2011. These barcodes are called QR, short for Quick Response. Simply take a photo of the unique barcode with your camera phone. Like magic, your phone will call up the website associated with that barcode.

6. Thumbnail Design

Our good friends at Google have introduced the average internet user to thumbnail browsing. The days of clicking through to see the content of a website are now gone. Now, you just click on the magnifying glass and hover to get a glimpse of what waits on the other side of your click.

7. Fonts

Google Font Library made easier on web designers to use over a hundred fonts for their web projects. Until now we were limited to only about 5 standard web-safe fonts. Web designers are making good use of the new fonts and creating beautiful websites, based on the new fonts. There is still a problem with Google’s font smoothness, that some browsers are showing them very rough around the edges.  There is only left to hope that either Googe will come up with a solution or people will start using up-to-date web browsers…

These are by no means a complete listing of all the trends.

To read more on this topic, or for more details, click here:
http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/08/31/the-biggest-web-design-trends-of-2011/

Send out a monthly or weekly email newsletter with a new coupon code. These codes don’t need to be big $10 off shipping or 5% off orders over $150. If you have an idea of how much it costs you to acquire a new customer, give away something below that. If you want to be clever, allow customers to signup to the email list right in the cart in a pop-up window, and give them the discount coupon on the spot.

Use your Facebook page to give your fans access to discount coupons. That way you will get more people to become fans of you on Facebook, at least you will be getting something back for the discount you offer them.

You may also want to use your Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus accounts to send out some limited time promotional codes.

The takeaways:
Use the coupon code box to gain access to new or existing customer’s email addresses.
Use your email marketing to drive repeat business with coupon codes.
Try to make it possible for new customers to get a coupon code immediately.
Give your Facebook fans access to coupon offers.
Use Twitter, LinkedIn GooglePlus to promote limited time coupon codes.

Offering a discount and keeping an existing customer happy is almost always cheaper in the long run than acquiring a new customer.

For more details please visit the following link:
http://www.wolf-howl.com/socialmedia/use-coupon-codes-promote-business/

• Send the right message
• Stick to the point
• Use a content management system (CMS)
• Keep content current
• Provide easy navigation
• Be mobile friendly

Remember, buyers are sifting through many potential businesses looking for a reason to eliminate them. Don’t let your dated and poorly structured web site be the reason the final decision maker decide to skip over your company. If your website isn’t doing its job, consider making some improvements. The tips above are a good start. It may only take a few small tweaks to change your website from a few boring pages to an engaging sales tool. Whether you are starting a brand new website or simply upgrading your current one, contact us to get you started on changes today.

For more detailed information on the points above, click here:
http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2011/07/28/website-as-business-resume.aspx

Here are the current top 10, but you need to keep in mind that each industry is different, and your results may vary.

1. Google Product Search (Free)
2. PriceGrabber (CPC)
3. NexTag (CPC)
4. Amazon Product Ads (CPC)
5. Shopzilla (CPC)
6. Bing Shopping (Free)
7. Shopping.com (CPC)
8. TheFind.com (Free)
9. Become.com (CPC)
10. Pronto.com (CPC)

For a short description about each of the sites listed above and how you can sign up and list your products, click on the following link:
http://searchenginewatch.com/author/2052/Andrew_Davis

If you need any help setting up your file, feel free to contact us.