Simply Brown » Web Design

Homepage Elements of SAAS Websites

ashton — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:25:31 +0000

I was hired to design a homepage of a SAAS (software as a service) website, so I examined 10 of the more popular sites that came to mind. In this research exercise I screen grabbed 10 websites, uploaded them to my Flickr account, drew a note box around each element and defined it.

Below is the list of website element definitions in 3 categories of how often they occurred.

This exercise seems a bit tedious while doing it but in retrospect is worth it. It really forces you to take your time to examine each site closely and see the patterns emerge.

See the collection of screengrabs with notes on Flickr

Click the link above and rollover the images to see the defined areas.

List of Elements on SAAS Websites

Fundamental

logo
main navigation
product overview statement
call to action
login
signup for a new account

Common

hero image
benefit statement
offer
key selling points
application features
product tour
product video tour
how product works
testimonial
fresh content
feature panel navigation

Other

price
reputation building
tagline
security (eliminating fear)
demo
news
blog
twitter
utility links
user base info
new features
featured customer
extra resources

Tools and Services for Gaining Inbound Links

ashton — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:03:24 +0000

While doing some research on methods to obtain inbound links, here are some key takeaways from my notes:

Inbound Link Tools

Buzz Stream

http://www.buzzstream.com

Finds link opportunities (about 1% worth pursuing from my experience)
Acts as a great CRM tool to manage link acquisition conversations
Automatically checks the links you have made to make sure they are still active
$29 a month

Lotus Jump

http://www.lotusjump.com

Requires writing time
Based on your keywords it delivers a site specific to-do list
Tasks include social profile, Q&A, social bookmarking, reputation monitoring, content generation, competitive backlink and directory submission
Cost: $24, $49 a month

Comment Kahuna

http://www.commentkahuna.com/

Requires writing time
Allows you to search blogs that allow commenting and that don’t use no-follow.
Windows only
$ Free

Inbound Link Services

Pay Per Post

https://payperpost.com/

Submit a review request with criteria. Make offer to bloggers. Bloggers review BidModo (with full disclosure).
$ We set the price and see who accepts our offer.

Text Link Ads

http://www.text-link-ads.com

Create static links in the form of a text advertisement
We are basically renting links
Huge blog network and easy to use system
$100-500 a month

Search Rankings

http://searchrankings.net

They setup our links on their extensive website network
We are renting the links
$500+ a month

Low Profile Links

http://www.lowprofilelinks.com

Links from their private network of websites
Quality controlled, natural looking
Personal consultation
$1500+ a month

How to Make a Curser Pointer in Photoshop in under 30 Seconds

ashton — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:20:24 +0000

It will look like this

Use the Photoshop line tool.

Use these settings

Draw a very short line at about 11 o’clock.

Add a Layer Style with these settings

WordPress Themes for Real Estate Agents

ashton — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:14:09 +0000

I’ve been building websites since the dot come bubble. I’ve also been designing websites for the real estate industry fore a few years now. After seeing success rates of many website tools out there I can say WordPress has been a life saver for me and my clients. Using WordPress for real estate clients is the only system I set up these days.

Some of the top benefits of using a WordPress template for real estate is it’s great SEO and ease of use. In less than a day’s work I can get a real estate WordPress template installed, customized and apply search engine optimization.

Here are some of my choice WordPress Real Estate Themes:

WPZOOM.

RealEstateThemes.com

StudioPress (see Agent)

Gorilla Themes ( see Smooth Real Estate)

If you are interested in hiring me, I can setup hosting, install everything and search engine optimize your WordPress website.

Search Engine Rank Checking Programs

ashton — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:01:10 +0000

Research findings from needing to automatically check the rank of several websites.

There are many SEO tools that do several SEO related tasks. I needed a program that would check several site’s ranking on specific keywords automatically. I could not find an app that just checked rankings. I found several programs that had a ranking checker feature built in to it’s tool set. They all were a little different in the types of SEO tools they come with and the types of ranking reports they produced. Here is a list of the tools I found:

List of Rank Checking Programs

Hello world!

ashton — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:03:21 +0000

My last blog was stolen by a domain pocher so I’ve started up a new one. Lesson learned: have all your domain names in an easy to manage system with a trustworthy registrar. Now I’m using GoDaddy. They seem to be pretty afordable and professional. I’ve entered a couple old posts and travel photos.

Book Review: Webdesign for ROI

ashton — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:50:27 +0000

Web Design for ROI is an excellent book for reviewing all those website elements that help convince the user to click on the call to action button. As I read the book I’m creating my own checklist of website elements that should be considered for every website. Below is my list, I reccoment reading the book for better a more indepth understanding.
Web Design for ROI

Define the Big Picture
Are the following questions answered:
▪ Define the website owner’s objectives?
▪ Define the website audiences?
▪ Who is the competition?
▪ What are the expected traffic sources?

Measure Success, (know what’s working)
▪ Setup stats tool
▪ Define the call to action
▪ Connect call to action to stats tool

Landing Page Design Guidelines
(choose the guidelines that apply to your particular website)
▪ Establish credibility
▪ Use industry-aplpropriate design
▪ Display excellent references
⁃ awards
⁃ newspaper and magazine quotes
⁃ certifications
⁃ testimonials
▪ Minimal Navigation
▪ Make page appearance consistent with next landing page when using an affiliate link
▪ Make sure offer is consistent, match the wording
▪ Offer segmenting options for different products
▪ Eliminate nonessential graphics
▪ Accommodate different reading patterns (titles, paragraphs, bulleted lists)
▪ Place the call to action in each type of reading pattern
▪ Make buttons look like buttons
▪ Button text should be specific and motivating

SXSW Interactive 2008 Takeaways

ashton — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:01:29 +0000

Here are some raw notes from the conference this year.
Trends and future trends
* Communication between countries – Global corporation and partnerships are growing and language barriers are a common problem that need to be solved.
* Online Reputation Management
* More video
* Social Media Optimization
* Cross channel delivery methods / widgets
* Implementation of Happiness from a scientific approach – In the last ten years, psychology has started to deliver hard facts about what causes human happiness. This new research is expected to be implemented into web experience design.

Tips

Get your website more findable and more traffic

* Google Sitemap files are currently read by Yahoo and Ask.com spiders. Great for SEO.
* Have you web content pushed to aggregates who have appropriate readers
* SEO
* SEM
* Paid Search
* Use of social networks
* Find blogglers in your subject
* Paid blogging

Progressive Enhancement – When your website content looks good through all layers of display. Example: HTML > CSS > Flash.

“Always have empty space in your Schedule”

Tips for Revenue Site

* User Targeting – Know who your users are and who you are going after (Geography, Age, Sex, Interests)
* Make effort to engage with you advertisers
* The more you know about you website’s audience, the more of an intelligent conversation you can have with you advertisers
* Many of the pros use Crazy Egg for its heatmaps – http://crazyegg.com/
* Always disclose on site if you use affiliate links
* Know your conversion rates
o How many visitors/how many clicked
o how many clicked/how many bought
* Use MyBlogLog to see good insight on your blog readers
* Link Bate – Funny, News, Resource or Controversial
* Paid links

SEO Tips

* Deep links are very important
* Effective SEO has only one thing/topic/keyphrase per page
* Google Webmaster Central – Be familiar with everything here
* Know your internal link structure by using Google Webmaster Tools – Links
* See Yahoo’s Cached pages and Inbound link info with Yahoo Site Explorer
* Use a Sitemap file. Understand the protocol by reading www.sitemaps.org
* Use robots.txt file to point to sitemap files
* Use Hit Tail to quickly find “long tail” search terms

Emotional Design

* First impressions matter
* Establish trust
* Show commitment
* Forgiveness
* Respect your users, they are smart
* Error feedback “Thanks for being a beta tester. We are working some bugs out.”
* When asking for a testimonial phrase it like: “Do you kick ass by using my service, tell me how”

Miscellaneous
Web PR Companies – http://www.marketwire.com/
Bulk Slide Scanning – http://www.jaincotech.com/
Bulk upload with keyword tagging from Adobe Light room with the iStockphoto plug-in
Create Surveys quick and easy – http://www.surveymonkey.com
USB stick with location tracking by GPS and plots it’s path on Google Earth (007 shit) http://www.trackstick.com/
Fulfillment House – http://www.theconnextion.com/
CSS Framework – Blueprint
Send pictures, audio & text straight to you blog with Utterz
Add voice to your website with Jaduka
Books

* Web Design for ROI
* How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders
* Presentation Zen – one of the more popular books at this year’s conference (how to write a presentation)
* Vagabonding by Rolf Potts – “Vagabonding” is about taking time off from your normal life — from six weeks, to two years — to discover and experience the world on your own terms.

Miscellaneous

Everyone things this site is hilarious:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/