When I got this fine header in my email from graphic designer Jay Jaro, I had a moment of "huh?" I hadn't been imagining a stock photo in this image, and I wasn't sure I liked it.

Fortunately, I'd just had a conversation with designer Tom Hapgood on the subject of prejudice against stock photos. I was therefore able to step back and respond more rationally.

Do you have the same problem?

In my conversation with Tom, I'd actually been on the side of stock photos. We have a shared client who doesn't like them, but who is also having some trouble getting photos together for the site we're working on. Stock photos can be a great solution in a case like this.

I'd agreed that the client wouldn't want images of people pretending to be their workers, but suggested that we could use nature photos, like the one used below by designer Miriam Hudson-Courtney.  It doesn't matter, it seems to me, whether this is some butterfly we know and love, or whether it's a complete stranger. The message is the same.








And that, I think, is the issue to consider when you're thinking about stock photos, and the source of the distaste some people feel for them.

In discussing this issue when my own site was being designed, I said quite firmly that I didn't want a shot of two models conferring seriously over a piece of paper. It seemed to me that these photos are unconvincing. Visitors don't think that the model getting way too excited over your product is really you, or really your customer.  I felt that there was, in stock photos of people, an unavoidable element of inauthenticity.

A butterfly, regardless of who took the photo, is a symbol in our culture of freshness and transformation. Miriam's butterfly image is designed to say, "Look how fresh these plans are!" It is no less effective because that particular butterfly came from a stock photo site.

Let's re-examine Jay's design from that point of view. This is obviously a model -- she's standing there holding a light bulb and grinning, not something most of us do in the course of a normal day. In his other variation, which you see below, she is listening to the light bulb, or perhaps transferring its ideas to her brain through osmosis.









In other words, there is no pretense that this image represents a quick snapshot in the office at FreshPlans. It uses the light bulb, a common symbol for ideas in our culture, and an image that accurately represents the primary audience for this website: young professional women. It is as clear in its message as the butterfly.

A few months after my website went live I had a client who wanted a picture of the author and the designer of the website for the company blog. Ironically enough, designer Shan Pesaru and I made her a picture of the two of us, conferring seriously over a laptop screen. It was essentially the picture I had rejected so strongly for my website -- except that, since it wasn't a stock picture, we weren't as well lit and don't look nearly as enthusiastic. It was a snaphot in the office, and it's a good image of what I do.

I don't regret not using that stock image on my website. I've learned that many people think the models in stock images are actually the people who work for the company that owns the website, and I think there could easily have been a false impression created. I also rejected a shot of wadded up paper -- "I'm not that kind of writer," I said at the time, and I'm not. I do have a stock image, though -- antique typewriter keys. Designer Ashley Cox found an image that implied writing, worked with the design vision of the site, and didn't suggest anything that wasn't true, because no one expects me to be using a typewriter.

You can do the same for your site. When you consider using a stock image, think of what it communicates. If the image it creates in your visitor's mind is authentic, then it isn't inauthentic to to use a stock photo -- and it's very likely to be a better picture than the office snapshot.

Read more on this topic:
"Where Should You Get Pictures for Your Website?"

Labels: web content

A great website is an important tool in your marketing arsenal, but you'll probably want to have print pieces to support your online marketing. But we all know by now -- or should know -- that print is not the same as the web when it comes to effective content. People read print media differently, interact with it differently, and respond to it differently. Therefore, it has to be different. You simply can't cut and paste your brochure copy into your website and succeed -- or vice versa.

On the other hand, you want to maintain a consistent brand identity and a consistent message. So how do you harmonize print and online media?

Shopmobbing.com has a grand total of 158 words on their homepage -- one of the smallest word counts I've ever done. For their press kit (shown above), they need much more than that. So I started from scratch and wrote them a package of press releases that told their whole story. It has the same young, fresh, energetic tone as their website, the same fun, urban feel, but it shows the strength of their company, too. They used the same images as their homepage to tie the whole thing together, and they can send it as a print document or as a pdf file. The focus is on their new website -- the web address is the first and largest thing on the page -- but they've got scope in their print media to tell the whole story for investors and the press.



















Sani-Service took a different approach. For this company, I wrote a complete marketing kit, with a number of seperate elements:

• case studies
• testimonials
• unique selling point briefs
• company story
• product and service descriptions
• educational materials
• homepage text

Sani-Service has been picking and choosing from this menu of elements for their website (shown above), their press releases, their training materials, their brochures, direct mail letters, and more. Whatever they want to say, they have the right phrases on hand to speed up the process.

Whether you start with your website, your print media, or a complete marketing kit, you can end up with successful marketing pieces for both online and print media. The key is to take the differing needs of the media into account.

Labels: online marketing

I don't usually rant about things, and I don't usually show you pages that I haven't written -- or at least I've written the "after" site when I show you a "before" site. I don't normally just hold some total stranger's site up to ridicule.

Today, though, I'm filled with frustration. I'm working on the Kennedy Center's new educational site, and I needed some good math links -- things on the Fibonacci series, and on fractals.

These are interesting topics, and they lend themselves to beautiful graphic treatments. They deserve to have good web sites dedicated to them. Math is arguably a beautiful subject. And there are plenty of math sites with great content, including the one above. So why are the math sites so uniformly ugly?

Their ugliness isn't just a surface thing, either -- these sites are built in antique styles that just aren't nearly as good as what we can do now.

So I'm supposed to be hunting out the best sites for modern classrooms, and instead I have a choice among things like the page at the top of this post. And yes, that is a full screenshot. You have to scroll sideways to see the whole screen.

Why?

Software and websites designed for education are mostly horrible, to tell the truth. The software is always clunky, old-style, inconvenient, and expensive. The websites are... well, things like the example I'm sharing with you.

We may say that we, as a society, value education, but we're lying. If we did, we'd have websites like the Assassin's Creed site for the Fibonacci sequence.

I did find Dean Cameron Allen's handsome site, What the Hell is the Fibonacci Series? and the very pretty Environmental Graffiti page on the subject, but neither is intended for the classroom. And in fact they can't be used in the classroom (the former for obvious reasons, the latter because of racy comments), however hard I try to persuade myself that the modern classroom could handle "Get your ass out of my beer" on the smartboard.

If I'm wrong, then I will be most grateful if you'll share your counterexamples.

When people read your website, you're not there. This is hardly new information, but it has some implications. One is that things have to be extraordinarily clear.

Things have to be more clear on a website, in fact, than they do on paper.Given an instruction manual, some people will throw it away and experiment, but the others will sit down and read it. They'll expect to search around a bit for the information they need. They'll pay attention to the table of contents, compare the pictures and the text, and struggle through the hard parts.

People facing a complex process online react differently. They look first, to see if they can grab the information in some obvious place. If not, they begin randomly clicking things and scrolling. Then they give up.

No, of course you don't do this. But randomly chosen people in tests of web sites almost always do exactly what I've described. So your visitors may be doing so as well.

This means that a process needs to be explained very clearly, and in an eye-catching way.














At Shopmobbing.com, we went with cute graphics, large numbers, and arrows.This might seem like overkill, but it really isn't. Add very clear text, and you have a fighting chance.











At Joblingo.com, we again used graphics to catch the eye, numbers to show the process, and simple text. Arrows wouldn't have hurt, frankly, but this client wanted to maintain a simple, professional look.










Onsharp used a bright graphic, and bright headings to emphasize the steps of their internal process. Like the previous example, this layout takes advantage of the natural tendency (among English-speaking people) to read from left to right and top to bottom. Setting the steps out in this order helps make it clear. Each short paragraph then links to a page with more complete information. Putting all the information on one page would have separated the headings enough to lose the step-by-step visual impression. Note also that the graphic contains a call to action -- visitors who are ready to make a decision can simplify the process by getting in contact immediately.

Make no mistake -- if your words don't explain the process clearly, no amount of graphic help will fix the problem. Given clear, compelling text, though, laying the process out in an attention-grabbing way that guides visitors through the process can do the trick.

Labels: web content, web design

What do you do when your best keywords for search aren't the best for your brand?

It's a fairly common problem. Right now I'm working on a website for a local natural foods store. Checking the keywords that bring people to their current site, the search volume on the terms related to their products and services, and their preferred brand-oriented words, I came up with a good list of keywords for them. Some were new ideas for them and some were already in their minds.

But high on the list was one term I knew they wouldn't really like: "health food store."

People looking for the things this company sells -- organic foods, homeopathic remedies, vegan packaged goods, nutritional supplements -- such people very often look for "health food store." What's more, people in the community who shop with these folks often refer to their place as "the health food store," as in, "I'm going to the health food store. Need anything?"

It seems obvious that we want to optimize for that term.

But "health food store" doesn't have the image the company wants. They're going for a more modern vibe, something that appeals to people who think more in terms of sustainability, eco-chic, fair trade, slow food, fitness, and maximizing wellness. "Health food store" has, in today's whole foods community, a little bit of a downmarket, outmoded feel.

How do we get the search benefits of using "health food store" prominently on the homepage, without interfering with the brand?

• Evaluate the competition. While my client isn't the only place in town that could have a top ranking for the term, they don't have any serious competition online. The most likely competitor has a one-page website with their name and phone number (and they used tables to get the name in the middle of the page), so we can feel confident that they won't be using any sophisticated SEO techniques to fight for the rankings. We can probably get that term without being heavy-handed in its use. If my client wanted national visibility for the term, or there were several other businesses in town that deserved the top ranking locally, it would be a different story.
• Use the term where it's prominent for search engines, not for people. In this case, we can slip the term into a sentence toward the beginning of the page where the search engines will recognize that it's important, but people reading will perceive it as an introductory sentence. We won't emphasize that phrase graphically, either.
• Use syntax to make your point. We can say "More than just a health food store..." or "In our forty years in business, we've evolved from the first local health food store to..." Human visitors understand that we're saying we're hipper than your average health food store, but we still clue the search engines in and welcome the many people who search for that term. As always, your text needs to be authentic, natural, and useful to your visitors -- but a little subtlety works wonders.

Another common situation is when your company wants to use a term for reasons of branding which isn't being searched for much. In this case, you can use visual effects to emphasize that term, include it with the search essential keywords, and rejoice in the lack of competition -- you may just be ahead of the pack.

Your keywords need to be the things people are searching for, but you can combine those terms with the words you want for your brand, and be right on target for your customers and your company.

Labels: keywords, web content