Boost Credibility and Sales with Quality Web Images

A web site without images is boring and hard to read. Images add pizzazz to your web site, make a web site more visually appealing, support your web content, provide a visual representation of your product, and break up text and make your web pages easier to read.

"A picture is worth a thousand words." That saying may be ages old but its message is just as vital today as when it was first uttered. Simply put, a single image can often communicate what might take you one thousand words (more or less) to say or write. More importantly, focused, high-quality web images can increase your sales!

How is that possible, you ask? It is really quite simple. Images can speak volumes. They can trigger feelings and emotions. Carefully selected quality images that accurately support your sales copy will help to produce a positive response in your web visitors.

Among other things, your visitors will tend to have greater confidence in you. Quality graphics, like an overall quality web site, can inspire trust in you and your products. A boost in credibility translates into increased sales.

Keep in mind that not just any image will be an improvement. In fact, if your choice of graphic images (photos, clipart, illustrations) is not properly focused and of high quality, then you could actually lose sales. Poor graphics will damage your credibility instead of boosting it. They communicate that you are not professional, your sales message is not to be trusted, and your product’s value will become suspect.

What kind of graphics should you add to your site? Use graphics that represent your products and enhance your sales message. These can include the header at the top of your web pages, a product image (e.g. ebook cover, software box cover) an order button and navigation links.

If you don’t feel you are quite up to the task, or feel that your time is better spent developing and marketing your web site, then it would certainly be beneficial to get help from a professional designer who specializes in web images. However, if you feel confident in your own abilities, here are some tips to design quality images.

• Use the best quality graphics you can find. Sometimes you might have to pay for the kind of image you want, but it will be worth it.

• There are many sites where you can find large selections of quality graphics (clipart, stock photos, and illustrations). Some are free or low cost, while others can be expensive.

• Don't use too many images. They will distract from your message instead of enhance it.

• Keep images and graphics as small as possible. Graphics slow your web pages down considerably. The larger the file size, the longer the images take to download.

• Save your images in the proper format for web sites such as GIF, JPEG, and PNG.

• Keep the resolution of your images at 72 dpi, the maximum resolution a computer monitor can read.

High quality images and a quality web site will be rewarded with a boost in credibility and sales. High quality sells, low quality doesn’t.

There are hundreds of companies on the web that will sell you photos, but you must be very careful when purchasing from them. Some companies will promise you the world, but deliver low quality graphics. Others will put restrictions on how and where you can use their photos. In other words, always read the fine print!

One of my favorite companies for high quality photos is a company called Stocked Photos. This company will charge you a fee for a 6 or 12 month membership (but the fee is well worth it!). Once you are a member you will have access to thousands of high quality photos with royalty free, unlimited downloads.... Click Here to Check out some great photos for your website!

Until next time!
Arianna

Source: http://EzineArticle.com/?expert=Leva_Duell
Http://www.foxsatellite.com

Web Hosting - Look For A Customer-First Attitude

The single most important factor when choosing a web host is reliability. This is confirmed over and over again in surveys of webmasters and online entrepreneurs.

But "reliability" is not a simple thing. If you assume for the moment that most web hosting companies are technically competent, have been consistently upgrading their systems, and have products that are reasonably priced, then a major component of web hosting reliability comes down to good old fashioned "customer service".

In other words, what you really want to know is, "When there is a problem with my website, can I get speedy no-nonsense solutions?"

With web hosts the "no-nonsense" thing can be a problem. Talking with technical support can be difficult.

If you have ever talked to a web host technical support person you get the impression they are handling three or four calls all at the same time. That's because they have thousands of clients, and often the problems come in waves. And that can lead to frustrating conversations with your tech person.

For example, I have recently been having a problem with one of my web hosts. The problem has to do with accessing some of my sites to make changes. Now I have been doing web building for years, and with many different hosts, and this is the very first time I have had this specific problem.

So although I am open to the possibility that the problem is somewhere at my end, I think it is unlikely. All my sites with this host seem to have this same issue, and none with any of the other web hosts that I use. In either case, what I am looking for is some intelligent suggestions.

But so far I have not been able to get an intelligent response -- even though it has been happening on and off for about a week now. I get the standard response: "Have you tried this, have you tried that..." all of which imply that the problem must be at my end, and none of which give the impression that they are actually thinking about what is going on.

Having been there myself quite a few times, I can sympathize with the technical support person's dilemma. But in my experience, most tech support people have seen these problems before, and they probably know the answer. It is just very difficult to get them to actually focus on your issue.

**Reliability starts with a Customer-First Attitude.

This has a direct bearing on the "reliability" of this host. Service people often take the attitude that if they stall long enough the problem will go away. And, yes, sometimes it does go away.

But on the other hand, I think they usually stall because they are just too stretched out to be focused on your little insignificant problem. In other words, they are not sufficiently "customer-focused" on me to solve my specific issue.

This is when web host "reliability" takes a hit. And it is when customers start thinking hard about changing hosts. While the tech person is stalling you are wasting time trying to get your blasted website to work. And more often than not, getting it to work just takes a little bit of effort on the part of the tech team at the other end.

This merely confirms what marketing people have been saying for years about "customer service". Customer service is important in every business, and at every stage of the sales and delivery process. Your sales and accounting people must be customer focused. Your production people must be customer focused. And your tech support people must be customer focused too.Unfortunately many web hosting tech support people just do not understand this. They often consider themselves superior to their clients. And they have been able to get away with shoddy, unfriendly service because it is just too inconvenient for clients to change hosts.

Thankfully this is changing. There is enough step-by-step information available to help make a host change, and many hosts will actually help you trasfer your domain to their system.

**Making Your Choice Based on Customer Service

Unfortunately there is no completely fool-proof way to know in advance where you are likely to get good, reliable, customer-friendly service.

You can try looking at web host review sites to get some comparisons between hosts. But unfortunately many of these sites are themselves not reliable. For one thing, they are usually trying to resell hosting services, so the "reviews" are often tainted. For another, if they contain comments and reviews by the public, these can also be manipulated. Some hosts will post bogus reviews praising their own services and criticizing those of their competition.

You can also scan web hosting forums for comments and recommendations. These seem to be generally reliable, but are still open to the kind of manipulation mentioned above. And since things change so quickly in the web hosting business, comments made a year ago about a specific web hosting company will probably be out of date.

My own preference is to look closely at the website of the host itself. If it is overly technical and confusing I usually move on. That usually suggests, to me at least, that the focus of this host will be on technicalities, that it may be difficult to navigate their support system, and I may have difficulty getting plain and simple answers to my inquiries.

A simple layout with a minimum number of customer-oriented products and an easily-accessed support system suggests the company is customer-focused. I also recommend contacting the customer help desk in advance of ordering just to see what kind of reception I get.

I also look for testimonials from real web hosting customers. Make sure they are clearly identified with names, physical addresses, and website addresses. If you really want to be aggressive, you might contact some of these people directly.

Of course I agree that none of this is fool-proof. But given the highly competitive nature of the web hosting business, all other things being equal, a simple, straightforward customer-focused approach is what you should be looking for in a web host.

A couple of hosting companies that I like are Yahoo Small Business and Blue Host. Simply click on the links below if you would like to check them out.


Reliable hosting from Yahoo! Web Hosting.

Reliable, Affordable Business Hosting from Bluehost.com.

Good Luck!

Until Next Time,

Arianna

Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.com
Rick Hendershot publishes Linknet News ,
http://www.foxsatellite.com/