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Net Results
Helping your business succeed online.
Published by nrichmedia (www.nrichmedia.com)
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Volume 3, Issue 3 – Fall 2007
In This Issue
Welcome
Fall is definitely here. Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of going
for a beautiful hike, on a carpet of golden leaves, at nearby Seal
Bay. You just can’t beat that. While it’s nice and sunny
here on Vancouver Island right now, that autumn chill is in the air.
Time to put on the woollies!
It’s also Halloween, which, admittedly, isn’t my favourite
holiday. I’m not overly in favour of stuffing kids with sugar and
I’d rather see all of those pumpkins that will be thrown out tomorrow
being used to make soup or pie to feed the needy. But I’m a realist.
Although, these days, sadly, no parent would accept an apple in their
children’s treat bag, perhaps you might think about giving out
fair trade chocolates, natural organic (but still yummy) treats, or a
small, environmentally sustainable or recycled toy this year instead
of the usual commercial candies. It might cost you a bit more, but these
are the kinds of steps we really need to start making in order to help
heal those same kids’ planet.
Featured Article: Focussing on
Your Target Audience
When putting together content and thinking about design for your web
site you really need to think about who you’re “selling” to,
whether that’s in the literal or figurative sense. Many new business
people, when starting out, will say, “I want to appeal to everyone
so that I can get as much business as possible.” Of course you
want to get lots of business, but you’ll be much better off targeting
a specific group of people, and doing it better than everyone else,
than trying to please everyone to only a small degree. Although your
audience will be smaller in size, it’ll be a more receptive one
and you’ll get better results.
In determining your target market, consider your service or product
and who it will most appeal to. Think about geographic region, gender,
age, and possibly even socio-economic status, education level, profession,
race, religion, etc. An example group is male college students in the
Pacific Northwest. Another is retired North American female teachers.
Once you’ve narrowed down exactly who your target audience is,
it should be a lot more clear how to go about marketing your business
on your web site and in general. For business web sites, a well-defined
and specific target market, will not only make it easier for you to
market your product or service, it will also make it easier for customers
and clients to find you via search engines (e.g., Google).
Your target audience will affect the content included in your site
as well as how that content is presented. Different groups respond
to various methods of communication differently, so it’s important
to know what will work best with the group you’re trying to get
your message across to.
Obviously, writing for children will be much different than writing
for adults. Writing for members of a specific profession may allow
you the freedom to use certain terminology without needing to explain
it. Whoever your target audience is, write as if you were speaking
directly to that group of people.
The design of your web site should be directly related to your target
audience as well. For example, a site geared towards kids would certainly
need to look much different than one intended for business people.
The former would be more fun, perhaps incorporating some animation
and/or music, a rainbow of colours, and “kid-friendly” fonts
(e.g., Comic Sans, Jokerman, etc.); the latter would have more of a
corporate, serious tone, utilizing more conservative colours (e.g.,
black and white, navy blue, forest green, etc.) and fonts (Times New
Roman, Arial, etc.).
Font size might also be an issue. While many younger surfers have
no problem reading small type on-screen, a lot of more senior or visually
impaired people have difficulty making out anything smaller than size
12, 14, or even larger font.
Also, consider how many graphics and "bells and whistles" you'll
want. If your audience is not very computer literate and generally
includes people with slow Internet connections, it doesn't make sense
to include large, slow-loading graphics, animations, and video clips.
You want your site to be user friendly and don't want your visitors
leaving because they've become frustrated with the navigation or because
your web site loads too slowly. Conversely, if your audience is the
younger generation, including flashy graphics and other "fun" elements
might be more appropriate and even necessary to grab their attention.
Once you’ve taken the time to really define who your target
audience is, writing the copy for your web site and coming up with
a suitable design will be much simpler. Use common sense, test your
site out on a sample of your target audience, listen to their feedback,
and your web site should soon give you the results you’re looking
for.
* * * * *
Want more valuable information like this to help your socially responsible
business become an online success and get the results you've been looking
for? Subscribe to Net Results, our FREE
quarterly newsletter by filling in the form at the top left of this
page.
About nrichmedia
nrichmedia creates innovative and unique web sites and other multimedia
for ethical and socially responsible businesses and organizations.
We also offer green web hosting, web site maintenance, CD-ROM production,
and more.
nrichmedia was founded by Nathaniel Richman in 2000. Nathaniel graduated
from the Vancouver Film School with a Certificate of Recommendation
in Multimedia Studies in 1997 and has been working in the web design
and new media industry ever since. He previously received a Bachelor
of Mathematics degree (Honours Actuarial Science) from the University
of Waterloo and worked in the pension consulting industry.
Nathaniel works with other designers and programmers, according to the
needs of the project, to provide the client with the most professionally
designed web site and other marketing material as possible.
"Nathaniel is amazing. He was able to transform my random
thoughts into a website that surpassed all my expectations. Working
with him was straightforward and fun, and I feel lucky to have had
the opportunity."
- Jan Peavoy, Owner, Dark
Side Chocolates
To learn more about nrichmedia’s services, view
our online portfolio, and read glowing
testimonials from many satisfied clients, please visit www.nrichmedia.com.
Green Web Hosting
nrichmedia is pleased to be offering green web hosting services. Our
standard package includes 500MB of disk space (which is usually way
more than most small to medium sized businesses require), email and
webmail accounts, and web statistics which allow you to track how many
visitors there are to your site, where they come from, what search
terms they used to find your site, etc.
What makes our web hosting green? A few things, really:
- Our hosting is shared on powerful, energy
efficient servers so the amount of electricity we use is minimized. We maintain our
own dedicated environment within these servers so that we have full
control over performance and security.
- The electricity used by the servers comes from hydropower, which,
although not ideal, is one of the more environmentally
friendly means
of power generation.
- We’ve purchased wind power certificates to offset the
amount of electricity that we do use. Wind power is, of course, a natural, clean, and abundant energy source with
little or no negative impact on the environment.
If you would like to switch to nrichmedia’s green web hosting,
please click here for details.
New at nrichmedia.com: Green Articles
Check out the new Articles section on nrichmedia’s web site,
at http://www.nrichmedia.com/articles.htm.
We hope you find the postings to be a valuable resource on environmental
issues and social responsibility.
Recent articles include:
Web Site Design and Promotion Blog
For plenty of tips and tricks on designing, marketing, and promoting
your web site, have a look at http://www.websitedesignandpromotion.com,
a blog co-authored by nrichmedia and Juliet Austin. Feel free to place
a comment on any of the posts there. It’s an easy way to get
a link to your site, which can increase your exposure and help your
site’s search engine rankings.
Charitable Causes
nrichmedia donates 5% of proceeds on all projects of $500 and above
to charitable organizations. We are pleased to have supported and continue
to support several worthy causes. To see a list of the organizations
we support, please visit www.nrichmedia.com/causes.htm.
The Not-to-be
Missed Link: greenmaven.com
Green Maven (http://www.greenmaven.com)
is a search engine that “focuses on green, conscious, and sustainable
websites.” Some of its “hot searches” include: earth
day, social justice, fuel cell vehicles, raw food diet, green building,
and making biodiesel. There are plenty of good posts about environmental
issues, green products, and green building.
Archives
To view previous editions of Net Results, visit www.nrichmedia.com/archives.htm.
Pass it on and Enjoy
Please feel free to pass this newsletter on to anyone who might find
it useful.
Want more valuable information like this to help your socially responsible
business become an online success and get the results you've been looking
for? Subscribe to Net Results, our FREE
quarterly newsletter by filling in the form at the top left of this
page.
Printable
PDF Version
nrichmedia
is located in Courtenay (in the Comox Valley, on Vancouver Island),
British Columbia, Canada, and thinks and works globally! Thanks
to the Internet, we're able to create web sites and other multimedia
for clients all over the world. You can contact us by
or by telephone, at 250.871.7424.
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