Call to Action?

Hello Everyone!
I decided I would blog mostly about the project. The last post was really helpful for me, and I think what the previous team on wednesday is correct-- it really helps organize ideas and make sure your team actions are working towards the results you want.

Additionally, as I said in my previous post, I have been working on my ad and have found so many great articles and free tools that have really helped me optimize my ad space.
The article below discusses 6 tips for an effective call to action, and it really helped my team rethink our website redesign strategies. Our client, BassDownload.com , has a blog-style website that isn't engaging the demo/geographics as effectively as we hope. They have a really high bounce rate on their mainpage, almost 60%, however they also have a really high average time on the same page: around 8 minutes & 45 seconds (our theory is that they leave the website open and listen to music while web surfing on another tab). This leads me to conclude that people are clicking on the page, looking around for a long time, and then leaving. Between 45-60% of the visitors are new visitors (depending on the month and concert being promoted) and never return again (or clear their cache).

In order to try to convert those unique visitors that spend a lot of time on the page, and engage them, I looked at our current call-for-action and searched for effective call-to-action examples.

The following website really brought up some good points about call-to-action:
http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/6-tips-for-effective-call-to-action/
One of the things I hadn't thought of was tip 5. Our client has a lot of activity on the entire website-- the logo is big and bright, there are tons of music videos, java plug-ins, music playing-- so it could be a little overstimulating to add a call-to-action to that as well. Currently, Bass Download has 3 call to actions: they have are a facebook plug-in to "like" the page,  a "leave a reply" the field after comments and the ability to download music from the site.
So far we've modified the "leave a reply" field so email is required, and changed the color so it's easier to read.
However, both the facebook and reply fields are passive fields. Following tip 4, we need to create a call to action that is persuasive. Also, according to tip 6, emphasize on design. When it comes to downloading music BassDownload only highlights that call-for-action with a basic link. Since that is the clients primary goal-- to increase downloads and music awareness, I feel a redesign is in order.

Below are some awesome websites that highlight how to change a call-for-action and gave me some great ideas for a redesign to get people interested in the website.

This website is full of unique call-to-action buttons:
call-to-action examples
the website really is a great way to brainstorm for ideas.

The following websites are very similar but reinforce how design can make or break a call-to-action:
good tips & examples
Techniques for a good call-to-action
A ton of examples

The next two websites are case studies about call-to-action buttons. I found these very interesting and helpful.
Case Study 1
Case Study 2

Overall I found all of these websites both very informative and interesting.

Additional Web Analytics Tools

Hello everyone!
While working on creating on of the ads for the project I came across some other web analytics tools that I thought I'd share.

This first one is a little limited in scope but I found it very helpful when looking for which words more closely associate with your ad landing page. This free service is called Keyword Ranking and it's provided by Web SEO (here is the link: http://www.webseoanalytics.com/free/seo-tools/keyword-competition-checker.php#). This one allows you to pick as many keywords as you want, specify your landing page, and it will give you the top two words associated with your landing page. It looks at from the perspective of a search engine (either google or bing) as well. Additionally, you can rerun it, take off the top two words, and it will analyze the remaining words. Through this technique I compiled a list of top keywords for my advertisement.

Though google analytics has a keyword feature I decided to use this one as well to try to predict what additional keywords, other than the ones founding using google analytics, could provide the kind of results I wanted. I also liked that it analyzed the website externally, as opposed to imbedding code like google analytics does. I also liked that I could allow subdomains or just the page I specified.

In the presentation on wednesday they suggested using many keywords, and I found this tool to be particularly helpful.

Have any other teams used another web analytics tool to get information about their website? What are some of the strategies you employed to select keywords?

MIS 496A First Class

Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Sam, and unfortunately, I missed the first class. :/ I really wish I could have been there. However, I am looking forward to next class and working on the first project.
A little bit about me:

• I am a really organized person, and I like lists. :)
• I am SO excited for this course! When I got an email describing this course earlier in the year, I knew I just had to sign up for it!
• I am really energetic and like to get everyone excited and pumped up!

Here are some attributes that I can bring to the project:

• I attended a lecture on web advertising during my freshman year of college. I still have the notes I took on that lecture so we could use that as a reference for the project.
• I am familiar with many of the social media websites used in this course.
• I competed in web advertising competitions in high school so I have some experience. 
• I have already talked to a small business interested in this project.
• I love to work in teams and always try to make sure everyone has there opinion heard. :)

Some characteristics I want in my teammates:

• willingness to work hard and equally contribute to the project
• open to new ideas and brainstorming.
• team player!

Well, that's all for now. Feel free to comment on this post if you want to work together or if you have any questions!

I look forward to meeting everyone on wednesday! 

Here's to a great semester!

Sincerely,

Sam! :)