marketing
your viewers how your product or service
will make them happier, sexier, healthier,
wealthier. In other words, focus on making
sure every line of your copy is dedicated to
what’s in it for them.
Edit. Edit. Edit. Then edit again
Mistakes in online copy are temporary and
easily fixed, but by the time you’ve noticed
your errors so have thousands of other
people. Have two or three people proofread
your text. Check it yourself for consistency
in grammar, punctuation, capitalisation,
abbreviations, etc. And finally, read it
backwards - you’ll be surprised how many
errors you’ll spot.
Forms
When creating online forms to collect data
from website visitors, think carefully about
what information you need and how you
intend to use it. It is generally best to break
the data down into its component parts,
which will prevent difficulties extracting the
precise data you may need later down the
track for personalised marketing.
For example, to collect a name you should
break up the data into three separate data
capture fields:
• Title
• First Name
• Surname
Do not have one field that captures the title,
first name and surname in one string.
Ask simple questions and limit the number of
questions per form so that the forms are not
long and laborious.
Do not have free text answer options
where the viewer can write paragraphs of
text. It is much better to create multiple
choice options for the viewer to select from.
This way you are able to perform functional
analysis on the data collected that provides
you with valuable information about your
viewer profile.
Images
Do not simply copy or download images
from the web – you run the risk of breaching
copyright laws.
Before using any images of people ensure
you have their permission to do so.
9 top tips for using images on the web
1. Use the JPEG (Joint Photographic Expert Group) format, with the .jpg file
extension, for photographs. This format is specifically designed for photographic
images. Drawings and logos with blocks of colour tend to not look very good when
saved in the JPEG format.
2. Use the GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) for images that are not photographs,
such as drawings, logos and maps. The GIF format is designed to display such
images as clearly as possible. The GIF format works especially well with images that
have solid blocks of colour or lines.
3. It is OK to use PNG (Portable Network Graphics) in place of GIFs. PNG files are
often smaller than GIF files and PNGs handle colour better. The PNG format will
very often work well for photographs. PNG images can also have transparency.
4. Web images should not have resolutions greater than 100 ppi (pixels per inch).
Current monitors display images at about 96 ppi. Resolutions higher than that serve
no useful purpose because computer monitors only display at 96 ppi. The files will
be too large and download times too long.
5. Animated GIFs are not your friend. Animated images are now considered to be oldfashioned. They are larger than static images and therefore have longer download
times. If you use them, make sure they are appropriate for your project.
6. Browser Safe colours are less important than they used to be. Browser Safe,
or Web Safe, colours consist of 216 colours that display solid, non-dithered and
consistent on any computer monitor or web browser capable of displaying at least
8-bit colour (256 colours). The reason why this palette contains only 216 colours,
instead of the maximum 256 colours, is that major computer platform developers
did not use all of the same 256 colours. Thus, only 216 out of the basic 256 colours
will display exactly the same on all computers.
A solid block of a Browser Safe colour will look smooth across all platforms and
browsers. Non-browser safe colours may appear blotchy, speckled or ‘dithered’.
However, all newer versions of browsers and operating systems have improved
‘engines’ that display images better than ever before, so staying strictly to the
browser safe colours is not as important as it used to be.
7. Big images have long download times. Make sure the file size of all images is as small
as possible.
8. JPEG images are ‘lossy’. This means you loose data each time you save the image
after working with it in an image-editing program. It is the compression process that
causes the image to loose detail each time it is saved. To edit a JPEG file, convert
it into the native file format of your editor, for instance PDS in Photoshop, edit the
image, and then save the finished version as a JPEG.
9. The most important thing you can remember about images on the web is that
planning is essential. Know where they will be used, how they will be used, what
physical size they should be and how the file sizes can be reduced.
For more information, contact Stephanie Dale on 02 9912 4400, email [email protected] or visit www.dmcadvertisinggroup.com.au
16 Australian Window Association