Monday, January 30, 2012

Why Blog at ALL? Top 6 Reasons By: Sharon LaMothe


I have had several people ask me about blogging...after all, setting up blogs is one of the many services I offer on LaMothe Services, LLC http://lamotheservices.com/. I thought it would be a great idea for me to post my answers here (on MY blog) for all to read...and decide if they, too, want to join the blog craze!


Why Blog at All? Top 6 Reasons
By: Sharon LaMothe

1) Think of a Personal blog as an on-line journal that you can share with your family or friends. You can post pictures of your latest vacation, your newest family member and chat about how the garden is growning. Whatever your interest you can blog about it!

2) A Business blog is a great FREE marketing asset that is a must have in this economy. Its a wonderful way to introduce new products or services or give Kudos to your best employees. You can run polls, have contests, and ask your clients for input and comments.

3) With almost everyone in the business world having computer access, there are a large number of people reading blogs. From professionals to potential customers or clients, blogs are here to stay and are even accused of taking the place of newspapers a crossed the country!

4) A blog offers credibility to you and your business. It also shows that you are on top of technology and not the "dinosaur" that some may accuse you of...

5) Blogs are viral (in a good way!) They attract regular visitors and subscribers...your blog can be RSSed (Real Simple Syndication) into your website and social networking pages.

6) Blogs not only offer a voice for you and your company but you can think of it as a form of communication of epic proportions along with the ability to "publish" anything you want at any time you want.

If you have any questions regarding blogging and how you can set one up, just contact me at SurroMatchFL@aol.com.

Sharon LaMothe
LaMothe Services, LLC

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

10 Top Tips for Banner Advertising



Banner Ads are the attractive advertising medium that quickly grabs the visitors attention. Implementing an attractive banner ad is more important in order to effectively utilize the features or the power of banner ads.

The success of your online advertising purely depends on how far you are putting the right efforts in building the banner advertisements. You need to take care everything from animation, color combination, banner size and most importantly the Ads positioning. This article carries proven tips that really works to boost the performance of your banner ads. So designing an rich and attractive banner advertisement is easy if you are doing that simple.

1) Design Clear And Simple Banners.

When it comes to attractiveness, you should keep things simple. That is 100% applicable for designing the banner ads. Make your banner design simpler. That really attracts the visitors impression. The first impression is more important and that should be the best impression. Simple design helps you to make quality banner ads. Learn how to make perfect quality banner ads.

2) Focus Your Target Audience.

Targeting the audience in advertising is the prior goal. So you have to understand the audience first. Do you have that understanding ? If not, try to understand in the sense know at least, what they expecting from you and your business ? This helps you to design Ads with correct and accurate facts or information.
3) Keep The Brand In Banners.

It is advisable to show your branding over the banner ads. In general, branding helps the visitors to remember you web site. So put your logo and URL over the banner ads at least in the lowest corner or in the top. Branding helps your ads to stand out from the other banner ads placed nearer.
4) Ask questions on Banners.

Asking questions on the banner ads is the intelligent way of calling the visitors. In general, a question strikes the people to look for the answer. So ask some attractive or catchy question to the viewers. Thats the ever known best Call-To-Action.

5) Banner Ads Placement.

Even though you have designed a poor banner Ad but when placed in a hot position (top, top-left, top-right, middle) of the web page it wins. At the same time, placing a well designed ad at the worst place (lower-left, lower-right, bottom) of the web page fails. So it all depends on where you are placing the banner ads. Find out the best position, by experimenting with different banner Ads placements. That makes sense.

6) Test Drive The Banners.

As I told, experimenting is more important. Both the banner design and the placement you have to test. Do more test, do even more test and measure the impact. Do the corrective action and finally, your banner ads will be in the right place.

7) Use The Right Design Tools.

If you are looking for selecting the right designing tool, better go for great tools like Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft’s design and publisher tools etc. That really works well and helps you to make attractive designs. Try to become the expert with these tools. Learn the banner design tips.

8) Using Gimmick Attracts The Eyes.

Gimmicks really works well. Try to put some catchy and flashy objects or text over the banner ads. That grabs the visitors eye on the first look. Attracting on the first site is more important with banner ads. Using colorful gimmicks adds more value and adds that rich look to your Ads. But don’t overlaod the graphics, that will become uglier.

9) Keep It Professional.

A professionally design banner ads drives the visitor to explore more. It builds the trust over the advertisements and gives the good confidence to the visitor. Like “this advertisement looks professional so the information it offers should also be professional”. So flow your professionalism through out the banner design.

10) Give Importance To Text In Ads.

Texts are not only important in Text Ads but also in banner ads. It not like banner ads should only have the graphical and animations. You should have the right text. Your slogan or a question or even an offer. Use the selected keywords over the banner ads that directly relates your web site or business. There should be a balance between text and animation. Better to go for the 50-50 approach. That helps to make better looking Ads. You should know the tips to write text ads and apply that for banner ads usage.

Always keep in mind, an attractive banner ad should have Simple Graphics & Right Text which leads to higher Click Through Rate.

Mr Ven

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year!!

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential. ~Ellen Goodman