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Huge Advertising ArticlesConverting Print Advertising For Use On The Web - A How-To
by:
J Hancock
Contrary to the beliefs of some, advertising for web and print are really different. Converting print ads for use on the web is really tricky. What has been really flourishing on paper may have no impact at all on the screen. Once
I am asked "How do I convert my print ads to web?" my answer is simple: don't! Web and print are so immensely
several that I believe you should ne'er
build your web pages based on a print ad.
There are certain rules that web design must follow that just don't apply to print. One of my colleagues, Tim Pattison, skint these rules down really in short recently:
<ul>
<li>Usability</li>
<li>Browser compatibility</li>
<li>Designing inside
the constraints of (X)HTML</li>
<li>Accessibility</li>
</ul>
These are the four rules that web design must follow. I wish explain these rules in detail later. For now although we need to talk just about copywriting. As I same
in my last news report Web Site Templates and Their Benefits, the most important part of your website is content. Search engines and disabled users don't care how your site looks. They only care just about the information your site presents. The reason I'm coming back to this is to explain that writing web copy is an entirely several ball game from writing print copy. Quite possibly the better resource for writing web copy is the book "Web Copy That Sells" by Maria Veloso. It outlines the differences between the two and gives great techniques to writing for the web. I wish be revisiting this topic in my newsletters to come, so do sure you visit often.
The four rules exclusive to web design: usability, browser compatibility, design inside
the constraints of (x)html, and accessibility, are the four horsemen of doom for the uneducated, inexperienced designer. They are several of the most unnoticed
aspects of web design, and yet several of the most important.
<ul>
<li>Usability: Unlike print ads, web sites are interactive. Users must be able to easily find their way around, and they need a clean path to the information they are trying to find. If you are commercialism a product, there of necessity
to be a clear, concise, distraction free path from the house page all the way to the check out page. </li>
<li>Browser compatibility: In a perfect earth you could design your web site once and it would-be look perfect and stay perfect in all browsers. Unfortunately, we live in the real earth wherever
several browsers keep a set of standards and others just don't. Actually, the most popular browser in the earth has for years lived by their own rules. Spell MS Net
Individual still holds the majority of the market share, Mozzilla, Netscape, and Opera have noninheritable a extensive percentage of the browser market. In fact, it's high enough of a percentage to do Microsoft revise their plans to release IE 7.0. Spell competition is healthy, it does for headaches for web designers. It is not uncommon to have your site looking perfect in one browser only to find that your entire design explodes once
viewed with another.</li>
<li>Designing inside
the constraints of (x)html: Once
you lay out a print ad, you place the pictures wherever
they belong on the page, draw out any shapes, lay out the colors, and place the text. Then you print it out and do copies. Every copy you hand out looks exactly the same, and there's nothing magic just about the way things stay on the page. In web design, everything is control in place by code. You could easily have a four to one magnitude relation of code to content. If you are not familiar with the secret writing involved in keeping your site looking like it's supposed to, it can be really frustrating birthing out your design.</li>
<li>Accessibility: Back to our perfect earth - not only would-be browsers be perfect, but all our viewers would-be look through the same eyes. Unfortunately, several folk aren't blessed with nice sightedness or motor skills like you and I. We need to consider that for those who have disabilities, a poorly ordered
out website can be altogether useless. You could ignore that audience, but you would-be be doing yourself a disservice. And let's not forget, our biggest and most important group of users is altogether blind: search engine spiders. They see your website the same way a blind person does. If the layout of your site isn't logical, a spider may leave and not bother coming back for a long time.</li>
</ul>
Considering these things, I think it is always better to design your web site separate from your print advertising. Always write fresh copy for the web, and remember that it's not enough to write great copy once. You need to update your site on a regular basis
to keep the search engines interested.
Just just about the Author
J American revolutionary leader is the president and founder of HighTide Web Services. We are proud to be a fast growing, Calif. based web services firm, offering high quality web site templates from several of the better designers out there, as well as superior
and inexpensive web hösting
HighTideTemplates.com
HighTideHosting.com
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