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What can you use the application for?


Geeje provides users with an easy to use notice board that keeps them updated on what’s happening in the lives of friends, relatives and other contacts. The user can connect Geeje with their favorite social networks. The application pulls status updates and other information and compiles it all into one convenient place. The user can see who made a post, what the post said and when it was made. Any new posts made since the last time the user logged into Geeje are highlighted so the user can quickly review any new information without wading through status updates, links and posts they already read. The user adds each of their contacts and builds a separate Geeje profile for them. Users can also add feeds to their profiles to gather recent content updates from all over the internet.

What is the history and popularity of the application?


With so many different social networks and other resources on the web, it is perhaps not surprising that someone felt the need to create a way to compile the data into one place. Matt Votsikas, Geeje’s creator, wanted to provide users with a way to stay connected and up to date on what’s happening with the people they really care about. Today, Geeje provides users with a way to organize their friend lists and focus on the people that matter the most to them.

What are the differences to other apps?


There are many ways to manage social networks. Geeje is appealing because it gives users a faster way to check the status updates and other posts made by people that are important to them. The user decides who to add to their Geeje account. The application sorts through new posts, presenting them with a highlight so the user can jump right to recently added content. Geeje can also significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to check up on friends and family on the web.

How does the application look and feel to use?


The Geeje website uses a soft blue color scheme offset by solid white. The blue background gives the application a very light, airy feel that works well with the narrow font of the white Geeje logo. The homepage presents users with a scrolling banner depicting the various features and uses of Geeje. The site is slow and not easy to understand.

How does the registration process work?


A new user can begin by clicking the grey “Join Now” link in the upper, right hand corner of the homepage (inside the white rectangle). The following page contains the registration form which includes a username and password. A small check box is available at the bottom of the form and must be selected to confirm the user’s agreement with the Geeje privacy policy and terms and conditions. After clicking the blue “Join Now” button at the bottom of the form, the user is automatically directed to their account dashboard.

What does it cost to use the application?


Geeje offers a basic service that works through many free resources. Charging a fee would be asking a bit much considering the simplicity of this application. Although it might not warrant a subscription fee, it is still a useful tool that can help user spend less time checking social networking profiles each day.

Who would you recommend the application to?


Geeje is aimed at anyone who manages multiple profiles on the web. The application allows users to receive updates on content feeds. We don’t think this app is really useful and we don’t recommend using it.

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Editor’s note: This is an exclusive excerpt from the course, How To Email Important People.

As web professionals, we spend a significant amount of time communicating through email. In many cases, getting a fast response to our emails can mean the difference between enjoying our job and stressing about deadlines.

Here are 9 top-notch tips for writing emails that make it as easy as possible for the recipient to send you a response.

1. Write Shorter Emails

Shorter emails increase your response rate for one reason: it is easy to write a short reply to a short email.

While many people you email want to send a short answer, they often feel that a quick, one sentence response will come across as terse and unfriendly. The result is that they simply put the email off until they have more time to write a longer response — which is usually never.

Short emails remove this fear because it is appropriate to reply immediately with a brief response.

2. Reduce the Opportunity for Procrastination

When long or unclear emails enter someone’s inbox they get placed in the to-do pile because they take time to figure out and respond to. Sadly, the to-do pile usually ends up being the never-do pile.

However, when a short, one question email comes in, it gets a response much faster.

Make it easy for the reader to procrastinate sending you a reply.

3. Promotion vs. Prevention

In her book Succeed, Heidi Grant Halvorson discusses how some people respond to promotion (touting the benefits of taking a certain action) while others respond to prevention (highlighting what there is to lose from not taking a certain action).

If you aren’t getting a response, then you may find success from reversing the way you phrase your request.

For example, let’s say your job is to find new businesses that can partner with your company. You might not get a response if your boss is the type of person that responds to prevention statements, but you send an email saying, "This is a great opportunity. I think we should partner with company X because of A, B, and C."

However, you might find immediate success if you flip the statement towards a prevention tone such as, "This is a great opportunity. We have a lot to lose here if we don’t move quickly. Company X’s new product line offers a growth opportunity that we don’t want to miss out on."

Determine whether the person you’re emailing wants to prevent downfalls or discover new opportunities, and then adjust your message accordingly.

4. Always Have a Purpose

If you want a response, then your email should have a clear purpose. This applies in all situations, but it’s especially helpful when reaching out to someone for the first time.

For example, if you send an email asking to meet an author for networking or just to chat, you will have much less success than if you asked something specific such as talking about Chapter 7 of your book at lunch.

Important people are busy and they value their time, so you should always have a clear purpose for the meeting. Not only does having an event or goal help drive the conversation, it also makes the meeting feel more productive. Both parties feel a small sense of accomplishment for completing the task that was laid out at the beginning.

5. Do the Work for Them

When you send an unclear email, you’re essentially saying to the recipient, "It’s not important enough for me to figure out what the main idea of this email is, so I’m going to make you do it for me."

The main question or offer should be stated clearly and early within your email. If it’s not within the first few sentences, then start over.

6. Don’t Take "No" Personally

Everyone is busy. For most people, it’s simply a matter of timing. If you catch them on a good day, then they will happily respond to you.

If they’re swamped, however, then a simple "No" might be all that you get.

Don’t take it to heart. In most cases, it’s not a reflection of what you said.

7. Make It a Point to Follow Up

What if they don’t respond to your email? Wait a few days and then follow up. You don’t want to pester anyone, but if you give them some time and don’t get a response, then there is nothing wrong with being persistent.

I usually wait anywhere from 3 days to a week before reaching out again. (The more busy the person is, the longer I wait.)

8. Send Your Message to One Person Only

Are too many people receiving your emails? When multiple people receive the same message, the diffusion of responsibility phenomenon begins to set in. Everyone knows what needs to be done and they all assume that someone else will do it.

If you value a response to your emails, then send them to individuals instead of groups.

9. Don’t Hide Behind Email

Pressing Send isn’t the same as doing your job. The ability to collaborate and interact through the Web doesn’t remove your responsibilities in the real world.

Sometimes you need to pick up the phone and get an immediate answer. Sometimes you need to meet face-to-face instead of sending an email and claiming that you "did your part."

If you’re interested in more email strategies that can help you generate more business, build better relationships, and communicate more effectively, then check out How To Email Important People.

Related Content

• Creating HTML Emails : An Overview for Web Designers
• 10 Definitive Tips for Writing Captivating Emails
• 10 Tips for Optimizing Web Form Submission Usability
• Related categories: Project Management and Productivity

About the Author

James Clear is the founder of Passive Panda, a site about earning more money, more time, and more freedom. Join Passive Panda’s Free Newsletter on Earning More to receive the 7-part Freelancing 101 Course and proven tips for earning more. Connect with Passive Panda on Facebook.

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Something that can be pragmatic and is found in many online income businesses, which also makes these business owners unique, is their entrepreneurial nature. What that set them apart from many other people is that they will always do things that other people are nervous to do and they are far more ready to take risks when it comes to creating a successful online business.

Unfortunately, this can lead to them leveraging their assets poorly when it comes to marketing online and information is the asset in this case. If you think about it, every single bit of content that you have created has the potential to be re-purposed to get the most mileage from it and to make it a more valuable asset. Generally it is not so much what you say but how you say it.

Because people generally are different in so many ways their ability to absorb information will also vary. Some people are only too happy to read something but others find listening or watching more preferable. Then within each of these differences there are other variables. As an example some people are happy reading one long detailed report while others prefer a series of shorter blog posts. The information may be exactly the same but the presentation of it is quite different.

Here are three reasons why it is important to re-purpose your content and make it an essential part of your online business strategy:

1. When you re-purpose your content it can save you an enormous amount of time. If for example you have created a report that you sold for $10 previously. You could take this same report and turn it into a video and offer it as a gift when someone joins your emailing list. This could save you hours of work creating or finding something totally new as an incentive and even if it takes you a bit of time to set up the video, it is still much less time than creating and planning a whole new product.

2. By re-purposing your content not only are you getting more mileage out of it, but it will also save you money as you will not need to employ anyone to do the product planning and research for you. So there is less outsourcing required which translates into money saved, and even if you outsource part of the project like making the video or audio presentation for you, by giving your freelancer the content all you need them to do is turn it into the format presentation that you require.

3. Another reason why re-purposing your content is so important is that it can be used to expand your exposure as it will have more appeal to a much wider audience and there are two different ways to achieve this. The first part stems from the fact that people absorb information differently, so when you only offer content in one medium you will only get one group of people who will pay attention to it.

By re-purposing your content you can then improve your exposure as it offers you an opportunity to reach more people, in other words those who absorb information in other ways.

If for example you create a blog post, you will begin by sharing it with the people who read your blog. By then following through and turning this post into an article spinning it and submitting it to numerous article directories you get more mileage from it. Turn it into a podcast or video and there are still more websites that you can submit it to.

Can you see the endless possibilities that you can take advantage of and how many more people you can reach just by re-purposing one piece of content? Use this method and you will be amazed by the number of places and formats that you can use which can improve your success rate dramatically.

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Why it is Important For Legitimate Online Businesses To Re-Purpose Your Content

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1. Speed is better. In the days of IDEA 5.0 it was the quickest tool around but since then performance has tailed off. In particular, it seems to spend a large amount of time indexing things which is frustrating. 10.5 is snappy and I have spent them morning using it for coding without any delay.

2. Better Mercurial support. I found Mercurial support disappointing on IDEA 10. There was an issue on my Mac which meant that the commit window was blank (so I could not review the code changes) and it was slow. I often dropped into command line and ran Mercurial by hand. IDEA 10.5 works perfectly on my Mac and it seems much faster.

3. New features. IDEA has a pretty complete featureset already, but the Java world does not keep still and most of the new features keep IDEA as a cutting edge tool. These include support for Java 7, and better support for technologies such as Android, Groovy, Flex.

4. Upgrade is free to current customers. If you are using 10.0 this version is significantly better and it is free.

Full details of the new features can be found on the IDEA website. I think it is a very worthwhile update and especially like the speed and better Mercurial support. What do you think of the new version?

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1. Speed is better. In the days of IDEA 5.0 it was the quickest tool around but since then performance has tailed off. In particular, it seems to spend a large amount of time indexing things which is frustrating. 10.5 is snappy and I have spent them morning using it for coding without any delay.

2. Better Mercurial support. I found Mercurial support disappointing on IDEA 10. There was an issue on my Mac which meant that the commit window was blank (so I could not review the code changes) and it was slow. I often dropped into command line and ran Mercurial by hand. IDEA 10.5 works perfectly on my Mac and it seems much faster.

3. New features. IDEA has a pretty complete featureset already, but the Java world does not keep still and most of the new features keep IDEA as a cutting edge tool. These include support for Java 7, and better support for technologies such as Android, Groovy, Flex.

4. Upgrade is free to current customers. If you are using 10.0 this version is significantly better and it is free.

Full details of the new features can be found on the IDEA website. I think it is a very worthwhile update and especially like the speed and better Mercurial support. What do you think of the new version?

Comments

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Pastebin is a website were you can store a piece of text for a certain amount of time. The site is mainly used by IT professionals to store pieces of programming code and configuration information. You can however store any type of text that you like. Many twitter users use Pastebin to store tweets which are over 160 characters and normally wouldn’t fit in a Twitter message. Pastebin.com launched 9 years ago as a simple text sharing website. Back then we didn’t realize that one day we would be hosting millions of pastes for millions of users.

You can either use the website as a guest, a free member or as a paid member. Guests can paste, but not manage anything they have pasted. Free members get control over their pastes, but it comes with certain limits. PRO members get full control, secure https connection, direct file-uploading, much higher limits and can use the website ad-free. To learn about the PRO features check out this page.

Congratulations to all the winners from SmashingApps.Com. All accounts have been upgraded to PRO accounts. If you are not winner at this time so please be patient and keep visiting here or subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well because we are coming up with another new great contest very soon.

Thanks to Pastebin for sponsoring this wonderful contest at Smashing Apps.

If you want to conduct any contest at Smashing Apps just contact us and send us all the details.

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So how do we avoid all these evil attention seeking, unnecessary task and make sure we accomplish what we should be accomplishing on the day itself? Our minds are easily wavered and affected and it becomes extremely hard to realign your focus with goals at job task. Today we are showing you 5 ways to improve your focus at work and how you can possibly discard activity that can divert your attention. Now these tips can be subjective but it may be effective for you!

1. Work in chunks

It’s a scientific fact that our brains can only be attentive on a limited amount of information for a limited amount of time. Making sure the appropriate information in mind is the one that lines up with our duties at work is where the difficulty is. To lighten the load on your brain, it is better to segment your work into small manageable pieces. The idea is you do not want to spend an entire day working on one task non-stop. Breaking it up allows your brain to ‘breathe’ and it will reward you later with effective work. So work in small portions then leave your desk and if your lucky go outside breathe in mother nature.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

2. Reward yourself for your determination

It’s not really a bad thing to visit sites like Facebook, Meebo, or Twitter to get your social updates, but it’s important to not spend huge amounts of time on them, especially when your work is not complete. What I tend to do is create a set of tasks that I need to complete before I can visit any of those sites or leave my desk. I will work awhile, complete a task, then reward myself with some time catching up with a friend. This strategy relies on sheer perseverance and strong will. If you cant stick to goals that you set try another one of these methods.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

3. Find the right Music

As for me there is no way that I can push through an entire work day of coding or designing without the appropriate music to keep me motivated. For me its either intense techno or alternative music that sustains me throughout the day. I can be wrong about this but I believe its important that whatever genre you decide to listen to, to make sure its music that can be easily filtered out while keeping the work ethic at full throttle. For myself I can not listen to music that makes me think about the words or sucks me into wanting to fall asleep, both of which becomes a distraction. Finding the happy medium will increase your drive immensely and will make the day fly right by.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

4. Go Incognito

If all else fails and you just cant seem to get away from the Facebook and pesky co-worker emails, you have to hide yourself. Go invisible on the instant message clients, set the away message to “BUSY, DON’T BOTHER ME”. And for those workers who love to stop by your desk, throw on those head phones so they dont feel inclined to spark up a conversation. I often have to hide from being annoyed from others. It seems the moment one person starts talking to me that the floods of people come. I’ve learned to never put myself in conversational positions while trying to be focused or make sure that i’m in control if I am in those situations.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

5. Be interested/passionate about your work.

Finally the best way to be productive is to truly enjoy and be passionate about what your working on. We go to great lengths and hours of work for things that interest us. Yet we lose focus instantaneously if what we are doing is not important. It might take sometime finding interest in the work you do, you might have to just think about the big picture or maybe focus on impressing those around you (possibly a boss) to stay on track.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

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A website is only as good as its content. If people don’t want to read what is on your site, then they will not use your services, either because they don’t trust you or don’t have the patience to sort through the content to find out what your service is. It is important to have well-written, direct articles on your site to keep user interest and generate revenue.

A simple way to get excellent articles is to hire a professional writer to develop them, but that can get expensive, especially if your site is just starting out.

For many people, it is far more economical to write your own articles. But before you tackle this task, make sure that you’re up to it, because the quality of your articles can make or break your website or online business. Here are some tips to get you started.

FORMAT THE ARTICLES FOR THE INTERNET

Online, less is more. When you’re laying articles out on your site, try to put as much negative space in as you can. Break paragraphs up and try to keep it so the user needs to scroll as little as possible to read the entire article.

Also, if you can, include pictures with the articles. The goal is to make your articles appear as short and text-light as possible, so users won’t be intimidated and not bother reading them.

KEEP THE ARTICLES SHORT AND SIMPLE

A way to make the formatting easier is to keep your articles short. Again, the object should be to require as little scrolling as possible. The Internet is called the Information Super-Highway, not the Information Back Road.

People are looking for as much from articles in as small an amount of time as possible, so help them out. Keep your sentences simple and easy to understand, without any unnecessarily long or academic words. Just be careful not to fall into the trap of writing like a child. You have to walk a fine line when writing for the Internet.

BREAK YOUR ARTICLES INTO SECTIONS

Try to organize your articles so that the paragraphs can be broken up very easily into sections under descriptive headings. This will make the reading experience much smoother and faster for the user by allowing them to pick and choose what they want to read, as well as helping them find a specific piece of information when they come back to your inspirational and enlightening articles. Do your best to make these headings catchy and fun, not boring chapter headings. They should draw the readers into the articles, not keep them away in fear of boredom.

USE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION IN YOUR ARTICLES

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a mandatory skill when writing any articles for the Internet. Basically, SEO is using the same keywords over and over again in articles so that they are picked up by search engines, giving your website a higher search engine ranking. Search engines dominate the Internet, and you won’t bring much traffic to your site if you don’t use SEO. There are a number of articles and sites online that can help you write with effective search engine optimization technique. One thing to be careful of is not to use to many keywords in any of your articles. 2.5-4% is usually a good ratio. Any more and the reader will get turned off by the repetition, which defeats the purpose of SEO.

DRAFT, DRAFT, DRAFT YOUR ARTICLES

Never accept a first draft. No matter who you are, it won’t be up to your potential. After you write an article, put it aside for a day and don’t think about it. Then come back to it with a fresh set of eyes. You’d be amazed at what you’ll pick up, both grammatically and content-wise.

Ideally, it won’t be uncommon for you to write three or four different drafts of an article before you find the one that you really like. Never be content with your first attempt.

Anyone can write effective articles for their site without hiring a costly professional writer. All it takes is practice and research. Read everything you can online to see what the writing style is. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, so find a writer or group of writers online whose work you admire and copy their basic techniques. Eventually, you’ll find your own rhythm for your articles. Having your voice on your site will add a personalized touch to your site that users will appreciate, because no one knows how to say what you mean better than you. The key is to just keep writing.

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How To Write Effective Articles

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A website is only as good as its content. If people don’t want to read what is on your site, then they will not use your services, either because they don’t trust you or don’t have the patience to sort through the content to find out what your service is. It is important to have well-written, direct articles on your site to keep user interest and generate revenue.

A simple way to get excellent articles is to hire a professional writer to develop them, but that can get expensive, especially if your site is just starting out.

For many people, it is far more economical to write your own articles. But before you tackle this task, make sure that you’re up to it, because the quality of your articles can make or break your website or online business. Here are some tips to get you started.

FORMAT THE ARTICLES FOR THE INTERNET

Online, less is more. When you’re laying articles out on your site, try to put as much negative space in as you can. Break paragraphs up and try to keep it so the user needs to scroll as little as possible to read the entire article.

Also, if you can, include pictures with the articles. The goal is to make your articles appear as short and text-light as possible, so users won’t be intimidated and not bother reading them.

KEEP THE ARTICLES SHORT AND SIMPLE

A way to make the formatting easier is to keep your articles short. Again, the object should be to require as little scrolling as possible. The Internet is called the Information Super-Highway, not the Information Back Road.

People are looking for as much from articles in as small an amount of time as possible, so help them out. Keep your sentences simple and easy to understand, without any unnecessarily long or academic words. Just be careful not to fall into the trap of writing like a child. You have to walk a fine line when writing for the Internet.

BREAK YOUR ARTICLES INTO SECTIONS

Try to organize your articles so that the paragraphs can be broken up very easily into sections under descriptive headings. This will make the reading experience much smoother and faster for the user by allowing them to pick and choose what they want to read, as well as helping them find a specific piece of information when they come back to your inspirational and enlightening articles. Do your best to make these headings catchy and fun, not boring chapter headings. They should draw the readers into the articles, not keep them away in fear of boredom.

USE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION IN YOUR ARTICLES

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a mandatory skill when writing any articles for the Internet. Basically, SEO is using the same keywords over and over again in articles so that they are picked up by search engines, giving your website a higher search engine ranking. Search engines dominate the Internet, and you won’t bring much traffic to your site if you don’t use SEO. There are a number of articles and sites online that can help you write with effective search engine optimization technique. One thing to be careful of is not to use to many keywords in any of your articles. 2.5-4% is usually a good ratio. Any more and the reader will get turned off by the repetition, which defeats the purpose of SEO.

DRAFT, DRAFT, DRAFT YOUR ARTICLES

Never accept a first draft. No matter who you are, it won’t be up to your potential. After you write an article, put it aside for a day and don’t think about it. Then come back to it with a fresh set of eyes. You’d be amazed at what you’ll pick up, both grammatically and content-wise.

Ideally, it won’t be uncommon for you to write three or four different drafts of an article before you find the one that you really like. Never be content with your first attempt.

Anyone can write effective articles for their site without hiring a costly professional writer. All it takes is practice and research. Read everything you can online to see what the writing style is. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, so find a writer or group of writers online whose work you admire and copy their basic techniques. Eventually, you’ll find your own rhythm for your articles. Having your voice on your site will add a personalized touch to your site that users will appreciate, because no one knows how to say what you mean better than you. The key is to just keep writing.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How To Write Effective Articles

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This site stands as the answer to that question. It will let us take a personal interest on new artists, and support them financially. The site is structured in a way quite reminiscent of eBay, with artists being listed for people to bid on for a set amount of time.

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Designers have to come up with different ways to get their message across and they a very short amount of time in which to do so. A mascot or character to represent your brand or product is a great way to quickly give you a personal feel. These mascots can help your audience remember you.

Cheeky Monkey

URL Squid

Storific

eFrog Themes

Symbolicons

Wixel

Wijmo

Manuelo Designs

Pink Turkey

Cornerd

The Dascola Barbers

Bazil

Forrst

Still Pointe

Castings Online

If you like this post you may also want to look at:

A Showcase Of Meet The Team Pages

Websites displaying MASSIVE fonts

Why not follow me on twitter: @atikusdesign
or to ensure you are updated with every D-Lists posts follow: @d_lists

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Not reading this in a feedreader? If so this has been taken from the original post as seen here: Google Maps Navigation Not Coming to iPhone Universe. Ever! [Google Says Google Maps Turn-by-Turn Navigation App Not Heading to iPhone OS Anytime Soon].

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People get frustrated most especially when they see that the people they follow are all engaging and conversing. They follow people who get retweeted or who get a lot of recommendations, but they feel like their tweets are getting ignored or they don’t get any reaction whatsoever. Well, we all started out that way. For me, over time I have learned from the people who have been on Twitter for longer periods of time, which has helped me get my tweets heard. I would like to share some of the possible reasons why your tweets are being ignored.

Reason #1 You may not be following the right people or vice versa – You may tweet interesting links, but if the people you are following and those following you are not in your niche, your tweets could get ignored. There are many ways for you to correct this. You can check who your followers are and share what they are interested in, or, you can also try to tweet varied content. The most effective way is to really find people in your niche, that way you are assured that your voice is being heard.

Reason #2 You may be lacking in consistency – This is tricky, but there is a solution. Some of us may have the luxury of having more time to use Twitter than others. For those who do not, you can actually set a time for yourself to tweet. What is important is that you give an allotted amount of time to engage with the people who follow you and those you follow. It is only through your consistent tweeting and interacting that will allow you to build relationships.

Reason #3 You may be just speaking and not listening enough – Twitter may be an online tool, but it is also a medium of communication. When you communicate, two actions are involved, listening and speaking. Make sure you reply and share, converse and engage. They are people behind the avatars. When they speak you need to learn to listen as well. As the saying goes, do unto others as you would want others to do unto you.

Twitter is a fun social networking platform. You have the chance to really get to know wonderful people that you can learn from and share your opinions with everyday. So maximize the time you have on there, and try to avoid the possible reasons above to ensure a more productive and enjoyable experience on Twitter.

Main Image Source – Sunset silhouette

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Did you know that the second most popular Facebook Page is that of Homer Simpson, right behind Michael Jackson? Or that the overall amount of time spent on Facebook each month is 8.3 billion hours? (We shudder to think how much of that time is spent on FarmVille).

If you ever want to impress anyone with your knowledge of Facebook miscellanea, below is the ultimate cheat sheet in the form of a very large infographic. Enjoy!

[via: Online PhD Programs for Mashable.com]

Tags: facebook, infographic, social networking, trending

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Originally posted at Relevant Results

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Engaging your visitors (audience, community, users, members, customers, or whichever term you prefer) should be your top priority. Plain and simple. Engagement is all about maximizing the value of your audience – increasing the frequency they return to the site, the tendency to tell their friends and the probability of them making a purchase.

In other words, you need to be creating value for as many visitors as possible.

By creating value, you will be increasing retention, and as most of us have been taught, retaining an existing customer is substantially cheaper than obtaining a new one. The same holds true on the Internet. Visitor retention reduces your marketing expenses and increases revenue. 

Creating a "sticky" website, where visitors keep coming back for more, requires you to improve how your website approaches content, status, personality and usability.

Engaging Visitors with Content

If you’ve spent any amount of time working on a website, you’ve probably heard the phrase "content is king". As cliché as that saying might be, it’s true.

Content — whether it’s the copy on each page, the resources you provide, or the quality of your blog posts — is the hook that keeps your visitors coming back for more. 

Unfortunately, quality content can be the most time consuming aspect of developing a website. It also can be the least gratifying (in the short term). 

Let’s examine four key aspects of engaging content.

Fresh: Content Should Be Updated Regularly

Not only is this good for SEO, but it keeps visitors engaged and lets them know that the site is active. Without fresh content, people lose interest quickly.

Targeted: Content Should Be Aimed to Your Audience

Do you know what your visitors are most interested in? Have you done a survey or spoken to them one-on-one? Producing targeted content that is both timely and relevant can make all the difference.

Valuable: Content Should Be Useful to Your Users

Everything you add to your site, whether a new feature or a blog post, should add value for your visitors. Does it help them do their job better? Does it entertain or bring enjoyment? Does it provide knowledge?

In the words of Chris Brogan , "The real winners are relationship-minded people who make not only the first sale, but all the subsequent sales thereafter. By giving your community much more value (more content, more things they can use) than just promoting your stuff, you win longer term sales relationships."

Concise: Content Should Be Clear and Straightforward

This famous quote from William Strunk, Jr. in The Elements of Style (1918) says it all, "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell."

Engage Visitors by Giving Them Status

People love to feel important, and your community is no exception. Status is part of human nature, so find ways to make your visitors feel special.

It doesn’t need to be complex, expensive or cheesy. Airlines, credit cards and night clubs do it every day, so why aren’t you?

You can get started with the ideas below.

Examples in Online Games and Virtual Communities

Virtual status and community competition may sound silly, but it sure is addicting. You may have noticed an emerging trend online of websites and apps using gaming to engage users.

Think about FourSquare , StackOverflow  and Yelp! . All of these places offer points, badges and other "virtual status" to keep users engaged.

Concept Feedback (my own project), an online community for website feedback, uses reputation points and rank to encourage activity and return visits.

Users offer valuable advice just for the chance to earn more points and boost their virtual status. It also provides an incentive for our members to provide quality and consistent feedback.

Offering Exclusives

Offering exclusive content, access or features to select users can help drive engagement. Websites like Dribbble and Forrst , restrict access to their communities, making visitors apply or get invited by a current member to get in.

Dribbble has done particularly well, with insiders gloating over their newfound status symbol and outsiders begging for access. There is something about not being able to get in to something that makes us want to get in that much more.

If your website doesn’t seem like it would lend itself well to gaming or exclusives, think about other ways to offer status to your visitors. It could be displaying a list of top commenter’s on your blog, a customer of the month club or exclusive sneak-previews at upcoming products or services.

Engage Visitors with Your Personality

In the age of the Internet, people still like interacting with people. That’s why marketers will tell you to put pictures of people on your website, include a phone number and have a friendly About Us page with your entire family background.

While it might not be necessary to include pictures of your extended family, it does help to be "real" and create a personal engagement with your visitors. Personal engagement fosters trust, which in turn creates loyal customers.

Be Yourself

Like mother always used to say, "don’t pretend to be something you’re not". If it’s just you and your computer, that’s fine, don’t be afraid to let your visitors know.

Stu Green at Project Bubble (and now Invoice Bubble ) engages with his users, always including a picture by his name. People know he’s building his app on his own, and they respect him for that.

In certain cases, like running a bank or a hedge fund (which I hope none of you are doing on your own), too much personality can be a negative. However, I think you’ll find that pulling back the covers a little will create a more interesting, engaging environment.

Communicate With Your Visitors Regularly

As much as you can, try to respond to complaints, questions and interactions with a personal response. Include your full name, phone number and any other contact information.

Getting an automated response or "submitting a ticket" can be frustrating. Quickly responding with a short, personal note can often change a user’s perception of your website, especially following a negative experience. Follow the Golden Rule and you’ll be just fine.

Use Humor

Lighthearted content, when done well, can create a loyal following. Companies like Moosejaw and MailChimp do a great job creating content that is both informational and interesting to read.

For example, check out Moosejaw’s purchase confirmation page:

However, before you start trying to generate laughs, keep in mind that interesting, funny content is difficult to produce. It may also not translate well with a global audience. It often requires having one person dedicated to writing, or editing, all content to keep the tone and personality consistent.

Can you — or someone on your team — write interesting content on a consistent basis? Can you convey your message in a way that is fun to read but still informative? Is your audience able to take a joke (I think a little humor is good for everyone, but I also realize there are some situations where it might not be appropriate ).

Engage Visitors with a Usable Website

The other day, I stopped by the ATM to make a withdrawal.

I had entered my pin, typed in the amount and was all set to go, when I pressed the Cancel button by mistake. For whatever odd reason, the Cancel button was color-coded green. What?! The transaction was canceled and I had to get my debit card out again and start all over.

The pain was minor, but that one experience affected my response and perception of the ATM and my bank (just a little bit).

The experience you provide your visitors on your website is essential to keeping them happy and engaged.

Intuitive Interfaces

Make your website foolproof.Ask your Mom or your Aunt Helga to complete a few tasks on your website and see how far they make it. Do they get stuck on the homepage, or are they able to find their way around. A user-friendly website can make or break your visitor’s impression of you.

You can use online tools like UserFly or UserTesting to get cheap insights in to how people use your site, where they get caught up and what you need to improve.

Keep it Simple

Minimize the bells and whistles. I hate going to diners. Somehow they find a way to include every possible dish from grilled cheese to pot stickers. It takes me forever to make a decision and I usually end up wondering if I made the right one.

I prefer Five Guys – burger, fries, drink, done. Content and feature overload are the downfall of many promising websites. It can be hard to stick to one key message and call to action, but it is a much better alternative than overwhelming your visitors with a hundred different options and losing their attention due to option overload. Think Twitter , or the web apps from 37 Signals .

Some Sites and Resources to Check Out

A list of the websites and resources mentioned throughout the article:

Sites That Engage Visitors by Status

• Concept Feedback
• FourSquare
• StackOverflow
• Yelp!
• Dribbble
• Forrst

Sites That Engage Visitors with Personality

• Project Bubble
• Moosejaw
• MailChimp

Sites and Resources for Usability

• UserFly
• UserTesting
• Twitter
• 37 Signals

Developing an engaging website is hard work, but it will pay dividends. Do you have other successful strategies to share? Please let us know in the comment section below.

Related Content

• How to Increase Conversions on any Website in 45 Minutes
• 9 Ways To Improve the SEO of Every Website You Design
• Why Branding Yourself is Important
• Related categories: Content Strategy and Web Design

About the Author

Andrew Follett is the founder and CEO of Concept Feedback, a website feedback community for designers, developers and marketers. Follow Andrew and Concept Feedback on Twitter.

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For all such people, microWorkers is a wonderful website.

microWorkers is a free to use website that lists small jobs. By ‘small’ I mean jobs that require a small amount of time and have only a small amount of money associated with them.

In order to start using microWorkers, visitors are required to create a free account and click on the activation link they are emailed. Only one account per user is allowed and anybody creating multiple accounts is banned.

After creating your account, head on over to the “Available Jobs” section to quickly find out the type of jobs people have posted.

You will find that most of the available jobs can be done on the internet during our free time and will take no longer than 15 minutes.

Once a job has been completed and the employer has marked it so on his/her microWorkers account, the site credits the payment to your account. The mode of payment is PayPal, Check, Moneybookers, etc. Note that processing the payment amount of the job can take up to 30 business days.

microWorkers, in conclusion, is a great way to make a somewhat substantial earning and transforming our wasted time into something useful. Click here to visit the site and start making money in your free time.

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All that time I spent on downloading and installation, I could have saved if I had known about AllMyApps.

AllMyApps is a free website which provides its visitors with a unique and wonderful feature. It lets us select and batch download our favorite applications. The list is quite comprehensive. Selections can be made based on the operating system we use. Supported operating systems are different versions of Windows and Linux. This ensures that we download the right application for our system.

Within each list of operating system, the applications are categorized according to their field (Office, Video, Audio, etc.) that makes finding our desired application much easier.

Once we select our applications, we click on the button located at the bottom to get the website’s own installer. This installer automatically downloads and even installs our selected applications on our system. Our work is not interrupted while the installation goes on. For each program, the default options are checked and we are not prompted for any responses.

We are told when all our applications have successfully installed.

In this simple way, AllMyApps helps users save a huge amount of time by automatically downloading and installing our applications. All we do is select which applications to install.

Give this free service a try and let me know what you think.

Click here to visit AllMyApps.

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The conference will take place in Austin, Texas between October 5th and 8th, and organizers are looking for presentations related to business and marketing, design, live, production, and programming.

Izora de Lillard, the event director, explained in a statement, “GDC Online will continue its tradition of presenting the most knowledgeable speakers to discuss the future of game development on emerging platforms utilizing budding technologies.”

The submission period will remain open through May 19th, leaving developers a fair amount of time to check their schedules and figure out if giving a talk seems doable.

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Today we have a competition giving away 15,000 templates, including HTML/CSS sites, Flash websites, PSD’s, WordPress/Joomla etc templates, Vector files, stock photos, PHP scripts and many more.

The guys over at Template Gang have been very generous, offering to give away their $29.99 package. If you want an example of the type of templates on offer, try visiting their samples page. With so many templates you’ll have the opportunity to practice your skills, they could also save you a massive amount of time when trying to produce your websites.

All you have to do to enter is comment below, letting me know what your favourite D-Lists post has been. The competition will close next Saturday and I will announce the winner right here on Monday.

Good luck!

If you like this post you may also want to look at:

Web Designer Interview – Design Vetica

The Best Worst Web Designs!

Why not follow me on twitter: @atikusdesign
or to ensure you are updated with every D-Lists posts follow: @d_lists

Did you enjoy this post? If so please share and allow others to enjoy it:

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File type: .abr
Compatibility: Photoshop
Size: 970 KB

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WordPress doesn’t make it easy for you to engage your readers with images. You’re going to have to look beyond core to the hundreds of image/photo based plugins available to make your blog highly visual. Below, you’ll find a score of solutions to all your image/photo problems in the form of the best plugins around. There are lazy loaders, gallery creators, slideshow generators, photoblog initiators and much, much more. You’ll soon realize that there’s more to WordPress than a few lousy thumbnails!

1. jQuery Image Lazy Loader WP

Lazy Loader is the perfect plugin for those who want to upload lots of images to their blog, but maintain a snappy site. Rather than loading all of the images on a page at once, which can take a considerable amount of time, Lazy Loader loads the images at the top of each page first and continues to load images further down as the user scrolls downwards.

2. Frontpage-Slideshow

This plugin does exactly what its name suggests: it lets you create a professional slideshow on the front page of your WordPress blog. Each picture is clickable, leading you to its related post, and information about four different slides can be displayed at a time. Transitions between slides are faded to look extra sleek.

3. NextGEN Gallery

NextGEN is without question the best WordPress gallery plugin available and you should certainly try it out if you haven’t already. It’s comprehensive, with an easily understandable back-end. The only problem is that everyone’s using it. It does pretty much everything you’d want from a gallery plugin, looks professional and comes with a Flash slideshow option.

4. WP Photo Album

Unlike most of the plugins in this list, which focus more on user experience, WP Photo Album is made specifically for the blogger him- or herself. It makes creating and managing your photo albums easy, letting you move images between albums and adjust the sizes of thumbnails and full view pictures.

5. Flickr Photo Album

If you regularly upload photos to Flickr before transferring them to your WordPress blog, this plugin’s going to make your life a whole lot easier. You simply select Flickr photosets and display them on your blog as galleries, which you can customize to suit the look and feel of your site. It comes with a great widget which lets you display your latest Flickr photos in your blog’s sidebar.

6. FlippingBook

Use FlippingBook to add an extra element of interactivity to your blog and fully engage your visitors. Rather than displaying images in the standard way (a la NextGEN), FlippingBook displays them in Flash books, which can be flipped through with ease and great enjoyment. You can create these “books” in the administrator panel.

7. Cincopa: Post Videos and Photo Galleries

When it comes to displaying images, Cincopa does it all, creating polished image galleries and slideshows, not to mention videos, playlists and podcasts. It gives you access to 44 different skins to be sure that all Cincopa blogs retain a degree of individuality.

8. Lightbox2

Lightbox2 is simple, but devastatingly effective. Like all lightbox-type plugins, it lets you enlarge and overlay images on the current page, while dimming what’s left in the background. Unique to Lightbox2 is the ability to group related images and use numerous visual effects.

9. WordPress Content Slide

Use WordPress Content Slide to create jQuery slideshows anywhere within your WordPress blog. These slideshows fade in and out to add a touch of class to your site. Content Slide is fully customizable, even letting you link to another website if you like, to use the slideshow as an advertising banner.

10. Yet Another Photoblog

Far more interesting than its name suggests, Yet Another Photoblog (YAPB) is perfect for those who upload more images than text. It’s not a gallery plugin; it only lets you upload one image per post with a description. Using the YAPB Bulk Uploader plugin, you can mass upload images to your YAPB blog in an instant.

11. Lazyest Gallery

Lazyest Gallery is a powerful plugin with lots of great features. It rotates random images from your gallery, fading each one in and out. It’s fully customizable from the back end, letting you select the number of random images shown, portrait/landscape or both and various fading settings. It also allows comments on images and folders.

12. Shadowbox JS

Shadowbox is not only a great way to display images on your WordPress blog, it’s ideal for sharing videos too. Never again will you have to guide visitors away from your blog for them to view media as all images, audio files and videos, including YouTube videos will play directly on your site.

13. Sidebar Photoblog

14. Thumbnail For Excerpts

With this simple plugin, you can add thumbnail images to any excerpts you might have on your site, making it instantly more attractive and easier to navigate, improving usability and visitor experience.

15. Flickr Gallery

There are several plugins available which make uploading your photos from Flickr to WordPress easy, but this is one of the best. It lets you quickly create galleries of your most recent and most popular Flickr photos, view photos in gallery mode without leaving the page, display small images automatically in lightbox mode and embed Flickr’s Flash movie player.

16. Featured Content Gallery

Featured Content Gallery can transform your humble blog into a professional looking portfolio site. Besides other things, it creates a rotating image gallery of your posts or pages, which you can place anywhere on your blog. Each image can be overlaid with an extract from the text too.

17. Freebie Images

If stock images play a significant part in your professional (or personal) life, Freebie Images comes highly recommended. Search through a directory of thousands of regularly updated, free stock images which you can drag and drop into your posts.

18. Dynamic Content Gallery

Dynamic Content Gallery generates an image gallery with a shot for each of your latest or featured posts and pages (although default images can be added too.) What makes this plugin stand out from the rest is the slick look of the gallery itself.

19. SlideZoom

SlideZoom prides itself on its simplicity and quite rightly so. It’s particularly lightweight and straightforward. It lets you bulk or zip upload images to your blog, generating a HighSlide JS gallery that you can embed in WordPress or anywhere else you like, such as on another blog, eBay or a forum.

20. DM Albums

DM albums presents your photos in a really distinctive way, enlarging all images to perfectly fit the size of your blog, rather than showing them in a window half the size of your screen. You can add captions to individual photos and albums from within the WordPress Editor.

Let us know if we forgot some great plugin. We would love to hear your thoughts.

Related posts:

1. 30 WordPress Plugins To Help You Improve Your Sidebar
2. 9 Useful Image Hosting Services Reviewed
3. 7 Awesome WordPress Plugins To Give Your Dashboard A New Look
4. WordPress Plugins : 17 Handy Toolbars For Your Blog
5. 35 Stylish And Modern WordPress Plugins Using jQuery UI

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This should save people who want to call companies a fair amount of time they might otherwise have to spend navigating a site.  It’ll also spare some smartphone owners the slight embarrassment of having to copy down a phone number on paper while using their multi-hundred dollar devices.

Google’s thought of one other way to make things easy on consumers, too.  A post on the Google Mobile Blog explained, "[T]he ads and phone numbers you see are based on your location.  So, if a store or restaurant has multiple locations, you’ll be calling the nearest one, and not making reservations in some other city."

Finally, let’s not forget that advertisers should appreciate this new option.  According to Google, participants in beta trial saw improved click-through rates and a more or less overall boom in business.

Given all of these advantages, click-to-call mobile ads are liable to become quite popular in the near future.

Related Articles:

> Google Gives Mobile Users A Link To Popular Images

> Google Analytics Annotations Now Available To All

> Google Launches Cost-Per-Call Tracking For TV Ads

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Well, then this post is for you. Here are the most popular and effective few ways to earn new business for your organisation. I suggest you  try a few tactics out on a small scale at first and seeing how effective they can be for you.

Web design

Before you spend a load of cash on any tactic designed to drive purchase-ready consumers to your website, make sure your pages are ready to actually sell to those visitors.
 
If your pages are clunky, awkward, ugly and badly written, then you’re wasting much of the cash you spend marketing online.
 
So if you want to make your marketing budget work harder, make sure your website is a help and not a handicap.
 
Search engine optimisation
 
As little as two years ago, I would encounter people who didn’t make use of SEO because they didn’t think it was an effective way of marketing. Now those same people believe they have missed the boat. They think organic optimisation has become too competitive.
 
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks to tactics such as localised search and carefully targeting keywords and phrases that are really specific to your organisation, optimisation can be effective for any company.
 
Social media
 
This can be really hard for companies do well, especially smaller firms. The amount of time it takes to make social media work puts many people off, even though the cost is minimal.
 
It’s understandable. If you want to run a successful blog, for example, it takes time and dedication.
 
However, the returns can be satisfying and rewarding, because they aren’t just monetary. Popular bloggers can become opinion formers, industry authorities, the spokespeople the press approach when they need someone from the sector… It can really enrich your career.
 
Of course, if you know you do not have sufficient time to populate a regular blog then look at easier options. Approach existing blogs and ask if you can write the odd guest post, submit articles and letters to your industry’s specialist press.
 
Paid search
 
Most companies engaging in some form of online marketing will be making use of paid search – the advertising at the top and sides of the search results.

However, I do encounter people who think they can’t afford it. They think the search results they would want to advertise next to will have inflated prices and will simply cost too much.
 
This comes down to a lack of understanding of search advertising. The same tactics you’ve used to organically optimise your website come into force – choose really specialised keywords and phrases.
 
If you don’t bring in a specialist, you should make use of the search engine’s tools that show you what phrases are searched for and how competitive they are. There’s a tonne of information and guidance available, on this blog, the SEOptimise blog and all over the web.
 
Paid advertising is effective and it isn’t prohibitively costly.

Upload Pie is a simple no fuss tool for temporarily sharing images and text files, allowing you to view the files within a browser window for a chosen amount of time.

http://uploadpie.com/

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One of the factors I think gives Twitter an edge is the fact that it’s real time, it’s short and frequent. We are quickly becoming reliant on “constant connectivity” and Twitter provides that, Google doesn’t. With regard to email, there are some many things during the day that we could share with a friend or colleague but just wouldn’t be appropriate for email. Things like, sharing a picture of something that just happened, had a quick thought and wanted some feedback but not from any one person. I think all of these new ways of communicating are benefiting from a human attribute that has changed drastically since the internet has come into our lives.

What happened to our attention spans? In my inbound marketing consulting business, I see that people’s attention spans are growing shorter and shorter. They’re communicating in much shorter formats. It started with texting, then Facebook’s status update and now Twitter. One of the attributes that’s making them so popular and viral is the fact that the messages are short and frequent. When we know that the message is not going to be long and drawn out we tend to engage more with that channel of communication.

Think about when you text someone, don’t you sometimes text someone instead of calling them because you know you can get the core message across while limiting the amount of time and interaction? I also notice that I’ll text someone several times during the day but I would never call them that many times. Facebook has a limit of 160 characters which is the limit for a single SMS or text message, Twitter has a shorter limit of 140 characters and Windows Live messenger has yet an even shorter limit of 128 characters. people are reading less books and reading more blogs, why, could it be because blogs deliver content in shorter more frequent formats? Online marketing companies are learning from this behavior and anticipating it when they design advertising campaigns.

I have a hunch that one of the biggest factors that has driven us to such short attention spans, seeking short and quick bursts of information, is the enormous amount of information being thrown in front of us because of the internet. I think our psychological answer to the world’s information overload is “give me what you got but keep it short and sweet”. I don’t know who came up with the character limit first and whether it was based on any psychological data, however, I have a feeling it will be looked at as revolutionary.

Maybe we’ll settle into a “standard” number of characters that people respond to the best, who knows? So, is all this short quick fire communication helpful or harmful? I’m going to say it’s neither. The harmful argument might go something like this, “when a person is not getting a thorough version of the story, whether it be a news story, a product review or a personal reference, they cannot form an accurate opinion”. The helpful argument might go something like this, “when a person is getting input from their Facebook friends, their twitter followers or their 10 RSS blog feeds, they are benefiting more from the increased number of information sources than they are being hurt from the lack of depth in the information”.

A good example of this is Wikipedia. Some argue that Wikipedia is “non-authoritative”, which is a way of saying they’re not entirely accurate. Some also argue that the entries lack the depth of explanation that a traditional encyclopedia offers. However, the fact that there are millions of additional entries and the entries are constantly updated make Wikipedia, as a whole, a much better information source even with the inaccurate entries. It operates on a “probabilistic system” which is based on “likelihood” instead of “certainty”. But our brains are not wired that way, we want to know if a certain piece of information is right or wrong, we want to know that our information came from an authoritative all knowing source.

The fact is, these sources can be inaccurate and therefore providing a false sense of security. In spite of the fact that Wikipedia is totally comprised of entries that anyone on the planet can author, a 2005 study by nature, the scientific journal, reported that in 42 entries on science topics, there were an average of four errors per entry in Wikipedia and 3 in Britannica. the funny thing is that right after the report was published the Wikipedia entries were corrected while the Britannica entries will have to wait for the next printing. Wikipedia also benefits from what some call, “the wisdom of the crowds”, Wikipedia has input and expertise from millions of people compared to the traditional encyclopedias which are limited to the editorial input of hundreds not millions. The same argument could be made for receiving information the way we do today.

So, as we begin to communicate in these new ways are we moving is a positive direction as human beings or negative…only time will tell. Let me know your thoughts Here’s the post that inspired this post. http://mashable.com/2009/05/01/twitter-dethroning-old-guard/

Jim Mueller has over 20 years sales experience, 15 of which have been in the telecommunications industry. More recently, Jim has gained valuable experience in the internet marketing/search engine space. As the VP of Sales/Business Development for a VoipReview, Jim helped grow the company to become a leader in their industry and an attractive acquisition which transpired in 2008. Jim has caught the entrepreneurial bug and is currently managing partner of a new joint venture called ReignNet.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Can Twitter Really Dethrone Google & Email?

All the examples in this article were created with CoffeeCup Web Form Builder.

1. Build Conservatively and Design With a Purpose

Let’s face it: No one likes spending a long time filling out a form. Keep it short and simple and eliminate elements that aren’t absolutely necessary or that don’t offer a tangible benefit. Make sure every part of your form is pulling its weight, and your users will thank you.

The structure of your form should serve just as much of a functional purpose as its elements. When laying out your form, keep in mind that, at least in the Western world, people read from top to bottom and left to right. They also often use the Tab key to move around the form. Your design should reflect this through intuitive labeling and natural placement of elements. And, of course, your form should never look scattered or haphazard — make sure everything is evenly spaced and neatly arranged.

Here are a few standard form layouts that you should use as a starting point for more creative designs:

Left-Aligned Labels With Vertically Stacked Fields

This form features left-aligned labels with neatly ordered fields stacked on top of one another. This gives the eye an easy-to-follow path down the form, which is especially helpful if you’re asking questions users may not be familiar with. Because they’re able to read down the list of questions without the visual interruption of an input field, they’ll be able to concentrate more on what you’re asking. This layout does tend to make for longer form completion times because of the amount of time it takes for the eye to move from the label to the input field.

Right-Aligned Labels With Vertically Stacked Fields

Right-aligning your labels can help make them easier to distinguish and quicker to read, and also eliminates awkward spaces between labels and input fields. However, this can be harder to read. It also looks jagged, which can be a bit unattractive.

Top-Aligned Labels

Top-aligned labels like these make for a form that’s quicker and easier to fill out because the eye doesn’t have to move as far between the label and the input field. This type of layout also gives you the freedom to place related fields next to each other, which can save space.

2. Tailor Your Form to the Situation

Every form you make should be tailored to the specific situation it addresses. When you’re planning the design of your form, ask yourself the following questions: What are you asking? Why? What does your Web design look like with and without the form? Is the form something users want to fill out, or is it something they’re required to fill out? Your answers to these questions should help dictate the layout and content of your form.

3. Use What You Need

When deciding whether to add an element to your form, ask yourself if you could do without it. If the answer is “yes,” don’t use it.

One element that’s almost always unnecessary is the Reset button. These relics still make an appearance now and then, but they should be avoided. Think about it: When you want to change information on a form, it doesn’t matter if the field is already filled out or not, so why would you even need to erase all the information? The only thing the Reset button is good for is accidentally clearing all the information your user just entered and aggravating them enough that they’ll go somewhere else instead of taking the effort to fill out the form again.

4. Use Short, Clean Descriptions When Necessary

You may need to explain why you are collecting certain information on your form, especially when users are loathe to share it, like with phone numbers or e-mail addresses. This not only helps reduce user confusion, but also ensures that the data is accurate and correctly formatted.

Any descriptions and comments should be clean and concise. You may also want to format them with different colors, sizes, or styles to help set them apart. Just be sure not to overdo it — after all, you don’t want your descriptions to look tacky or drown out the rest of your form. This form, which asks for information in order to provide a quote for printing services, is a good example of a form that effectively uses descriptions:

5. Be the First to Communicate

Make sure the wording in your form is friendly and user oriented. Here’s a simple trick for writing conversational copy: Pretend you’re actually talking with your user.

If you want to know someone’s name, you aren’t going to stare them in the eyes with a rigid expression and demand, “Full name.” That would just be creepy. If you were looking to garner a positive response from this person, you would instead open with a smile and say, “Hi, what’s your name?”

Keeping this in mind, instead of prompting your user with the label “Full Name,” try something a little more personable, like, “What’s your name?”

6. Divide the Form Into Bite-Sized Sections

Communication involves the exchange of ideas in small, manageable sections. You introduce yourself, and the other person does the same. You mention what you do for a living, and the other person has a comment or question. You remark back, or answer, and this prompts another response. In a good conversation, the information is a steady, back-and-forth flow.

A form, being another method of communication, should be the same way. You may be asking for quite a bit of information, but that doesn’t mean you have to throw it all at the user in a huge block. Try using horizontal rules, colored bars, meaningful images, or headings that match the design of your site to separate the information into small, easily understood chunks. If all else fails, spread your form out across multiple pages and add a progress bar across the top so users know about how much they have left.

7. Include Meaningful Contextual Error Messages

Your error messages should be helpful and clear. Specify in the message which field caused the error, and highlight the label and/or the field itself. After all, no one likes hunting through a form for an elusive field they overlooked the first time around.

8. Release the User

When the user clicks the Submit button, they think they’re done, and they’re ready to move on. They’re basically saying, “Here’s the info you wanted. Talk to you later!”

In a real conversation, you’d give them a wave, say, “Bye,” and walk off, or give them some other way of acknowledging that the communication is done. Your form should be no different. Have your form programmed so it sends the user to a custom page that tells them something like, “Thank you for your submission! You’ll be hearing from us shortly.” There should also be a link back to the main page of your Website.

And that’s it! Keep these rules in mind when designing your next Web form, and you may be surprised at the quantity and quality of feedback you receive as a result.

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