Recently Launched:

September 27, 2012 Newsletter

Hi <<First Name>>,

I can't believe summer is over and the leaves are changing. Time always flies during the summer season. We haven't sent a newsletter out since May, and we're long overdue. The leaves are starting to change so I thought it would be a good time to talk about colors and their meanings. In Vermont unfortunately the colors mean break out the sweaters.

Psychology of color

I get a lot of questions from customers asking about what the best colors are to use for their websites. Colors can help enhance a visitors experience, but be careful because colors can also distract if not used correctly. Do not place too much weight on what colors to use though, because they do have multiple meanings and some times you just like a color because it makes you feel good or reminds you of that trip to Mexico.

For example, Yellow is a cheerful and warm color, but it also causes eye fatigue and makes babies cry more (so stay away from that color in the babies room). Red is associated with strong emotion, love or hate, and encourages appetite. Red is also associated with danger or failure. Red can be a good accent color, but a red website may be too harsh.

Here are some color meanings:

• Black can mean death or even birth in some cultures, and in advertising is associated with luxury and elegance. Black can be used either as a background color or a nice contrast color to make a stronger statement.
• Blue is considered a calming color but makes people more productive, shows creativity and intelligence. Blue is associated with business and is a popular choice for websites.
• Green is associated with health, tranquility, money, and nature, and is very popular in websites that are earth friendly or Vermont based.
• Pink is calming, love, and romance. Pink can also be feminine or reflect youth.
• Brown is practical, reliable, boring, earthy. It's a good solid color and can be jazzed up nicely with a touch of a brighter color.
• Purple is connected to royalty, wealth, success & wisdom. It combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Purple can also be a fun color.
• White is associated with purity and innocence and can portray clean, fresh, and spacious and is often associated with the health industry. You do need to be careful that white isn't too forgettable in advertising though.
• Orange can be warm, fun, enhance excitement and enthusiasm, can stimulate mentally, and is an attention grabber.

A rule of thumb is that colors should compliment each other and be easy on the eyes. There's ways to make your eyes go to something that you want to stand out, and it doesn't have to be a flourescent flashy color. Sometimes subtlety works just as well. And don't forget that everyones monitor will view colors a little differently, so you're looking more for a color feel, and not an exact color match.

SEM Tip #9

5 Popular SEO Myths that are Sill Alive Today

It still mystifies me that the SEO myths today are the same ones I've read about 7 years ago when I first picked up a book on Search Engine Marketing. For your amusement I've listed my top 5 favorites.

1. You should submit your site to the search engines - Many believe this is the first step to getting your site ranked in the search engines. Your site will be indexed anyway if it has incoming links. You should spend your time more wisely, and submit your site to topic related directories instead, to build incoming links.
2. Content has to be continuously updated - Many believe that "continuously updated" means that you should be editing your existing text. Instead, concentrate on adding new content to the pages of your site. This will increase your visibility for additional keyword phrases.
3. You must have a high "keyword density" to rank well - (keyword density = amount of times a particular word appears divided by the total words in the document) Having your targeted keyword appear 13% of the time verse 5% will not benefit your rankings in the search engines. As a site owner, you should be concentrating on writing for your customers and not the search engines.
4. Meta tag keywords matter - Most of the search engines today have completely abandoned even looking at the Meta Keywords tag, as it has been widely abused dating back to the late 90's. Many webmasters were stuffing the keyword meta tag with hundreds of keywords in an effort to rank for every possible search phrase possible, thus prompting many search engines to completely ignore it.
5. “I can get you on the first page of Google tomorrow” - This one is more of an advertising sales pitch than a myth. Essentially what they’re doing is creating a Google Adwords campaign and not concentrating on moving your site up organically. While we believe Adwords is a great resource, tricking someone into a Pay per Click campaign with the “24 hour guarantee” is just plain wrong.