In today’s world, having a website is one of the most powerful marketing tools entrepreneurs can have for their businesses and it’s their responsibility to make sure people can find it and understand its message.

Craft a bad, unorganized website and your potential customers will no longer be potential.

My last post 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website showed us how people scan your website and where their eyes naturally are drawn to. Today I’d like to share some videos which can help us learn to design better websites and attract more clicks/sales.

Attractive Headlines

Excellent video on the importance of writing good headlines. Think about how important good headlines are for magazines like Cosmopolitan, Maxim, Enquirer, etc. Headlines are important for your business in press releases and getting people to click through your blog (by the way, we here at eVentureBiz write press releases if you need one).

Headlines, by Cory from Boing Boing
Run Time: 6:03

We are trained where to look. So show us already. Image by ℓú ℓαcєr∂α

The laws of the Internet (marketing-wise) are different from any other medium. Probably the most important thing to note about the Internet when it comes to marketing is that it is user-interactive.

In other mediums (newspaper, magazine, radio, TV, etc.) people have to read, listen, and wait for all the necessary information they are looking for come to them. On the Internet, however, this information is widely available and can be found by simply scanning and clicking. A wise marketer would take this information and use it to their advantage and apply it to their website.

Some websites create more sales than others simply because its design is designed around the human psyche. Simply having a website and throwing a bunch of content or products on there is no where near as effective as a well formulated (i.e. intentionally placing this and that there) and planned out website.

Image by Douglas - westbound

Today in America we have a problem.

Gas prices are out of control, inflation is killing middle-America, and our housing market has fallen drastically. As a result, many businesses and individuals are forced to file bankruptcy and allow their homes fall into foreclosure.

For those of you with tarnished credit reports because of today’s economy, I want to tell you there is hope in the near future.

You see, today banks are going through rough times themselves and in order to survive past the next couple of years they will have no choice but to work with a large number of businesses and individuals with poor credit reports.

What I believe we will see over the next 2 to 3 years are new loan options and programs available for those with bankruptcies and foreclosures on their credit because of what’s happening today.

Turning Wordpress Into Your Own Image by ShadowKris

Wordpress is my chosen blogging platform. Since I’ve begun my blogging journey I’ve come across many great plugins and customizations that other Wordpress users have created.

All our web hosting plans come with easy to install scripts, one of them being Wordpress.

There are plenty of similar plugin and hacks list out there like this one, however, I’ve been asked by a few of our customers which plugins I use and where they can find some more great mods. Therefore, I created the following list.

By the way, the list is ever going and does not end with this post. I’ll continue to add to the list in our community forums. If you have or know of other plugins that you like, please post in the comment section, thanks.

* next to the number denotes plugins I use

As a web development company, we love hacking up programs like WordPress and phpBB and transforming their generic layout to our own, even if it’s only parts used by us.

I stumbled upon a website called Binary Moon the other day and found a great plugin for WordPress that lets you customize your login page.

Looking to the image on the right you can see what I came up with (click image to see the actual page).

Most people will never see this page since I don’t have many guest bloggers write articles, but that could change one day and it would be nice to send them to a branded login page.

I also like the fact that someone would go to our login page and think, cool!

We try very hard here at eVentureBiz to make sure our website has a cool factor to it. When I see our site I like to think simple and futuristic. I want people to see our site and say, “Yup, that’s who I want to design my next website.”

Image by thinkpanama

John sits in his cushioned chair, takes a sip of his steaming coffee, and tells himself “I will try to keep an open mind and see the logic to Justin Ewers of U.S.News latest blog article reprinted in the Yahoo! Real Estate section.”

In case you don’t click over to read the article, Justin’s post suggests to us that renting a house and investing your monthly savings may be a better investment than investing in owning your own home.

This sparked a challenge in my head. Which investment is truly better?

I have broken Justin’s article down to 3 main quotes from his article that I will comment on in regards to this idea.

The Challenge

Ok, so you’re not a trained real estate investor and you want to know if there’s any truth to Justin’s article showing how renting can be a better investment than owning.

Do you think this house would sell quickly?

If you’re a normal homebuyer, the statement I’m about to make may shock you.

Price is of little importance when it comes to making a profit in real estate.

“Oh no he didn’t,” I’m sure you’re saying right about now.

Understand this, price is just a number. Price is not the deciding factor on whether you’re going to make a profit in real estate investing or not. Price is something every day homebuyers worry about. For them, it’s about spending the least amount of money, usually looking at monthly payments, and hoping to close the deal with a little equity under their belt.

For a seasoned investor, their only concern is making a profit - that’s it, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter if you spend more or less money as long as the endgame results in an increase of net worth.