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Hey, have you heard the news?

I have a new website! It's called Cash and Joy and its mission is to increase the awesomeness of the world - of course - through glorious and meaningful marketing.

Why did I focus on marketing? Because marketing can be the most fun and meaningful activity of your business instead of the most dreaded and icky... if you do it right.

Emphasize the important tasks

By Catherine Caine

photo credit: RodneyRamsey

Design is a scary word to most of us, but here’s one guideline that will make it easier for you to decide what’s right.

1. Write down the three most important actions you want someone to take on your website:

signing up for the newsletter
reading the blog
requesting a quote
buying your product
writing a comment
sharing a link

2. Get someone else to look at your homepage and ask them to identify the three elements they notice first.

Are they the same three things you want people to act on? If not, it’s time to tweak your design. The most important tasks should be the most obvious visual elements, and everything else should fade into the background.

Do your important tasks leap out to the eye, or do you need to redesign? Tell us in the comments!

5 Comments - Join the conversation!

http://www.giuliettathemuse.com/blog giulietta

Catherine,

Really like this 5 minute everything! Do you feel the blog ought to be the front page? I go back and forth on that one. It seems to be a trend, but then I'm a rebel …

Your freebie call sounds great. Bet your takers will get a lot out of it. Enjoy!

Giulietta, Inspirational Rebel
http://www.BeAwesomeOnline.com Catherine Caine

Hello there Giulietta!

Thanks very much for the compliment!

The blog decision is a definite maybe. If you update regularly and link to other stuff in your site it's often a good idea, but if you have reasons not to, then that's valid too.

Would you like to join in the freebie call? I'm sure we'd both get a lot out of combining our rebel awesomeness!

Catherine
http://www.dodgymoviesreviewed.com/ Gareth

Off the top of my head, the three most important tasks I want people to accomplish when coming to my blog/site are

1 – Laugh – Preferably out loud to disturb the other cubicle dwellers, but I'll settle for a snort or chuckle.
2 – Enjoy the funny so much that they return
3 – Return often enough and laugh often enough that they think I'm awesome and either buy my crap or buy other crap that I think is awesome.

There are other things that may facilitate this (signing up for a newsletter that I still need to implement, sorting out my RSS subscription so it's more visible, fixing my design getting the right graphics etc etc. It's a long list.)
http://www.BeAwesomeOnline.com Catherine Caine

So the tasks are:

- Read the articles (and laugh their asses off)
- Click on the subscribe-to-the-newsletter button
- Click on a link to purchase your products and affiliate ones

How much do you think the design encourages people to do those three things? (Or will, once they're in place?)
http://www.dodgymoviesreviewed.com/ Gareth

Well, the blog is front page, so that one is OK. I have a couple if ideas, perhaps a flashing sign that says “laugh” “cry” or “smack the author” like they do in sitcoms taped in front of a studio audience that I can insert when I don't think I've been particularly funny.

The newsletter subscription button will probably take pride of place on the sidebar after the redesign.

The products and affiliate ones will probably end up being more like a catablog (I love that saying. I want to draw a catapult with a product on it launching it at the readers wallet, although, that may be a little obvious. If I'm going to do that I may as well change my tagline to “I'm here for your money”)

But thanks for defining the tasks. I think I had objectives.

P.S. whenever I read the 5 minute mission headline, I get the Mission Impossible theme tune going in my head and have to check that you haven't included a “this mission will self destruct in 5 minutes at the end of the post”