Throw your hat in and play the game.

…except when you’re slapping something at the top of each and every one of your pages!

Your banner is something that a lot of your visitors are going to judge your site based off of. If your banner looks like it was made in Paint, people are going to assume that you are a small scale operation that cannot afford, or be bothered to try, getting anything better. It’s not a fair response, but it’s a response that we’re going to see a lot, so if we’re going to throw our hats in, we’re going to have to play ball.

Before you start getting a bit tight in the collar at the thought of increased prices, remember that a good banner with a good logo, as we’ve described here is always clean and professional.

Recall, if you will, some of the most iconic images out there for businesses. One of the biggest restaurant chains in the world has an “M”, and one of the better tax companies has a green square.

We want to do the same. If we’re not taking advantage of a professional option when we first create our website, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t proceed as though we were. A good logo on our website can be a nice, solid color that goes with your site, include some basics on the company on the page (domain name, payment methods, some way to contact us, etc). You don’t need amazing images, or anything fancy, particularly if you do not have the expertise to do so but good images and a clean page are a great assets.

A good rule of thumb to follow with the banner is that if you cannot do it, don’t try to do it! It’s better to have a nice-looking simple logo than it is to have a bad-looking complex banner! We can always upgrade to a more professional banner later on down the road with some sales under our belts, but if our banner is sending everyone running to the hills, sometimes the answer is to simply go simple, and see if a little bit of simplicity is just what your website needed!

One of the last great trouble makers is what I call “the offending exclamation point”. By itself, the exclamation mark can end a sentence powerfully. But the second you start adding more of its friends into play, things start snowballing out of control.

Danger: Do not over use!

There are few bigger sins in the grammatical world than abusing and overusing the exclamation point. Having more than one does nothing for emphasis, and is very distracting and visually unappealing. If you have any instances of multiple exclamation points, you’re doing yourself a disservice and scaring away potential traffic.

There is an old adage that says, “Reality is nine tenths perception”. This is very true online. If your word use, and the overall quality of your site content exudes professionalism, it doesn’t matter if it launched one month ago. If it looks like a slapped-together job, then people are going to make the assumption that it was, and that is how you are going to handle your business. Is it any wonder that they’re bailing ship at that point? But if we present ourselves professionally, we’ll be treated professionally, and our conversion rate is going to benefit for it!