How to Create own WordPress plugin

WordPress Plugins are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress. Creating a basic WordPress plugin that does something basic and cool on your site is not that hard. It is actually better to apply some tweaks to your site via a simple WordPress plugin rather than hacking your theme or an existing plugin. This approach can also help you keep the functionality separate (which is a good WordPress system integration practice).

In this introduction to creating a WordPress plugin video tutorial, we will create a simple WordPress plugin that shows you a little bit more than just the usual “Hello World” example.

Creating WordPress Plugin Video Part 1

I will demonstrate the following concepts in this part of the video tutorial:

• Creating administration pages
• Using the WordPress styles to create your admin styling
• Interacting with the WP database using the $wpdb object

Creating WordPress Plugin Video Part 2

In this part of the video we are going to build on the plugin from the first video (see above) and introduce the following concepts:

• Using forms to submit data from your plugins admin page
• How to store your plugin data in the wp_options page for easy retrieval

Note: It is a good idea to test your newly written plugin in a local installation of WordPress or on a test site first 

It is also a good idea to keep the following URL handy (just in case)

Deactivate WordPress Plugins without Logging Into WP Admin

Next, you should learn the WordPress hooks (if you don’t know it already) so check the tutorial on hooks and filters.

WordPress System Integration 101

I see many WordPress users mixing up the roles of a WordPress plugin with a theme (kind of like mixing business with pleasure) on a regular basis without knowing what they are doing.  If you don’t know why WordPress invented the concept of plugins and themes, then this article is for you. —

Every time you build a WordPress site, you perform an act of System Integration.  You begin with the WordPress core, and customize it; by adding a theme and plugins.  But not everybody is a Systems Engineer; and in the process of constructing their sites, they sometimes make integration decisions that have costly consequences later on.

In WordPress, “a theme modifies the way a site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software.”  You select a theme based on the look and feel you want to (market or) present to your users.  Later, if you decide the look and feel of an existing site does not meet your (marketing) presentation requirements; you can simply choose another theme, without affecting the way a site functions.

Depending on your functional requirements, you might use one or more plugins “to extend the functionality of WordPress.”  You choose each plugin because it performs one or more specific tasks (such as payment processing) required of your completed site.  If you later decide the site needs to perform additional or different tasks; you can add or remove plugins without affecting the site’s look and feel.

Sometimes, for reasons of convenience and cost, it is tempting to select themes and plugins that overextend themselves; by crossing that well defined difference between a theme and plugin.  One example, is the use of “specialty themes” that bundle e-commerce functionality with look and feel.  When considering whether or not to use a specialty theme, be aware that you are also making a decision between vertically or horizontally integrating your system.

By de facto default, WordPress is a horizontally integrated system.  The theme you select and each of the plugins, has a specific role; the theme is in charge of look and feel, and each plugin performs specific independent tasks.  In this model, themes and plugins can be mixed and matched without much cost; in time, material and labor.

When using a specialty theme, you are making the decision to vertically integrate your system.  Vertical integration means that a single (theme or plugin) component is responsible for fulfilling the majority of a site’s operational (both presentation and functional) requirements.

Vertical integration is not necessarily a bad thing.  Systems built this way are tightly coupled and perform quite well.  The downside however, is that you’ve constructed a one off system, made from components that cannot be easily mixed and matched as your requirements change.

When you use a specialty theme to vertically integrate your WordPress site, you lose the flexibility of being able to easily mix & match, different themes and plugins.  If, at a later date, you outgrow the existing functionality of the specialty theme, or if your marketing (presentation) requirements change, it will be difficult and costly to implement changes; without an expensive site redesign.  Worse, is the prospect of having a site that is so tightly coupled; that only the original provider of the specialty theme can affect your desired changes.

The majority of WordPress themes and plugins are designed for use in horizontally integrated systems, because that is the de facto integration option for WordPress.  WordPress itself, is flexible enough to allow you to construct horizontal, vertical, or even hybrid (“L” shaped and silo) integrated systems.  However, if you deviate from the preferred horizontal integration philosophy, be prepared to either accept a one-off system or the prospect of difficult site redesigns; as your operational requirements change.

And if you are really in love with the features offered by a specialty theme, at least ask the provider about what kind of support you can expect, should you later decide to keep part of the specialty theme’s features while wanting to incorporate features offered by plugins or themes that are outside the vertical stack.

Color Psychology and How it Affects Your Site

As a designer, website owner, or marketer it is important to know how color affects your target audience. There are many factors that contributes to how someone perceives color. While some of these factors are uncontrollable as they are mentally controlled, there are some that we can control as designers.

Some of the outside factors that can affect color and how people perceive it are:

• Culture
• Religion
• Environment (where the color is being used)
• Time Period
• Trends

When designing projects such as websites you need to keep the above in mind. Especially keep in mind the culture and religious meaning of color. Colors have different meaning in different cultures and religions, so knowing your target audience can be one of the key factors in the success or failure of your site.

Example:

The color green is usually tied to safety or money. However in France the color green is associated with criminality, it is also not a good color to use for product packaging.

Colors have different meaning in different parts of the world, while some have universal meanings, some do not. Investing a little time and research into your target market can give your site a major boost for very little work.

In this article I have provided some incite into colors. I have given examples to their

• Common Association
• Positive and Negative Aspects of Usage
• Cultural and Religious Meaning
• Interesting Information About the Color

Primary Colors

Red

Red is the most dominant color and will always draw your attention when it is present. This makes red a good color to use if you want to draw the attention of the viewer to or away from a design element.

Examples:

1. You want to highlight something on a website such as a price or buy button, a little well placed red will make it stand out.
2. You designed a room and there is a small flaw you can not hide, you can use some strategically placed red elements to draw the attention away from the flaw.

Color Association 

Associated With	Positive Usage Association	Negative Usage Association
Fire	Power	Aggressive
Blood	Attention Getting	Anger
Sex	Love	Immorality
Danger	Excitement	Violent
Love	Sexy	Antagonistic
Passion	Enthusiasm

Cultural Association 

France – Masculinity
Most of Asia – Happiness, Prosperity, and Luck
India – Soldier’s Symbol
South Africa – Color of Mourning
Australia Aborigines – Ceremonial Color

Interesting Information about the Color Red

• In Russian red means beautiful.
• Red suggests speed.
• Red cars have a higher rate of being pulled over for speeding.
• Red cars have a higher theft rate than any other color.
• Red stimulates the heart rate, breathing and appetite. This is why red is used in many restaurant and fast food branding/logos. Here are some examples.
• McDonalds
• Burger King
• Carls Jr/ Hardys
• In and Out Burger
• Sonics
• Red Rooster
• Red clothing makes you look heavier.

Yellow

Yellow is the first color the human eye can recognize.

Color Association 

Associated With	Positive Usage Association	Negative Usage Association
Sunshine	Intellect	Jealousy
Desert	Wisdom	Cowardice
Brightness	Radiance	Deceit
Warning/Caution	Joy	Hazard
	Idealism
	Friendship
	Innovative
	Awareness
	Caution

Cultural Association 

Buddhist – Priests wear saffron yellow robes
Burma – Color of mourning
Egypt – Color of mourning
India – Color for merchants and farmers
Hindu – Worn to celebrate the Festival of Spring
Middle East – Happiness and prosperity
Greece – Sadness

Interesting Information about the Color Yellow 

• Yellow is brighter than white.
• Yellow speeds up the metabolism.
• Pale yellow can enhance concentration.
• Bright yellow causes more eye fatigue than any other color.
• Painting a baby’s room yellow makes them cry more.

Blue

Blue is the most used color in advertising and branding.

Color Association 

Associated With	Positive Usage Association	Negative Usage Association
Sea	Knowledge	Depression
Water	Trust	Coolness
Sky	Peace	Detachment
Trust	Masculinity	Apathy
	Loyalty
	Justice
	Intelligence

Cultural Association

Most of the World – Sees blue as a masculine color
China – Color for little girls
Iran – Color of mourning
Eastern Cultures – Immortality
Korea – Color of mourning
Mexico – Color of mourning

Interesting Information about the Color Blue

• Blue is the most used color in branding and advertising. This is because the subconscious meaning of blue is linked to trust and loyalty.
• Blue suppresses hunger as blue is an unappetizing color.
• People are more productive in blue rooms.
• In southern US states front doors and porch ceiling are often painted blue to keep the evil spirits away.

Secondary Colors

Green

Green is the easiest color on the eye.

Color Association 

Associated With	Positive Usage Association	Negative Usage Association
Nature	Money	Greed
Environment	Fertility	Envy
Mould	Growth	Nausea
	Healing	Poison
	Success
	Nature
	Harmony
	Honesty
	Fresh/Renewal

Cultural Association 

Islam – Green is associated with paradise and is symbolic of Islam
Most Western Cultures – Green is considered the color of luck
China – Fertility
Japan – Youthfulness
Ireland – Country color
South America – Color of death

Interesting Information about the Color Green 

• Green is known to calm and relax you.
• Painting your bedroom green can give you a better nights sleep.
• Green is said to aide digestion and reduces stomachaches.
• Green is the most widely used color for environmental marketing and branding.

Purple

Purple is said to enhance the imagination (commonly used to paint kids rooms to stimulate the imagination).

Color Association 

Associated With	Positive Usage Association	Negative Usage Association
Royalty/Nobility	Luxury	Excess
Magic	Wisdom	Madness
Spirituality	Imagination	Cruelty
Wealth	Sophistication
	Wealth
	Nobility
	Mysticism
	Meditative
	Prestigious

Cultural Association 

Latin America – Indicates death
Thailand – Worn by widows mourning a husbands death
India – Sorrow
Brazil – Death and mourning
Catholicism – Mourning

Interesting Information about the Color Purple

• Purple is associated with wealth, royalty and nobility because the ingredients to make purple dye was very expensive. Only the wealthy such as royalty could afford them.
• Rare in nature purple is seen as artificial.

Orange

Orange is known as the come back color, as it has came back in style and popularity recently.

Color Association 

Associated With	Positive Usage Association	Negative Usage Association
Autumn	Creativity	Crassness
Citrus	Invigoration	Loudness
Warm	Uniqueness	Raucous
Tropical	Energy	Frivolous
Halloween	Health

Cultural Association 

Native American – Orange is linked to learning.
Netherlands – Orange is the national color. This is because the Dutch monarchs came from Orange-Nassau.
Western Cultures – This color is associated with affordable, inexpensive items.

Interesting Information about the Color Orange 

• Orange is and appetite stimulant.
• Orange rooms get people thinking and talking. A good use for this color is to paint the walls of a meeting room orange.

Neutrals

Black

Black is the deepest depths.

Color Association 

Associated With	Positive Usage Association	Negative Usage Association
Night	Power	Fear
Death	Authority	Negativity
Sleek	Sophistication	Evil
Professional	Elegance	Mourning
Sophistication	Seriousness	Emptiness
	Dignity	Depression
	Mystery	Oppression
	Bold
	Classic
	Modern

Cultural Association

China – Black is the color for little boys
Asia – Generally associated with mourning, penance, knowledge, and career
India – Evil
Thailand – Bad luck, evil, and unhappiness
Judaism – Bad luck, evil, and unhappiness
Australian Aborigines – Ceremonial color
Western Cultures – Mourning

Interesting Information about the Color Black 

• Black clothing makes you look thinner
• Black makes other colors appear brighter
• Black is said to boost self-confidence and strength
• Black is the color of choice for most secret societies

White

White is a perfectly balanced color.

Color Association 

Associated With	Positive Usage Association	Negative Usage Association
Light	Marriage	Fragility
Purity	Weddings	Isolation
Pristine	Cleanliness	Sterile
Clean	Virtue	Cold
Hospitals	Innocence	Clinical
Snow/Winter	Lightness
	Softness
	Simplicity
	Truth

Cultural Association

Japan and China – Funeral color
Worldwide – Universal symbol for truce
India – Married women who wear white invite unhappiness
Western Cultures – Bride, wedding and peace
Thailand – White symbolizes purity in Buddhism
Korea – Purity and innocence, morality, birth and death

Interesting Information about the Color White 

• In some cultures it is considered good luck to be married in a white garment
• White is so brilliant it can give some people headaches
• White light can be blinding

Grey

Grey is a balance of black and white.

Color Association 

Associated With	Positive Usage Association	Negative Usage Association
Neutrality	Balance	Dull
Moodiness	Security	Conformist
	Modesty	Detached
	Corporate	Sadness
	Quiet	Depression
	Basic
	Responsible

Cultural Association 

Native American – Grey is associated with friendship and honor
America– Represents industry

Interesting Information about the Color Grey

• Grey seldom evokes strong emotions
• Grey is it’s own complement color

When doing design work it is important to understand the needs of the project you are working on. You need to remember to take into consideration who your main viewing audience is. In this article I have covered the basics of color and how it can affect your site. In a future article I will go more in-depth into how to apply colors to your project and get the most out of them.

If you have any color tips you would like to share feel free to post them below in the comments secton.

About the Author: This post was written by Ivy who is the graphics designer of  Tips and Tricks HQ.

How the Latest Google Algorithm Penguin Update will Affect You

On April 24th 2012 Matt Cutts, the head of the webspam team at Google announced that there will be another algorithm change to the Google search engine.

This latest update has been named “Penguin” and the main objective of the change is to specifically target webspam.

To quote Matt’s words:

“The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content.”

If your site’s search engine traffic went down significantly since that date then your site is most likely being penalized by Google for not following the quality guideline.

A lot of you may remember that the last time a high profile and significant algorithm change occurred was around February 2011 and that was given the moniker of “Panda”. Back then the Panda algorithm tweaks were aimed at penalizing sites with poor quality content – especially content associated with content farms like article directories.

Although the Penguin update is believed to chiefly be aimed at webspam, a lot of the general rules of thumb regarding what makes a quality website in the eyes of Google still apply.

The main thing which all website owners and creators should keep in mind is that Google is always tweaking their search algorithms because, as a global multi-billion dollar a year business, it’s in their interests to provide accurate and quality search results to their users.

Matt Cutt’s even says that Google wants to provide search results which will enhance the experience of the user.

How will the Penguin update affect your sites?

For starters if you have created and maintained a solid site with original and quality content which has been organically rising up the rankings, then you won’t have much to worry about.

By “organically” we mean that you have been steadily creating quality content which has been indexed by Google and over time it has naturally risen in the search rankings.

However, if you have tried to take shortcuts and employed what are known as “black hat” techniques to try and fool Google into ranking your site above the higher quality competitors, then you will probably see some significant drops in your rankings and traffic in the coming months.

Examples of “black hat” techniques which may have worked in the past but will, over time, cause more harm than good to your site are things like:

• Unnatural and excessive back-linking
  You might have noticed by simply checking your spam folder in your WordPress administration panel to see how much garbage your Akismet plugin filters out of your comment area.
  All of these spam comments are from people (or automated robots) which leave comments with links going back to their site in the hope that they will be able to build a significant number of back-links. A lot of the time the comments are totally irrelevant and out of context to the topic at hand which makes them very unnatural.Another technique spammers employ is to try and leave comments with links going back to their sites in forums. There is also a variation of this method whereby the spammers create forum profiles and place links in their profile without ever leaving a comment.Whereas previously the technique of building huge numbers of back-links may have been effective in increasing search rankings, this type of tactic is now being targeted more readily by Google and it may be something they are addressing in the Penguin update too.
• Poorly written articles which don’t make sense because of bad grammar
  In the effort to write as many articles as possible in the shortest amount of time, some people use what are known as article spinners. That is, they will often try to recycle existing articles which they’ve found on the net, by using a spinner to reword the article so that Google doesn’t detect any duplicate content.
  The end result of sites which are primarily built using such a technique is that they are grammatically illegible and quite useless as far as being informative goes.Google is constantly introducing intelligence into their search engines and crawlers to spot things like this and penalise sites with such qualities by demoting them in the search rankings.
• Keyword stuffing
  “Keyword stuffing” refers to the unnaturally high frequency of keywords which are placed on a page. The reason why people do this is that they hope to get a better ranking for their chosen keywords by exhibiting a large number of those keywords on their pages.
  Quite often, when you read a page of a typical spammy website you will find that the content actually doesn’t make any sense because the post was written specifically to contain as many instances of a keyword as possible without any regard to the quality of the content itself.

The above are just some of the “black hat” techniques which spammers and wanna-be Internet millionaires employ in order to short circuit the work needed to succeed online.

However, with algorithm tweaks such as Panda and Penguin and future updates, these techniques will soon be as toxic as kryptonite was for superman in terms of the success of your website.

What to Do if Your Site Got Penalized?

If your site got penalized by the penguin update then you should try the following:

1. Carefully read Google’s quality guidelines
2. Make the necessary changes to your site
3. Log into your Google Webmaster tools account and submit a request for reconsideration

Importance of Ethics for Your Online Success

The internet offers a huge amount of benefits to those who wish to take the time to build a business or offer something creative to share with the rest of the world.

The qualities about online businesses which attracts the most people is the flexibility of lifestyle and the prospect of making a very good living because of the huge global exposure and reach which you potentially have by being connected online.

Unfortunately due to this wide potential market base there will always be those who will try to exploit this in ways considered to be unethical. I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise because unethical business practices happen all the time and have been happening since man first started to trade in ancient times.

The only difference is, now with the interconnectedness of the world wide web and the huge internet technological advancements, the unethical side of business and marketing has been magnified.

For instance before the internet really started to take off in the late nineties, people were hardly ever confronted with ads, spam or junk mail about “acai berries” or “penis enlargement”. I mean when was the last time you got a flyer in your regular letterbox about “Adding 3 inches” to your you-know-what?

The peculiarity of today’s internet marketing is solely due to the nature of the technology itself and for all of the advantages and benefits the internet has brought us, the same advantages and benefits are unfortunately exploitable for those intent on using unethical means.

There are probably a few qualities about the online environment which are unique to it compared to other mediums and which therefore make the unethical marketing seem so much more pronounced.

For instance we already mentioned the grand scale of reach which people have when using the internet. You could potentially spam millions of people daily on the internet with little or no cost to you, whereas doing the same thing using snail mail would take you years and probably send you broke.

Also, the faceless nature of the internet makes it seem easier for people to fall into unethical practices because they don’t ever have to face the people they’re trying to scam.

The current global economic turmoil and job uncertainty is no doubt also playing a role in increasing peoples’ fear and desperation and so some are willing to try anything to make a few extra bucks.

But in the long haul you will find those trying to cheat the system and other people, eventually get found out and their money-making strategies come crashing down. Quite often these same types of people quickly try to think up new schemes and the process starts all over again.

The point is that from the perspective of building a stable income online, unethical schemes and scams are definitely not the way to go.

I know it’s a cliche but it’s also very true when people say: “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t”. This cliche has never been more apt than what has been happening on the internet now for over a decade.

Google and How It’s Leveling the Playing Field

Google is by far the most popular search engine, taking something like over 80% of the internet search pie followed by Bing and Yahoo who share less than 10% each (according to  2011/2012 statistics).

You may also probably know that Google is a huge business globally, making most of its money either directly or indirectly from search activities. Therefore as the biggest search engine provider, Google is also most exposed to the unethical activities of people trying to cheat the system. Due to this exposure, they are also constantly tweaking and refining their search engines to combat the low quality, low value, high spam sites being displayed in their search results.

The latest announcement by Google’s Matt Cutts (who is the head of the Webspam team) was that they are increasingly targeting sites which are “over-optimized” – meaning those sites which might have an overabundance of unnatural backlinks and stuffed with keywords which make them almost unreadable and uninformative.

After all it’s in Google’s and everybody else’s interest that they provide a quality service to its clients by way of offering relevant search results. This means reducing the number of bounces caused by sites which are low quality and spammy in nature.

The way Google usually targets low quality spammy sites is that it gives them a lower weighting and ranking in the search results. The effect of this is that such sites are demoted from say the top one hundred search results to something further down the rankings.

Changes in Google’s core search algorithm and rankings methods shouldn’t come as a surprise when you consider that Google apparently make hundreds of code and algorithm modifications per year. But what is becoming more and more surprising is the increasing intelligence being built into the Google algorithms which are making them smarter in identifying a “good” versus a “bad” site.

So what does this have to do with you and your online ambitions?

Quite simply, if you dedicate your time and work smart to offer quality products/services/information to people and in doing so you also instill ethical practices in your online business ventures, then you will more likely reap the rewards from your hard work; quite often simply from the benefits gained from Google’s smarter search algorithm.

How to Easily Import or Export any of Your WordPress Database Table Content

I get asked a lot of questions on how to import or export data to or from a particular WordPress database table on a regular basis. For example:

• How can I export all my products details from a particular WordPress plugin to a CSV file?
• How can I bulk change data in some table?
• How can I export all the products info from WP eStore plugin to a CSV file?
• How can I export all my members details from the WordPress membership plugin to a Spreadsheet?
• How can I export all my affiliates details?
• How can I export my customer details in a certain way?
• and so on…

WordPress uses MySQL database and one of the benefits of MySQL database is that you can easily import or export data to and from any MySQL database table. Many people probably do not know that there is a great tool called PHPMyadmin that you can access from your cPanel (most hosting provider will offer cPanel with your hosting account for free).

It is extremely easy to use PHPMyAdmin to do any kind of importing or exporting of data and it is available to you for free. All you really need is a good tutorial that shows you how to use the PHPMyAdmin tool. So we have created a video tutorial that shows how to use PHPMyAdmin. Once you learn to use this tool you will feel like a superman 

Video Tutorial

Click the following image to start the video tutorial on how to use PHPMyAdmin to import, export or change data in your database table.

Export/Import SQL Tables

The following video tutorial will show you how you can export your SQL tables and then import it later.

Please feel free to leave a comment below and let us know if you liked the tutorial or if you have something to add.

Deactivate WordPress Plugins without Logging Into WP Admin (Video Tutorial)

Every now and then we get users who find themselves in a tough situation where they need to deactivate a plugin but they can’t log into the WordPress admin dashboard. Peter created a video tutorial covering 2 techniques that you can use to deactivate your WordPress plugins witout having to log into your WP admin.

These 2 techniques will come in handy if you ever find yourself in one of the following situations:

• Installed a WordPress plugin and you get a white/blank screen when you log into your WP Admin
• Edited some PHP code from the plugin or theme editor and there was an error so you can’t access the WP Admin anymore
• Installed a WordPress securiy plugin that locked you out and you can’t get inside WP Admin

Deactivate a WordPress plugin via PHPMyAdmin or FTP

Alternatively, you can watch this videos on YouTube by going to the following link:

• Deactivate WordPress Plugins without Logging Into WP Admin

Hopefully this video will save the day if you ever find yourself in this situation.

The Importance of Buttons and Strong Calls to Action

Whether you are trying to convert targeted visitors to buyers, or curious web surfers to “FREE” members, the recipe you will usually need to follow when constructing your landing page is the same: that is, you must strive to have an unambiguous and clear call to action on your web page.

Some Internet Marketers like to use the term “primary call to action” to refer to the most important action which you would like any person viewing that page to perform.

There are also other levels of call to action types which are sometimes referred to as “secondary call to action” and “subordinate call to action” but these are lower down on the importance scale when compared to the primary call to action.

The primary call to action is the ultimate goal of your landing pages and it defines the purpose of why you have that page on your site to begin with.

A primary call to action should generally be represented by some kind ofbutton although this is not strictly always the case.

Human beings surfing the Internet seem to be psychologically drawn to buttons and people are almost instinctively compelled to click them if they feel that the situation calls for it.

This is why well designed and strategically placed buttons are often the best tools you can employ for your primary call to action.

Qualities of Effective Buttons and Button Copy

The button representing your primary call to action must be easily identifiable and its purpose should be clear and unambiguous.

The information below is an outline of what to look for in the qualities of your button in order to make it achieve its intended purpose of getting people to perform your primary call to action.

1) Button Text and Copy

You should always aim to be specific with the words that you place inside your buttons rather than generic.

Being specific, concise and clear with the button copy leaves no doubt in the visitor’s mind about what they should expect when they click your button.

For instance, some examples of effective button copy are shown:

• “Sign Up For Free”
• “Get Your Copy Now”
• “Start Creating Today”

You may notice a pattern in the above statements.

They all start with familiar verbs (Get, Sign, Start) and they all contain either a statement of value (ie, Free) or a promise of instant gratification (Now, Today)

2) Using case in your button text

Internet Marketers have found through their research that the way you present the text in the button can also make difference as to how noticeable your button is to the people reading your web page.

Using title case, where the first letter of each word is in capitals, is one easy and effective way to make your button appear more eye catching and readable to your visitors.

3) Good button design and placement

It seems that some buttons are better than others when it comes to effectiveness.

This is why choosing your button design can mean the difference between a conversion or a lost sale.

But what makes one button better than another?

Below are some good button design characteristics which you might want to consider when selecting your buttons:

• Use an eye-catching color which stands out:
  Some colors which are pleasing to the eye include green, blue, orange.
  The color red can sometimes be used too but remember that it can also tend to be associated with some kind of warning or danger.
• Your button should be large and bold:
  Because your button will often be associated with a primary call to action, you should make it noticeable and large enough that it stands out and is not obscured by the content on your page.The definition of large can vary from site to site, but your button should be at least as big if not larger than your logo.
• Placement of your button:
  The positioning of your buttons is another important factor which can affect your landing page’s effectiveness.In general, you should position your primary call to action button within the first few hundred pixels of the top of your page.
  If your landing page contains a lot of copy and the reader will need to scroll at least more than a page’s worth of content, then you should also consider placing your button at least one time on your page.
  For instance if your landing page is long enough, your primary call to action button may appear near the top of the page, then somewhere in the middle and lastly at the bottom of the page.
  By placing your call to action in several places you are making it easy for your readers to buy if they want to.

Using Click Triggers to Enhance Button Effectiveness

In some cases a button needs some kind of a catalyst to convince somebody to click it.

This is where some Internet Marketers use what’s known as click triggerswith their buttons.

A click trigger is basically a message or piece of text which is placed near or inside the boundaries of a primary call to action with the aim of persuading somebody to go ahead and click the button.

The click trigger message usually serves to alleviate doubts somebody might have before purchasing something.

Examples of effective click triggers which you could place near your button are:

• “Risk Free”
• “Free Shipping”
• “No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee”
• “Save 50% – March Only”

Quite often you’ll see many web sites with multiple click trigger messages placed near their primary call to actions and buttons.

Don’t be afraid to apply click triggers liberally to your call to actions.

Secondary and Subordinate Calls To Action

We mentioned earlier that in addition to your primary call to action, you might also have secondary and subordinate calls to action on the same page.

A secondary call to action is usually represented by a large text link or even a button, but it is designed to serve a secondary purpose to your primary call to action.

For instance if someone wanted to “Find Out More” about your product or service, then this is a great example where you would create a button to serve as your secondary call to action.

You should strive to differentiate your secondary call to action button from the primary by making it smaller in size and/or a different color.

The subordinate call to action is almost always represented as a text link and is even further down the list of importance but can still serve a useful purpose.

This type of call to action can be used to help navigate a user to another page where they might seeking some related information.

In summary, applying the above information and techniques to your landing pages is the best way to learn what works for you. Remember that each site and niche might have its unique quirks so don’t be afraid to experiment.