If you're like me and are not an application developer, a programmer or even literate in basic HTML, you may struggle to find ways to be creative with your blog or Web site.
Here are three simple and easy ways you can enhance your Web site or blog by adding movement, interactivity and more graphics.
Online Surveys and Questionaires:
If you are seeking feedback on your site or blog and do not know how to go about obtaining it, consider a Wufoo form. Wufoo is an online service that lets you create a form and easily embed the HTML code that they automatically generate into your site. Wufoo's form builder helps you create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations so you can collect the data, registrations and online payments you need without writing a single line of code. It's really great and here is an example of one of our clients, Atlas Real Estate Advisors, have it in use. They use it so that site visitors can submit information and become a "preferred buyer" right from their Web site.
Videos:
Want to drop video directly into your site but don't know how to program a video file? Try using the embed code most video sharing sites offer. YouTube, Vimeo and others provide embed code that you can put directly into a Web site or blog for the video to play in line on the site. This is a great technique because it will not slow down your site at all as the video file is housed on the video service server and not yours. RTI Brands just used YouTube to load their new branding intiative video right to their homepage - check it out at their new site.
Photos and Images:
A third way you can enhance your site or blog is to add images. I use Flickr to post photos, images and logos to my blog. Once you create a free or pro account, you can upload files and photos. Each file offers image code that you can drop into your site for visitors to view. If you choose to include the entire image code, visitors can link directly to your Flickr photo stream and see all of your images. Here is an example of an embedded photo slideshow using Picasa, a Google product in my blog.
Using various forms of media can really add interest to your Web site or blog. Experiment with free services out there that will help you differentiate yourself from the competition and help you show the different facets of your business. Make your site interactive with thing for your visitors to click and do - I think you will see benefits from doing so!
