In the recent lessons, we’ve been talking about building your website. Some of the most common questions that I’m asked regarding the website building process are questions pertaining to pictures and graphics.
So today we’re going to talk about graphics…
(Watch this video…
Main points:
Design Guru Ryan – http://designgururyan.com
Brent and Joe – http://www.minisitefrog.com
Karl Warren – http://ecoverninja.com
James – http://www.minisitestudio.com
(Prices ranging from $197 to $997)
-Be cautious about using random freelancers
(See video for examples of my sites)
One or two well-placed photos can go a long way in turning a bland HTML page into something that captures people’s attention.
1) Use your own.
2) Public domain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources
Just beware of “non-commercial use” clauses, and don’t waste time looking for a perfect image in the public domain when you could quickly license one for under $2.
3) License it from a stock photo site.
Such as…
Istockphoto
gettyimages.com
photos.com
stockphoto.com
shutterstock.com
IstockPhoto – my favorite source because…
– they have high quality standards
– they have a great selection
– they’re cheap! starting at $1.50, or less if you’re buying in bulk.
Be aware of license terms – generally you can not use it in an item for resale unless you purchase a special license.
(See video for demo of obtaining and using a photo from Istockphoto)
Ecovers help sell your info-product, because they help your prospect conceptualize it. It builds more value in your product (as long as the Ecover isn’t really ugly).
-You can buy a custom Ecover for $67-$100 for good quality.
-Or you can make your own. I make all my own Ecovers. I used to use Photoshop with action scripts. Now I use a simple software program called Ecover Engine…
Recommended product:
Ecover Engine enables you to make great Ecovers, even if you have no graphics skills at all. You can make Ecovers for ebooks, software programs, audio recordings, videos, and more.
You can grab it at a special low price at:
Click Here to go to Ecover Engine
Action steps:
1) Decide what kind of graphics strategy you want to use for your website. For example…
-The “intentionally ugly” look
-The minimalist few graphics look
-Professionally designed graphics package
2) Put some images/graphics on your website.
In the next lesson we’ll be looking at how to put video onto your website.
As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below.
Have a great day!
I never take the time to tell you, but I watch and read everything you send to me and yes I even learn stuff too. I want to thank you for all the lessons and tips.
you’re very welcome 🙂
Eric,
I Really enjoyed this one especially!
I’ve always been drawn to things visually and even remember back in the day trying to make all my ebay listings stand out better than my competitors through graphics!
Your EcoverEngine looks like an Excellent product and I can’t wait to get a copy! It diffently has a lot more options than other similar programs I’ve seen and a much much better price as well!…Thanks!
🙂
Put Your Website Traffic on 100% Automation. Learn How with A Free Membership at:
http://www.InstantTrafficPaysites.com
Hi Erics,
Thanks & you has given us given us confidence
on this business, always.
We are interested on the ugly site that you
had shown us, its sound good to us, that kind
of site could make $2K/mth.
We need to you share on this simplest site
how its could generated money & does all
sites that generating money need to be
licensed
Regards, Mohd
lucky, i can design my site’s graphic myself…
Cool thanks Gary!
It was simply an information product (ebook), which is exactly the type of business I am teaching to build in these lessons.
One other thing that I should have mentioned…
Even though that ugly site was making money, it is quite possible that it could have made more money if it was a nicer looking website. You would have to split test designs to determine something like that. Also, a site shouldn’t be ugly just for the sake of being ugly. After all, there are plenty of ugly sites that don’t make a dime. It would need to be “strategically ugly”. In other words, you would still need to apply various marketing principles to it.
Thanks. Getting appropriate images is my biggest problem. You have helped.
Graphics can be very important, especially for product graphics because they increase the perceived value of products. However, you may want to test your pages with and without graphics because I have heard that they sometimes can hurt your conversions.
Hi Eric
Good to have you back. Thanks for all the really useful tips and info.
Eric, you always seem to hit the details man, , , thanks!
Eric,
Thank you for your great tips.
Ecover Engine and Istock Photo were really helpful. I was nearly going to spent $97 for an eCover software.
Are you covering any basic tutorial on GIMP?
Hi Eric I love your lessons, they always seem to come at the perfect time, I was just wondering about ebook covers! My site has just had a re-vamp I would love to know your thoughts! Its only been live a few days but so far the ‘ugly’ site sold better!
Thanks for your tips and the great humanitarian work you do.
I did all the design myself on my first site.My header was a simple rectangle with added photos. I try to add photos to all of my posts as this draws the attention of the reader…I will not build an ugly site intentionally.. better to spend a little more time and effort to do a site that is pleasing to the eye.. that is my opinion.
This is a great example Eric. I have been guilty of getting too hung up on fancy graphics and pretty webpages, not necessary to sell and profit online. That said, graphics is a great way to make a professional impression, and to brand your business.
As for free images, Flickr is a great resource for creative commons graphics, you only have to site them when using their graphics.
While it is not directly related, 99designs.com is a great way to get a design you are happy with. 99designs.com is a place where designers compete, and you vote and interact as they submit and revise designs. That is where our site logo came from.
Thanks for putting this together.
-Travis
I find all of your tips to be very useful and appreciate your honesty. My main problem has always been: how do I get traffic? I’ve read many things about the subject and tried them but it still is a mystery to me.
Hi Eric
Can a website just be plain and have good content but not ugly or really pretty and still make money?
Hi Eric
Yet another good informative video!
For my first site, I was worried about using common images ‘off the net’ and a ‘free’ header or template – so my site is all my own and I only used my photos and did my own header using Photoshop. Yes it did take a long time to do – but hey – it’s unique – so no worries about copyright for me!!
(I also think my site looks more personal)
regards
Graham in UK
Cheers Eric, awesome information again as usual.
Great tips Eric! Aside from being a Photoshop author, I’m the Chief Evangelist of iStockphoto. I’d love to offer all of your readers 10 free high-resolution images — no string attached! All they have to do is go to this link and sign up:
http://www.istockphoto.com/lesasnider
It’s a great resource!
Thanks Eric for another very educative video. I have actually been wondering if my site is not too plain to be taken seriously by my visitors before your lesson came.
I’m really amazed to see the sites you showed that were, and are still turning in thousands of dollars, even though they are plain.
With what you have shown, I think the most important thing is to concentrate on providing exactly what people need, rather than worrying about having a flashing site without real value, if I’m wrong please correct me – I’m your humble student.
I really appreciate your teachings and the recommendations on where to get images, and how to design ecovers in this one. Thanks!
Hi Eric, Carmelo here I enjoyed a lot your teaching and appreciate everything I learn daily…I need some help in setting my wp blog…I set my wp site (gear theme) and start doing some plug in installations and changing the settings and now the side bar links do not work. When I click the sidebar links it gives a message saying that the page cannot be found…Please where I can find some help.
Carmelo
I’m not planning a tutorial on gimp, as I’m not a user of the program. But they do have a lot of documentation at:
http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/
Basically you have three options…
-buy it
-work for it
-“borrow” it
I’ll be covering traffic in depth later in the lessons.
Absolutely. That’s sort of what I was trying to imply, when I was talking about going for a “minimalist” approach. Most of my sites are just average looking. Not ugly, but not a lot of fancy graphics either.
you are right… focus on what people want and need 🙂
You can find free help in the forums at:
http://wordpress.org/support/
Can’t wait for your Traffic lessons Eric…I feel the same way Bill does a lot of the time & PPC just seems to expensive for a newbie.
Gary
Hi Eric,
Excellent video! I would like to add another free photo site, Stock Exchange can be found at: http://sxc.hu/index.phtml
Here is my photo gallery. http://www.sxc.hu/gallery/jmgray
I always look forward to your videos. Thank you so much for taking the time to make them.
(I hope you will be covering how to make screen casts in an up coming video.)
Kind Regards,
Jeri
Thank you Eric! This was so helpful.
Great resource… this is my favorite because they have great free images as well as paid.
Great lesson.
We tried free photos when we first put our site together. Mistake. We found a better photo site and paid a reasonable price for our images. What a difference a few well spent dollars can make.
Thank you for the source info.
Hi Eric,
Cools stuff !!
Please allow me to have 2 small “point” to be added to this post :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXOtTgQjWpU
Thanks (again) for your (again) intersting post.
Hey Eric,
I have been following your lessons since lesson #1 and have gained quite a bit of knowledge and practical advice. Congrats on your new pics sites.
I know this is off topic but I was wondering what year you officially got your internet marketing career started?? I’m not sure you have mentioned that before. You seem to have come a long way in a short time. I know Ewen Chia has been at it for about a dozen years now and I also follow him along with Chris Rempel and Stan Stuchinski. You guys are all straight up guys. lol
Officially I started in 1999, so I’ve been around the web for awhile 😉
But I did not go full time until 2003.
I built my business largely by trial and error. The point of these lessons is to shorten the learning curve for you, and shave years of trial and error off of the process.
Yeah Ewen and Chris are good guys. I have not seen Stan’s stuff but I’ll take your word for it.
I am still waiting for LESSON #41, Eric. Please help me because it did not go to my email yesterday. Thanks!
Continuous Targeted Traffic = article marketing.
You can write yourself, you can hire people to write for you, you can use software like Dragon Naturally Speaking to write the articles.
It takes some time to get the traffic flowing but when it starts and you keep adding more articles on continuous bases you will get traffic.
Cool Thanks! By the way I also love the France Shots!
Great teaching. I love your straght forward simple way to teach.. this is of great value for me… thanks a lot
Hi there Eric,, i have been following you since last summer and i have got my little blog live on the web now.
I apreciate all these info that you always share, and who knows some day we may bump each other on one of my vacation trips like you do once i have established my virtual real estate and have that financial freedom that you have..
Thanks and God bless always….
Hi! Eric, that software is what I was looking for a long time, it realy is an easy and usefull one. Thanks a lot.
Gary is right, now the traffic will be the next big must have under our belt…
Thanks so much, I enjoy all your tips, videos, and comments, they a rich in facts as well
Michaela
Yes, I remembered you were one of the people who had asked for something like this months ago. So I had you in mind for this lesson 🙂
Hi Michaela,
I sent you an IM on Twitter…hope you get it!
PS: Guess I better order the Ecover Software before I forget!
Take Care,
Gary
Oopps…thats my message above 🙂
Dear Eric,I really enjoy reading your lessons and the comments of the people. I don’t have a web, yet.Are you going to have something on all these lessons to sell ,at the end of all your lessons? If so do you know what the price will be, yet?
Thank you
Jeanette
Yes I will be including all these lessons as a part of a full home study course when I’m done making them. I don’t know the price yet.
Hi, I designed my web logo using GIMP. The tutorials on the site Eric gives are really good, also try gimp-tutorials.net. GIMP can take a bit to get used to but once you do, you find yourself using it all the time.
I have no graphic design background, so my logo is pretty ameteur but hey, it was free and I did it myself!
Also, check out photoshop tutorials. While the programmes are different, there are some similarities and the photoshop tutorials can give you an idea of what you can do in GIMP.
I also found somewhere a tutorial on designing ebook covers in GIMP, but I can’t find it now.
I’ve got your Lesson #40 last week but Lesson #41 hasn’t arrived yet for more than 3 days and 3 nights by now. Do I have 100 Lessons in reality, Eric?
Yes I get all your messages on twitter, actually is the easiest way to communicate at this moment.
Regards
Michaela
Eric,
This lesson, #40, is the last one I have received – on May 31. Have there not been any in June? Please advise.
Thanx,
Henry