Mon Dec 24 06:03:27 PST 2018

65
$200 to design a logo for you. My original SEO Book site design was not overly
simplistic because I am a minimalist; it was overly simplistic because I am a bad
designer. For the first two years it was a default Movable Type template with a $99
logo at the top. I eventually paid a few thousand dollars to get a new, crisp, clean
design.
It is very easy to find shoddy logo design, but there are some good ones. Recently
I purchased logos from The Logo Company for $250 each. A few times I have
been disappointed, but some of their logos came out better than expected. My
SEO Book logo was created by EZY Logo, a now defunct company that had great
product but terrible customer support. If you need an exceptionally cheap logo
you may want to run a contest at a forum or try to buy a logo from a site like
Elance.
I purchased AAA logo design software for $50. I think it is fun to play with, but if
you are not graphically inclined, you probably will want to pay someone else to
design your logo. Buying a good original logo is an exceptionally cheap one-time
investment.
Professional Looking Design (Part 2

Making a site accessible, usable, and professional looking might cost you $20,000
or more. If you are low on funds, it might make more sense to spend that money
on brand building and marketing, but if you want designers and the like to link at
your site it is much easier to get links if your site looks professional.
Off the start I did not believe that coding errors or design mattered that much, but
if you want technical sites to link to you, then your site has to pass the sniff test.
That consideration is much more important if you write a tech blog than if you run
a fairly static e-commerce site.
Copywriting
Humans do the Buying
Inevitably, it will be human eyes that see your web page. For example, if my first
six chapters had no good advice, you would not read chapter seven.
I am unaware of any automated buying-bots that surf the web just to buy things.
(There are, however, automated clicking agents that defraud people, and the people
who create them should be shot.

Copywriting Books
How do you write for human eyes? I recommend investing in a copywriting book.
Some of the books I have read are Net Words by Nick Usborne, The Online
Copywriter?s Handbook by Bob Bly, and Persuasive Online Copywriting by Bryan
Eisenberg. Of the three, I most highly recommend the third; Persuasive Online
When you create your
pages, make sure they read
well to people. You aren't
writing them for robots.
You will need good copy
to have a decent
conversion rate and to
encourage natural linking
to your site.