8 Tips to Create Unique Ecover Design

The key to good ecover design is to know what will go well with the audience and what will not. Many associated with publishing world as well as readers have a common belief that a professionally design cover page is an ebook’s main marketing tool. Here are a few tips - on how to make a good ecover - for those who have little or nil knowledge about graphic designing. 

Use Big & Easy-to-Read Title

It is the most significant aspect of a good cover design. Most of the potential readers will find your ebook on screen instead of on a book shelf in a store. A bold and stand-out title easily catches attention of the readers. 

Black & White

This is important particularly for the current Kindle. After WIFI is included on the Kindle, bookworms now search for the new launches and download the ebooks from their Kindles instantly. This implies, an ecover must be effectively designed even in monochrome i.e. black and white. 

Thumbnail Reviews

This is the aspect most of the publishers, designers and surprisingly even authors forget to take into consideration. An ebook’s cover page must be visible and readable even in thumbnail size. It is important for the ecover design to look different on iPads, Kindles and mobile gadgets. 

Use Right Fonts

Font type is equally important like other elements of cover designing. Each font evokes a different feeling. Experiment with the fonts and see which works best for your ebook cover look. However, you should avoid two fonts – Papyrus and Comic Sans. You can use either of them if the book is about pure humor. 

Stick to Only Two Fonts

It is better if you restrict yourself to only two fonts. Make sure these two are complimentary to each other. Some publishers or designers recommend avoiding all caps, outlines, italics. However, what will look good depends much on your ebook cover page.

Sometimes, you can use three types of fonts. However, to use them efficiently, you must be a pro graphic designer. If you are from a non-graphic designing background, maintain rule of thumb – never use more than two types.

Color

Your ebook is not meant for babies, so avoid using garish combination or heavy contrast. In most of the cases, it mars your ecover design. 

Use Professional Illustrations & Graphics

Are you a graphic designer with richness of experience? If not, keep yourself away from using your own artwork on cover page, it will kill the overall feel and appeal. The art available on Microsoft Word or other layout programs, which are not meant for designing, should be avoided while creating a professional cover page. Instead, you can use stock photography which is easily available on internet. 

Use Unique Photos

Look beyond overused photos like oceans, mountains, sunrise, sunset, feathery clouds etc. Images and illustrations play an important role to lend a unique design to your ecover. You will definitely want to be noticed instead of being overlooked for a copycat ecover page, isn’t it?

How to Create a Good Ecover Design

If you are a writer or a publisher and want to launch an ebook, cover page is the most important aspect – only next to subject matter. If you want to make a lot of money through your ebook, the importance of having a professionally designed cover page can’t be stressed enough.

Consider your browsing habits when it comes to purchase of books online. Do you remember how many times you have clicked on the cover image in respect to the titles just next to it? You may not give the exact figure but it is true that cover images grab more eyeballs and visually force more visitors into clicking on them to find it out what is contained within.

It is human psychology – which ultimately governs our behavioral pattern – to gravitate towards visuals because those are what we always look for. If these images in their thumbnail form are not clearly visible, this could be a strong repulsive factor to drive the visitors away from your offer.

Now all these preambles lead to an inevitable question – how to make your ecover design stand out from the competitors. Here is our prescription of five effective ways to help you design a killer ebook cover. Let us put them in brief.

Design of Title    

                                                                                 

More than colors and pictures, it is important that your title is easy to read. Also use a different color for your title, which will be in stark contrast to background. Use large font for title and make it bold. Add some special effects like drop shadow to keep it different and a clear stand-out from the background.

You can play liberty with your creative ideas to make things look most unique and appealing. Remember it is unique excellence that will put you ahead of others, at helm of the race. It should be a priority for you to ensure that the title is clear, crisp and will show up in search results as thumbnails. 

Choice of Images

Sometimes, you are drawn towards a plain background filled with solid color. However, to add a little bit pizzaz to your ecover design, better it is always to use illustration or professional photos, which will drop a good hint what the subject of your book is all about.

While choosing images, make sure to use 300 dip (dots per inch). You should also be aware of image copyrights while plucking photos off someone else’s website. Every photo enjoys copyright protection. So use only royalty-free photos, otherwise it will be an illegal activity on your part.

Customization is the ‘in’ thing these days. If you have a custom illustration created or custom photos taken, your ebook cover page will be different from others’. The disadvantage of using stock photos without any twist is they will look like what someone else has already used for his ebook cover.

Do Some Research

Place yourself in buyers’ shoes and now consider which images attract you and which turn you off. Take notes of your observation in writing. Browse through the online book stores and ask yourself which ecover design you like and why.

All these will help you develop a certain pattern of preference. Once you have got a clear idea of what you like – this will reflect average choice of your target audience to a greater extent – it will be a good help to create a good, if not great, ebook cover.

3 Tips to Create Stunning & Saleable Ecover Design

If you are online to sell your digital products, a stunning ecover is most important to mint money. It is a common behavioral pattern of people that they receive maximum information through their eyes. It is the outlook that you consider first before making a purchase from clothes shop, book shop or retail stores etc. The same principle applies when it comes to digital products. Visual impression is important to convince the consumers when they are buying an ebook, software or any product from virtual market.

You can hire an ecover design professional. This is the best way to get a unique and excellent cover designed for your digital product. However, you have another choice to design an ecover. There is a wider selection of tools such as eocver creators, Photoshop action scripts, ecover generators that you can use for your purpose. In this article, we will discuss three simple tips to help you design an ecover that fetches attention from people who want to purchase and download your products.

Select images carefully

Choose only those images which are ideal to express messages and content of your product/service. It is extremely important that the pictures and your offer perfectly fit each other. Avoid using too many colors as it may divert visitors’ attention off what you have on offer. Do editing if required. You may change colors, resize, crop images, transform and do other important editing work to ensure the final output looks stunning. Images should be high on quality, otherwise these will not look good on the cover. When you are through selection and editing, place the images in right area.

Select right texts

Title is one of the most important parts of an ecover design. It should be short and crispy, aptly describing your product or service. Use special front and increase the font size for title to create an enhanced visual effect. You can download fonts from websites; plenty of them are easily available. Use special effects to lend it a more professional touch.

Then it is important to consider list of selling points. This aspect plays a significant part to convince the customers to purchase your product. For this part, choose simple and smaller font. Add special effects and bullet points to it. Remember two simple tips as follows:

·         Align texts to the left, it looks professional.

·         Make sure texts are easy to read even in thumbnail size.

Select right color

Before you choose a color or color combination, you should know what effects it will have on people. Everything depends on the particular shade of colors you choose, how much of it you use and which other types you choose for a good combination. Here are meanings of some most common colors:

Red: Strong, passionate and aggressive. Use it if you want to stress on something, catch attention of the visitors and want them to take action.

Green: Renewal, health, growth and environment. Use it on ecover design to make an expression of freshness, stability and harmony.

Yellow: Joy, happiness and good feelings. Use it to grab eyeballs when you think red will be too much for texts. 

How Customize Graphics in Minisite Design Ensure Sales Conversion

Minisite is a powerful medium just like any regular website. To speak the truth, it is more focused compared to a normal website that represents the products’ profile instead of just one or two item. Usually a minisite contains one or two pages instead of several pages that you see in case of a full-fledged website. That also suggests developing a minisite needs less of time (though not less of effort).  

A minisite contains less of content. So it is more important that you create it pithy and punchy. And graphics, as usual, need to be in relevance with your minisite theme i.e. product. Being a strong promotional tool online, a minisite design excels at what it does……it attracts the minds from all over the world. In other words, a minisite is just like a mixing bowl of people converging to a certain point where they need a certain product that you manufacture and/or market.

It Works

No other medium functions as effectively as a minisite. That proven effectiveness is driving more marketers and entrepreneurs to the usage of this tool. They have rightly assessed that by leveraging this online marketing tool, they could claim more stakes in the market in less time, with less expenses but expanded reach. In order to fulfill the objective, there should be an effective means in place to reach the target customers who is looking for whatever you have on offer via your minisite in a way that will set your business apart from and ahead of millions of those vying for attention from mass and market.

How to Make Your Minisite Work

The best way to ensure that you will be a stand-out with utmost professionalism is to do what the online marketing specialists have been following for the last 10 years. They are using the customized graphics to catch attention of the target consumers immediately and also convince them to read your online sales copy so that they get to know about your offers right from the horse’s mouth.

Those who do not use customized graphics for their minisite design see their effort collapsing miserably. This is because; those who are placing customized graphics in their sites are more successful and find themselves at the helm of race in the market. It has been previously stated that these minisites are more affordable and can be developed for few hundred dollars. What is more, the development work will be finished just within a couple of months.

The time measures the gap between when you placed an order for your minisite and until the final layout is not up to your satisfaction. Usually, you can request for two revisions and that will be enough to accommodate every specification as demanded by you. It is hardly possible to have quality custom graphics for your minisite development at anything less than two hundred dollars. The key to online marketing success is to ensure that your minisite rightly delivers message for the target audience. Customized graphics are important for your minisite as these aptly ensure sales conversion.

How Facebook Minisite Design Can Help Your Business Grow

Facebook is currently the biggest social networking site. It has become a globally accepted platform for everyone to exhibit their talents, market their brands, share their thoughts and just to chill and chat. It gives a wider section of population an immediate access to one’s brand and business.

You might be wondering how Facebook gets a mention in the space of an article on minisite design. Before we delve into the matter, let us first disclose a little more in this regard. Two-three years ago, the business class started creating Facebook profiles for their brands. The purpose behind was to encourage the customers to like their page, which will ultimately market their products.   

With time going away, both the entrepreneurs and marketers strongly felt the need for a more powerful tool of brand marketing and minisite development made its way into the list of some alternative and effective options.

Facebook Minisite – What Is It?

A Facebook minisite refers to a unique micro site or landing page within the Facebook frame concerning a particular company or brand. If you own a business, you can create a Facebook minisite that will help your target audience reach you easily and immediately.

Facebook offers minisite design as a freebie, allowing you to set it up at free of cost. However, there are several nuances associated with minisite development within the social networking site, which may be beyond your understanding and skill. So to do some serious business marketing, seek help from a professional who specializes in this niche.

A skilled person can understand your specific requirements and will offer solutions accordingly for a better and longer impact.

How a Facebook Minisite Can Help Your Business?

A Facebook minisite design can help your online business marketing effort in multiple ways. Let us discuss about it.

Enhancing Popularity

The best part of marketing through Facebook is it involves almost every section of people including government employees, working professionals, students, housewives and many others. It means a minisite designed for your brand marketing on Facebook will reach more audience within quick space of time. It will also enable the potential consumers to assess a particular product or service and that helps them make an informed decision.

Increasing Backlinks

A Facebook minisite design earns your original website a lot of traffic as well as back links. That actually inspires the users to visit your main website and browse through the same. They can find out more details about your brand and product profiles and that ultimately helps you find a foothold in the industry through increase in sales margin.

Word of Mouth

Facebook is a media used throughout the world. It is backed by the power of people. So, once you develop a Facebook-based minisite, it inspires people within online friends’ circle to like your page and/or share it. This initiates a chain-like effect. You just need to start it and the momentum will be achieved through ‘like and share’ activities.  

In the present business scenario, expected growth is impossible without cemented support from effective and intelligent online marketing. Consider cost-effective ways to spread your brand name, consider minisite design on Facebook!

Minisite Design – Is It Really Easy to Find an Expert Professional

It won’t be much of trouble to find out a graphic designer having excellent command over use of colours and web designing. However, you will face a challenge while spotting a designer who can aptly deliver a winning style for your minisite design. A website or its mini version is actually a sales site.

If you search on Google for a website designer, millions of results will appear in just 0.12 seconds. However, only a few of them are equipped with knowledge of advanced online sales techniques. In fact, the companies are also not aware of such techniques and always in a hunt for a graphic designer who can develop a website with spectacular graphics and animated effects.

Must-Have Qualities of Expert Minisite Designers

A minisite is actually a sales page for any business. Only good look and comfortable navigation of a minisite are not going to work for your business. You need something more and that ‘X’ factor could be achieved only if you hire an expert designer having good amount of knowledge about marketing. An inevitable question arises and it is about the requisite qualities of a minisite designer. Let’s learn what qualities you must look into a web designer before getting someone to work.

There is no doubt that all minisites have converging purpose – making more profit. Still, primary goal is not same for all. Most of the minisites adopt direct approach of online selling while the rest collect online visitors’ database on their page. Some redirect the visitors to their main website whereas others offer membership proposal. You can notice sea changes in design of minisites just because they serve to different primary purposes of their owners.

The first and most important quality of an expert website designer is he must have clear and in-depth understanding of his client’s business and the purpose behind his minisite making. Depending on the purpose, the designer will choose the right set of images that are highly relevant to your business.

Knowing the target audience is important not only for you but also for your designer. The approach towards a minisite design that will sell Forex product will have ‘hell and heaven’ difference from the one selling cosmetic products. Visitors’ profile at an education site will be way different from that on a minisite designed for online dating. Apart from layout style, there will be huge difference in use of colours and graphics selection too.

Sharp yet soothing colour contrast attracts the visitors. An expert designer has great sense about colour use and contrast making. Catchy headlines should feature bright colour effects though use of too many colours at a particular section is very much distracting. Font types and text sizes should be such that the minisite content offers better readability. Titles and subtitles should appear in bigger texts as compared to the following paragraphs.  

It is better if the designer highlights certain sections or words and use bulleted points, underline, strikethrough where necessary. In a word, a good minisite designer should take into consideration all those points that contribute to converting a site into an effective sales page. 

Minisite Design – Some Mistakes You Must Avoid

As soon as the importance of good minisite design sinks in, the entrepreneurs are almost rushing through the process of having one of their own. However, while doing so in hurry, the webmasters or website proprietors often end up making some common mistakes. Here those are for you to learn and avoid :

Going without a plan:

It tops the list of mistakes when you don’t have any plan in regards to minisite structure and design including navigation and links. 

No keyword research: 

The priority of online marketing is to top the result pages in the search engines and a way to do that is to optimize your minisite on the basis of a set of keywords. In any minisite structure, keywords work like pillars. If this important step is missed, the entire structure will collapse. Never choose a keyword that nobody searches, otherwise your web business will fail. Focus on those keywords that are frequently searched and attract leads to your website. Use Goodkeywork, Wordtracker or Google keyword suggestion tool for this purpose.

Too much loading time for minisite: 

If it takes more time to load, the visitors will lose their patience. We are living in an age when nobody is ready to wait for long. If it takes less time to load and navigation between pages is simple and quick, the visitors will be happy to hit the button. 

Stuffing of minisite layout: 

Make sure not to clutter your minisite design. There should not be too much of graphics, flash animation, images and any other type of bells and whistles. Those will be fine to attract the children in kindergarten but are never a good idea to engage traffic and mint money. The use of flash animations, JavaScirpts and graphics should be limited. The search engines like keywords, keyphrases and quality of content. So, don’t waste your time on catchy images. Despite their relevance, they won’t be valued by Google. 

Heavy dependence on WYSIWYG HTML editors: 

 Don’t be too much dependent on Mozilla Firefox, Frontpage or any other WYSIWYG HTML editor. If you use them, you could have your minisite designed at one side of the screen instead of get it positioned at the center. Positioning is important as wrong alignment will mar the purpose of even a decently designed and perfectly keyword-optimized minisite. 

Exceeding 750 pixels: 

Limit your use of pixels to 750. Going beyond that is not prohibited but the visitors never like scrolling from side to side. Alternatively, you can use percentage of screen and not pixels. However, take care that it is not narrowed down to less than 650 pixels. 

No knowledge of color choice and harmony: 

Have you considered emotion of colors while developing your minisite design? If your layout has a dark background, never use dark colors. Even a light color on a heavily dark background won’t work well. Consider using dark colors on a white background, such contrast will offer better readability. Understand how different colors will leave effect on your target visitors. If you want red in your website content, use it with caution and sparingly (for headings and sub-headings). Without exceptional expertise, don’t use black or grey. Maintain a lot of white space as fewer peepers and more salt will give some much-loved relief to the visitors.