Do you get nervous when a website insists you download a plug-in to view its content?  What exactly is a plug-in?  Does it plug into my computer and read my emails?!  And where do emails go when you delete them anyway?  If you know how to use the internet, but still have questions you’ll be happy you visited LearnTheNet.com.  Full of simple definitions, explanations, and even instructional videos, this award winning site presents information in an easy to follow (and remember) format.

By partnering with the technology company nSphere Inc., LearnTheNet also provides a local search of relevant businesses in your neighborhood that you can contact for extra help or hired services.  You can narrow down your state and city to find your local experts. (check out their Austin page for Web Design ).  When you search online for businesses or restaurants, do you automatically enter what city or zip code you’re currently in?  Of course!  Most people prefer to do business with local companies and now there’s a new way to find them as you need them.  It beats being bombarded with banner ads about car insurance when all you want to do is research cupcake recipes.

nSphere pulls from thousands of sources in 3400 markets nationally to find the most relevant local businesses, events, and local experts that could aid your search for information.  Just because a company is big enough to overshadow the search results, doesn’t mean they’re your best choice.  nSphere breaks through the ranking hype to give you the options that are applicable to you.

If you’re a vendor or local expert check this link out to learn how to receive a featured listing on the nSphere network for free.

As design evolves and grows, there are a growing number of websites with a downright stunning design. Throughout 2010, Line25 compiled a list of their favorite website designs into one large collection. Here are some of the most notable:

Virb – The site itself offers “elegantly simple” websites for just $10 per month. The site uses a simple and easy-to-navigate design in blue and white.

Chirp – Chirp, a site designed specifically for the Official Twitter Developer Conference, features a fun design with a schedule of events, newsletter signup, and “snapshots” of the conference’s speakers.

New Adventures Conference – A site for a web design conference in England, New Adventures boasts a colorful and simple design that beautifully displays its sponsors, a description of the event and venue, and more.

Pieoneers – A web development firm that uses Rails, Pieoneers features easy-to-use navigation and a colorful chart that outlines their creative process.

The Visual Click – A web and app design firm, The Visual Click features a beautiful home page design with portfolio samples, contact information, and more.

For even more of the year’s most inspirational designs, take a look at 65 of the Best Website Designs of 2010. The sites range from web and app designers to the Little Black Dress Society.

Focusing Your Call to Action

In the most general sense, a call to action is a way to ask your readers to do something. This could be purchasing something, signing up for something, or donating something, or anything else that asks the users to take an action. All too often, though, we see websites which do not utilize their call to action in the right way, making it fairly useless. There are many ways that you can make your call to action something that truly helps you to reach your goals with your website.

Great Ideas

In the popular movie Field of Dreams, the main character hears a voice whisper “if you build it, they will come”. When it comes to a call to action, you’re basically doing the same thing. You need to fill the need of the user before they’ll be willing to complete the call to action. One of the best ways to do this is to explain to the user what they’re going to be doing if they complete your call to action. For example, if they complete your call to action, will they be getting a newsletter, or some sort of a product? If your client knows what they’ll be getting when they do as you ask, they’ll be much more likely to do as you want them to do.

Sometimes you need to offer a little incentive to get them to do as you wish. Incentives can be a variety of things, including discounts, small gifts, or even entry into a competition where they can win something. By offering the user something, you’re giving them a good reason to want to do as you ask them to do, giving you both what you want out of the deal.

One thing to make sure that you do is to avoid using too many calls to action. If you have too many on the site, your users may get confused, or may feel as though you’re asking too much from them. This is a surefire reason for them to leave or to ignore everything that you’re asking from them. When you’re planning out the site, make sure that you only have a few calls to action instead of having dozens of them. This will encourage your customers to do what you’d like them to do and will give you a greater chance of getting the results that you’re hoping for from your users.

Urgency, White Space, and Positioning for Your Call to Action

The importance of the call to action on a website cannot be understated. A call to action is the way to not only get your users to do what you want them to do, but also is a way for you to measure your success and to bring your website further than you’d have dreamed it could go. There are many websites which could have been successful, but weren’t, who could have dramatically changed the outcome by having the right call to action on their site. When it comes to using a call to action, there are a number of ways that you can get your users to pay attention to the site and to do what you want them to do.

Urgency

Language is a powerful tool and, when used in the right way, can help you reach the goal of getting your users to answer to your call to action. When you’re writing your call to action, make sure that you’re very aware of which words you use. There are a number of urgent words that you can utilize to encourage users to take the action that you want them to take, and most of them are action words. These action words clearly tell the user what you would like them to do. They can include words such as register, subscribe, call, buy, and donate.

Once you’ve got the active words, you can create a sense of urgency. Words like “for a short time” and “order now and receive a free gift” all push the user to act swiftly and are a great way to get your call to action answered.

Positioning

Positioning is also very important when it comes to a call to action. If you hide your call to action on the bottom of the page in a corner, your users will likely have a very difficult time seeing it. Ideally it should be placed in the middle column of the page and fairly high, so that the user doesn’t have to scroll down to see what you’d like them to do.

White Space

White noise on the radio is a bad thing, but translated to the written page, it can be really helpful. Some websites have far too much clutter, which causes the users to have a difficult time finding the call to action, or anything else on the page. When you’re trying to get your users to pay attention, try utilizing white space around your call to action to guide the eye to it. The space doesn’t actually have to be white, and can be whatever your background color is. Basically the point is to keep it from being surrounded by content so that users can see it easily.