As we go about our online lives we are all exposed to “Calls To Action” on a day by day, and sometimes minute to minute, basis . This article examines what a Call To Action is and how you can make yours stronger than the competition.
What Is A Call To Action
Basically a “Call To Action” (CTA) is a section of text which tells the user to do something. For example “contact us today”, “find out more”, “register now” or the famous “click here”. Normally a call to action is placed along-side an attention grabbing advert or graphic.
There has been much discussion on CTA’s, from userbility, accessibility, design and marketing perspectives. There is no general way of doing CTA’s because it depends on what you are trying to get the user to do and where you CTA is placed. Here we have laid out a few guidelines for making your CTA’s better…
Wording
Many web designers argue that the commonly used “click here” is inadequate as a CTA because it does not convey why the user should take such an action.
It is commonly acknowledged that an effective CTA will inform the user as to why they should follow it. For example if we came across a “register now” CTA it informs us as to WHY we need to click it. “Click here” is an expression which fails on the informative front.
However on the other hand “click here” is a commonly used term which seems to work for the big companies. For example, see below:
Now we’re not suggesting that this makes it right but if it works for them then it’s logical to ask why can’t it work for the rest of us? The answer is of course, that it can work for us - only we can make our CTA even better. For example on the WSPA banner advert above, it may work saying “click here” but what if it said “click here to save a gorilla”, or “click here to find out why we need your help”. This would tell the user why they should do what it says as well as using the common term “click here” telling them how to do it. To make the CTA even stronger you could, for example, on the MYA cosmetic surgery advert have “click here for a free brochure”. This example offers incentives to the user as well as telling them why they should click.
The best word to use is “Free”. Marketeers all agree that “Free” is the most powerful word. So whatever it is, whether it is a free product or simply free information. A killer call to action then would include the command “click here” with the incentive of “free”. “Click here for a free sample” for example.
Messaging
Again the messaging which accompanies the CTA needs to be clear and simple. Most of all though it needs to give a sense of urgency. For example “Sale Now On - Hurry, ends on Friday” with the CTA “click here to see what’s on offer”. If we also added “Free” in there somewhere we would have a irisistable call to action!
The message needs to appeal to your target *audience and it needs to grab their attention. Don’t tell the user what you want them to do in the message, thats in the CTA, tell them what they will want to hear then tell them what to do.
Design & Images
Obviously CTA’s come in all shapes and sizes. The most simple CTAs are used in HTML text in anchor tags . Text links are useful for search engines who record the text held in anchor tags and add them as bonuses to search phrases - however they don’t look great. Use them in your copy but maybe use an image based CTA somewhere as well. If you are going to use a CTA in text - why not pop an icon next to it help the user to it from other text or links.
When styling CTA’s its important to make them obvious. The idea is to make sure the sure knows that they are supposed to click on it. Below are some examples of “button” style CTA’s:
CTA buttons are widely used alongside images with marketing messages. The message gets the interest, the CTA tells the user what to do. Again the principles of the wording of the CTA still apply but when coupled with graphics, especially appealing ones, the eye is incited in a way which simple plain text cannot do.
All images that you use need to be uncomplicated and need to back up or enforce the message and call to action. Sometimes just using a product shot will do the trick, other times a clever concept could be developed into the image. The important thing is to keep it simple though.
Conclusion
So there ends a breif introduction to makign your CTA’s better. Has anybody got any other tips or examples of better CTA’s? Leave a comment below…
I may be preaching to the choir in this post, but one can always use it as a reference to clients or colleagues.
is one of my favourite aspects of web design. It’s also got a lot of hangups and myths associated with it. For example, it is contrary to popular belief. I hope the linked article put that one to bed for a while.
My other favourite myth is the old-fangled “Accessible sites are boring.” Pah! Poppycock! It may be true that often accessible sites are created from a pool of fairly unimaginative templates (think the accessible template set from pre-Dreamweaver 8.) They don’t do anything wrong (except harm my case thus far) but they’re not exciting. They’re not really designed. I aim to show you examples of brilliant and accessible design, and show that it is all a myth after all. Accessibility and design are not mutually exclusive. They walk hand in hand.
Boring? Try Beautiful
Without inspiration such as a bunch of CSS galleries (nothing looked promising after ) I had to dig a little deeper this time. The following is the pick of the bunch from my search. Feel free to suggest a site if you think it fits the list.
For the record, the following are chosen based upon achieving WAI Priority 2 using the accessibility tester for their homepage. I am fully aware that validation is not the be-all-and end-all of accessibility. I know accessibility goes beyond the homepage. I think this is the fairest and quickest (let’s be honest I don’t have that much free time!) way to put a benchmark on a site in this case. I’m not suggesting for a minute that this should be the benchmark to test all sites - this simply allows me to find sites of a certain standard. Anyway, on with the sites:
Clean and creative. Good use of space and typography to create a welcoming site.
Use of a flash element - passes the accessibility test. Nicely falls back to good old HTML.
Accessibility - not ’spoiling’ this textured design at all.
Bold, clean and simple.
Ultra-minimal portfolio. Mixed sans-serif font cases adds interest.
I hope to have shown with the aid of the preceding examples that accessibility doesn’t necessarily stunt great design. In fact using accessibility, usability and web standards as a ‘trinity’ one can often improve on their design skills. The examples above also illustrate that the code elements that increase a website’s accessibility do not often show on the design. The sites in question aren’t “littered with accessibility aids that most people don’t use” - another of my favourite statements I hear far too often.
Let me know your additions via a comment and I’ll add the best to the list, along with some link-love to the commenter if desired.
2007 has been an interesting year for the internet, and for web design in particular. We have seen the rise and fall of Web 2.0, the increase of lobbying for web standards, and the growth of interest in CSS3 and HTML5. And these three things are just a few out of many other topics and trends that have created a wide swath across the design community, leaving storms of debate and discussion that are not soon to fade away. Web design is becoming much more diverse than ever before; with this in mind, it is essential to take a step back to look at the big picture: at where design trends are really headed. A few questions arise when designers do this, primarily this: are we working ourselves into a rut of design trends and cliched frameworks? And what is it that remains after the rise and fall of these bubble trends in web design?
What is “cool” in web design today is certainly not what was cool six months or a year ago, though the Web 2.0 swelling had begun to recede by the summer of 2007. Designers as a whole have grown tired of the gloss, reflections, and gradient-filled rounded corners. As a visual trend, Web 2.0 had a slightly immature look to it. But the decline of this style has helped the design world to mature and increase in depth.
Lately Jeff Croft, a major voice among professional web designers, has created stir with his opinions on mainstream issues such as and . Other prominent figures such as , , and have created similar discussions and memes.
Many bloggers say the future of web design is unclear, and the advancement of the tools we use to create our work, such as CSS and HTML, is even more uncertain. The reputation of working groups organized for the revisions of these tools are being questioned all across the board, as they slowly work their way forward.
Many of us know in the back of our minds that the future of web design is closely connected with the future of the computers themselves, but we fail to realize the coming situations, where nearly everything we’ve learned (and practiced) is going to be challenged by the release of new operating systems from Microsoft, Apple, and the vast Open-Source community. The only thing we can do now is help to improve the tools we use to design and build websites, and unite to stand firm against bad influences and trends that threaten our standards and practices.
It’s hazardous to our health
What is cool today in web design? That question cannot be answered definitely. Many of us are certainly glad that the bulk of the Web 2.0 design styling has been put behind us, but where do we go now? It’s time to put much more energy and time into producing creative and innovative things. One designer states that the internet may be becoming too crowded and uninspiring; most of us would beg to differ, but it makes a good point. We cannot stand for a moment to stop pushing ahead at full throttle to uselessly look back on our past. And even more importantly, we cannot afford to be bogged down in bubble design trends such as Web 2.0 or (heaven forbid the term) Web 3.0. It’s simply not healthy.
Whether knowingly or unknowingly, we have modelled and treated the internet like our lives outside of computers - where fads come and go, but certain things remain. Gloss, 3D imitations, reflections, these things will soon be a thing of the past, just as tiny text, comic sans and flashing text have already been retired. But certain things remain from all stages of the internet’s past growth. Using tables for page layout has been replaced by CSS and proper HTML structural elements such as the div tag. This is one thing that will undoubtedly remain, until something far superior replaces it.
The programming and coding side of Web 2.0 will certainly last for a while longer, because it is arguably one of the best things that has developed since the beginning of server-side development. Firmly founded social networking websites like Facebook and Digg are not soon to fade away; people have seen the great advantages of such systems.
Maybe it is time to try something crazy, as Jeff Croft puts it. Time for a creativity revolution, a greater independence among web designers, and a greater unity to improve the design world we have worked so hard to build and develop.
The ‘wood look.’ It’s been around since the late 90s. It always used to look tacky and forced. You’d guess right if you suggested I wasn’t a fan. But over the last couple of months I’ve noticed real gems of design with a wood effect used to frame the site in question. Before taking a look at the differences between the ‘wooden’ sites of yesterday and those of today, get a load of the eye-candy below to see what I’m referring to:
Best of Wooden
A massive background image. But it sure is pretty.
Subtle dark wood against the deep orange oozes class.
With a scrawling effect to bring personality to the design.
Photorealistic and tiled? Brilliant graphic design skills to pull this one off.
Going against the grain with a horizontal effect.
The yellow laminate flooring matches the cool blue highlights.
Why is it not tacky any more?
Imagine, if you will, those sites of old which first toyed with the wood look. They used incredibly small background images tiled across the background. The result? It was obvious to the average user that the background repeated every fifty pixels or so and it lost its realism.
Another factor may have also hindered these designs of yesteryear - concept. The wooden look was often used on a site because it could be used not because it should. Not unlike some of the gradients/shadows of today. It didn’t add anything to the design as it wasn’t thought through.
The designs above all work with the wood effect, rather than against it. Colours are matched to the wood and textures have been carefully chosen to be complimentary. The wood look has grown up.
What does it bring to the party?
I’d love to hand this over to you. What do you think wood does for you? Does it work? Do you view it as just another trendy effect or can it offer more to a design? Fill out a comment and get debating.
It is a fact that there are less women in the design industry then men. What the precise ratio of men to women actually is, one cannot be sure. However, as some indication, the guys at recently undertook a web design survey in which, in their own words, “Close to 33,000 web professionals answered the survey’s 37 questions, providing the first data ever collected on the business of web design and development as practiced in the U.S. and worldwide.”. Out of those 33,000 only 16.1% were female.
So why is that? Why is it that females don’t seem to be as prominent in web design as they are in say fashion design? Is the graphic design industry sexist? How can we balance the sexes in the industry and do we need to?
To open up this debate and to get an insight into what it’s like for female web designers we contacted four notable designers who kindly agreed to answer the questions below. I’m sure you may have heard of some if not all of them so I’m sure there will be no need to justify their presence here. If you do wish to find out more about these professionals check out their websites below.
Larissa Meek
Tanya Merone
Rina Miele
Veerle Pieters
Now the intros are over lets get into those questions…
1. Do you think there are less female designers than male? If so why do you think this is?
Larissa Meek
I know without a doubt that there less female designers in the interactive medium but I don’t think that it will be that way forever. I’m not 100% sure why, but I suppose it has to do with misconceptions. Ultimately it’s a relatively new industry and in the past many women were not into computers because it seemed a bit too technically complicated. After all, how many women do you know that are into fixing cars? Many women are creative but the technical fears of computers can seem intimidating.
Tanya Merone
It just so happens that I personally know about the same amount of male and female designers. However, from my online experience there appear to be many more male designers out there.
I believe this is rooted in the tradition. Computers were brainchildren of math and engineering minds, where men held most of the jobs. From there, bits and pieces of design emerged and were mostly self-taught by computer techies. Schools didn’t begin offering computer design courses until very recently.
Coming from a technical school myself, I have learned most of what I know about design on my own and not in school. Only towards my graduation I started hearing about courses teaching computer design. But before then – a few of those who were interested in computers (mostly guys) self-taught themselves the art of web design.
Rina Miele
I was asked a similar question before. There are definitely less female designers, though I’m not sure the reason. Design isn’t the kind of thing males would have a better aptitude for. I can’t seem to put my finger on it. Perhaps women aren’t interested in design as much as men are, much like with video gaming. Most women don’t care for it. It’s not to say that women can’t be better players… it just doesn’t appeal to them in the same way perhaps. Maybe this is a similar scenario.
Veerle Pieters
Depends on what kind of designer you are talking about. If you mean a traditional designer then I would say there are a lot of female designers out there. If you mean web designers than it becomes the opposite and that’s probably because the traditional designer isn’t too fond of making things technical and it scares them.
2. Do you feel that there is a stigma associated with females within the industry? If so please describe it.
Larissa Meek
No, I don’t feel that there is a stigma at all. I have never had any issues with being a woman in the industry. I feel that I have had equal opportunities just like anyone else. If anything, I have a stigma from being on Reality TV.
Tanya Merone
Although slowly changing, a stigma certainly exists in the wider computer industry, but I don’t think it’s much of an issue in graphic design field. Rather the issue seems to be lack of awareness that graphic design is not the same field as development.
Companies will often rely on their development gurus to produce applications and websites - but chances are the resulting product will not be appealing to the user. iPod is an excellent example – if it wasn’t for the appeal of its design, it would have fared much worse when competitors introduced technically superior models.
Rina Miele
I’m not sure it’s a stigma with women in design, or with women in the workplace altogether. I think that women definitely get taken less seriously by some men. I don’t think it is a problem that is getting worse, however, but quite the opposite. I think that this mostly happens in older generations, and as time passes this “stigma” will fade.
Veerle Pieters
I certainly don’t think so and to be honest I never think in terms of gender when it comes to work. I strongly believe any woman can mean as much in this business as her male counterpart if she sets her mind to it.
3. Do you have any examples of sexism you have personally had to suffer - with clients or within the industry?
Larissa Meek
I’ve never experienced sexism in the industry.
Tanya Merone
I have been fortunate enough not to experience any obvious signs of sexism, but I did wonder on more than one occasion the basis for certain decisions.
Rina Miele
As I was mentioning above… seriousness, accepting women are professionals and are as fully capable as men. Some men just can’t do those things. Personally, I’ve experienced a trace of this (with clients and within the industry), but nothing to stifle my career completely.
Veerle Pieters
I never had that problem, in fact the opposite.
4. How do you think this lack of female designers could be changed?
Larissa Meek
With time, more and more women will enter the industry because of girls whom truly were born in the computer era. These are girls who had a mouse in hand before they could say their first words. As more girls learn design, code and user interactions on the web; more will come to find passion for the industry. This medium is the future and there are new opportunities every day.
Tanya Merone
I think it’s great that there are now classes which teach computer design - I sometimes get emails from students telling me they’ve been asked to analyze my website by their professor :) Like I mentioned before, I haven’t had the chance to take many of these while I was a student. But I believe that this is a big step towards establishing computer design as a distinct field, separate from technical computer fields, thus drawing more females to it.
Rina Miele
At least in the industries I work in, I’m not even sure it needs to me changed. Would it make a bit of difference? Perhaps on some levels. The female perspective may be played down a bit. Though, I haven’t felt the dominance by an overly masculine design aesthetic guide my mouse clicking hand. Good work is good work. At least that’s how I see it. Maybe my experiences have led me to be a bit blindsided about the rest of the industry. But in any case, I don’t feel a strong male dominance impairing my work or my career.
Veerle Pieters
That depends on the person in question if she is willing to learn and experiment and grab an opportunity. It isn’t like men are holding us back, it’s up to you to set up a goal and go for it. This isn’t a gender issue in my eyes.
5. What would your message be to any females wishing to enter the industry?
Larissa Meek
Work hard and never stop learning. Technology is always changing. To quote Leonardo da Vinci, “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.”
Tanya Merone
I often get emails, many from females, asking me how I got to where I am and what steps should they take to get there. Ultimately, you have to love doing it. It is the most important part, in my opinion, regardless of which industry we’re talking about. If you love what you do, you’ll find a way to be great at it.
There was a point in my life right after I graduated from college where I had to decide between two paths: getting paid descent money for doing something I don’t enjoy, or doing something I love for a very minimal salary. Luckily I have chosen the second path. The low wage was only temporary, and now I’m earning good living doing what I love most.
Rina Miele
Don’t feel threatened or intimidated by the (potentially) overwhelming amount of males in the industry. Just focus on being the best artist you can be and doing what you love, because in the end, that’s all that’s going to matter.
Veerle Pieters
It isn’t a scary male world, in fact most men are glad to see a women and her fresh new ideas.
Moving Forward
We’d like to thank the interviewees for their time and the interesting insight they’ve given.
So do you have anything to say dear reader? Any suggestion as to why women are few in number in our industry? Do you have any comments or questions for the above ladies? We’d love to hear from you so leave a comment below…
And by non-blogs I mean portfolios, magazines, communities - essentially anything that doesn’t tend to come under the banner of a blog. You get the idea. I aim to showcase some of my favourite Wordpress powered sites that don’t follow the traditional layout. And following that, I’ll explore why these sites have deviated from the mean.
Straight to the juice…
I wouldn’t want to keep you waiting for some examples, would I?
Jen Gordon’s portfolio oozes character and flair. Her Wordpress install powers the portfolio, page hierarchy and her blog.
ComplementaryDuo mixes portfolio and blog effortlessly.
Darren Hoyt shows off his brilliant design talent. Definitely not ‘just another Wordpress blog.’
In stark contrast to my , I’ve decided to examine (by example) the characteristics of sites that are aesthetically pleasing even though no (OK - maybe one or two) images have been used. In essence, this could also be a testament to CSS and the talented folk who use it to its full potential. Or a look into how character is injected into a deign without imagery.
Beautiful? Hardly any images? Show me…
Not convinced a design can be creative and brilliant despite the lack of imagery? Feast your eyes on the following sites and maybe my reasoning can persuade you otherwise.
Andy Rutledge’s masterpiece, as far as I can tell, only uses the one image across the entire site. But before we dwell on his logo let’s examine the other features. Andy mixes white-space, typography and a simple grid to produce an uncluttered site that begs to be read. The serif-type suggests “sensible intellect” whilst the pull-quotes and exciting orange represent a creative flair in Andy’s personality. The structure is simple and uncluttered, suggesting a solid character. Going back to his logo for a second, the split font usage suggests the two sides of Andy - creative and solid.
Just a few tiny images scattered around. Not in the least bit boring though in my view. On the contrary in fact. Sections are crisp, headers are ‘big and bold’ and the black-on-white approach seems less subtle than the aforementioned Andy Rutledge site. I believe that Rik’s site aims to stand out, but not through use of imagery. Whilst Andy’s site is elegant and subtle, Rik’s is bolder and sharper.
Sparse imagery including a logo, a drop-shadow and a smattering of icons just about lets this one slip into this category. This Georgia-heavy site brings outstanding typography to the party. The tight grid layout and clever uses of white-space make it a pleasure to read. The fact that it is in a language I cannot fully understand and still makes me want to scan the page is a testament to Peter’s type-setting skills.
John Gruber’s home is a powerhouse in the world of design. Such a wide audience, but few pictures. What keeps people coming back (aside from John’s great content of course) then? Maybe the fact that the simple, but by no means unskilled, layout means one cannot really get lost on his site. A neutral colour scheme allows for reading in comfort, rather than trying to read without getting distracted. A few nice typographical touches, like the asterisks for the permalinks, inject more character.
Bold and vibrant are words which come to mind when seeing this site for the first time. It’s stylish, and the grid layout for the portfolio is fairly unique in the fact that no images are used on the homepage - simply title and a description. Solid hover states add a funky, trendy feel to the site but don’t go over the top and become brash.
Conclusion: What sets these sites apart?
Typography. One could argue that the examples above have almost perfect type-setting, with careful attention given to font sizes, line-heights and whitespace. This sets them apart from other sites with few images.
Images. When an image is used, it’s necessary. It feels ‘right’, not just for eye candy’s sake. Images have purpose.
Content. The text stands out. It urges you to read it. It looks elegant and the clean structure of the page allows you to read in comfort.
Colour. Colour has a meaning in these sites, whether it be for emphasis or for a link perhaps. It always has a purpose and is not splashed on for the sake of it.
Over to you…
As usual, I welcome your views and examples. Fling a comment our way below…
I am not sure this is only a fad that has following in the web standards community; since CSS is part of their world. What am I talking about? Designers that add the color scheme of their personal website to their stylesheets. What motivates them? Let’s scratch the surface a little bit… On the one hand you could say it is emotional: to give a personal touch to the stylesheet - a cold piece of code - of their blog or website, on the other hand you could see it as part of branding; color combinations are part of branding. There is even more ground that makes designers add the color scheme to the top of their stylesheet. People steal/copy often entire stylesheets and often these rip offs appear on the web without any modification. Stylesheets are free to use, and designers allow people to use their stylesheets. A common unwritten rule of thumb in the web standards community. But the colors used in that stylesheet, in that particular combination needs to be protected. You cannot steal all … Here are some examples of stylesheets that include color schemes using hex code and/or their textual equivalent.
Example 1: Modular
Roger Johannson
/*
456 Berea Street Main style sheet
Copyright 2006 Roger Johansson
Last edit: 2007-01-27
*/
/*
=Colours
Dark green headings (Main articles): 8A8E27
Light green headings (Home page sections): 828368
Green headings (Secondary): 578A1C
Green border colour: b6c8b0
Links: AE4F0C
Link hover: D03900
Heading link border: cfcfa0
Beige background colour: f1efe7
Light green background colour: f4f6e0
*/
Will this not so old fad gain following, or will it water down completely? Only the future will tell.
update: the discussion has now been extended to copyright notices, humorous side notes, and other forms of personalizing a style sheet. I am not interested in style sheets that make them more readable e.g. dividing a style sheet into sections for easier maintenance.
It’s one of the simplest things one could possibly add to a site. It’s extremely easy to achieve in CSS and it doesn’t present many problems at all for the designer who’s laying out a webpage. What am I talking about, then? Big background images (normally) on the body tag of course.
A bit of background to the post
After seeing the ground-breaking Johuaink design (pictured) in early 2006, I imagined that many more designers would start using large, graphic-intense images on the background of their website and that the trend would escalate and break into mainstream websites. For the most part however, this hasn’t happened.
(PR) is a word which will never disappear from the arena. For some, it’s an obsession. For me, it’s one of the most pointless factors when considering an internet marketing campaign, mainly due to the following factors:
You can only see a change in PageRank on a site every few months. Why focus all of your marketing around something which you can only measure three or four times a year?
It’s a number (one to ten.) It seems ridiculous to put a lot of time and effort with the main aim of changing this number.
A higher PageRank does not equal a better site. Nor does it mean a higher ranking site. (This shows how sporadic the PageRank is for each search result.)
I don’t like being negative and I’m not one to rant. Besides, the “PageRank is bad” argument has been done to death. It’s not bad, it’s simply not worth bothering about. This post has the aim of: (a) convincing the PR obsessed marketers to change their outlook and (b) helping fellow designers/developers/internet marketers to explain to clients that what they heard from their friend simply isn’t true. Take the advice or leave it.
For those obsessed…
Checking the PageRank of your sites each week? Wondering when the next PR update will roll around? Why not take a look from a fresh perspective? After all, you can’t do anything about the PR of your site so why not concentrate elsewhere. And that very fact is is surely enough to convince you to think about PR differently. Instead of building incoming links from sites specifically selected for their high ranking PR (in order to boost your PR), try some of the following (and yes, they’ll also indirectly boost your PR):
Not straying too far from your comfort zone, why not concentrate on encouraging inbound links from some sites that share a similar theme? This will give your site’s ranking in the search engines a boost, especially if the inbound links contain keyphrases related to your site. But will it still increase my PageRank? Yes. The act of creating relevant inbound links will still up your PR.
Sit and chat. By that I mean hang around communities that relate to your site and offer advice, opinion and intelligent debate to that community. Don’t spam and push your site but make sure people are aware of your site, perhaps using a subtle signature. Become an authoritative figure in that community and gain respect. But will it still increase my PageRank? Indirectly, yes. By becoming an authority on a given subject, those interested in that subject will link to you as a ‘guru’ or ‘expert.’ And up goes the PR. People are upping your PR for you now. Hurrah.
Focus on content and readership. Start writing more quality content for your visitors. Again, become an authority figure within your niche. This will naturally lead to an increase in readership. Whilst improving your content, also think of ways to reach out to new readers. Offer something useful for free, perhaps, or possibly consider using newer technologies (like RSS) to let people know you exist. But will it still increase my PageRank? Again, it will in turn. Better content is more likely to get linked to. And more readers means that there is a higher chance of getting linked to. Which means more PR.
Just aiming for an increase in PR will give you just that, a higher PR. Mission complete. But why not do all of the above and boost your site’s traffic, respect and reach whilst also increasing your PR? PageRank has become a bi-product of your marketing. Why would you only want to focus on PR now? Let me know your thoughts on this by commenting below.
And if your client has a PageRank obsession…
I tend to tell them the very same thing that I’ve told you above. I am not ignoring PR, simply using my time (that they’ve paid for) to do better things marketing-wise. And that because of my actions, PR will increase anyway. If you’ve got any advice on this, I’d love to hear it.
Caveats
Despite what I’ve mentioned above, there are always a few situations where PageRank comes into play. It is worth noting your PageRank down and checking it every couple of months in case you need it in the following situations:
Ads: If you are selling adverts on your site via a third-party, that third-party may calculate the ad rate based on your PR. Therefore, yes, a higher PR does help. You could always manage your own adverts though.
Banned: If you have a site with PageRank (PR1+) and it suddenly disappears, it may be an indication that Google isn’t happy with you. A quick check to see if you’re banned would be recommended if this happens.
(A Simple) Conclusion
Think less about PageRank, and care more about your visitors and how to attract new ones.
