Media Page, Media Kit – What Is the Difference?
Creating a presence for your company online and offline is vital to the success of your business. In order to make this happen, you need to use the right tools to get the job done. Media pages and media kits are very effective tools for promotion and marketing of your company, but first you need to understand the difference between a media kit and a media page.
In essence, the difference between a media page and a media kit is in the delivery. A media page is an online section of your website that includes important information about your company and products. A media kit contains much of the same information, but contains physical documents to be delivered or mailed to press, advertisers or investors.
Media Page
A media page will contain articles, files and images that directly relate to your company. On the page, you should have company information and history, bios of key figures in the company, and updated information and current news about your business. Including downloadable images of your company logo, brochures and product photos will also be useful for the members of the press that access the page, looking for information for an article or review.
Maintaining your media page is extremely important, as those who are seeking information on your company will generally visit your website to do their research. Be certain that everything on the site is up-to-date and that you include contact details for those who may need further information about your company and products.
Media Kits
A media kit will have essentially the same information as an online media page, but in a hard copy format. These information packets can be sent to the press, advertisers or potential investors, to give them ample information to create a story or make a business decision regarding your company. Some companies also include samples or other promotional items in their press kits.
As with a media page, time-sensitive information such as press releases and company bios should be updated on a regular basis. Media kits are most costly than maintaining a media page, as there are regular printing costs incurred with the creation and updating of the packets.
For many businesses, both of these tools can come into play in their marketing arsenal. One approach that is cost-effective for many businesses is to create a media page that includes documents that are in a format that is printable. They can then print copies of their media kit, as needed.
Having an easily accessible media page and media kit is extremely important to the success of your business. Be certain that yours is regularly updated and contains all relevant information that members of the media and others who might view the page will require.
Tools You can Use in Creating a Web 2.0 Design
Although Web 2.0 design is different from its predecessors, practically the same programs are still used in creating them. Newer versions of course have different features, but these programs remain essentially the same.
If you would like to create your own website designs, here are some tools that you will need.
- is probably the most ubiquitous graphics-editing software on the entire planet. It is used by amateurs, web designers and professional photographers alike. Since it was created in 1987 by Thomas Knoll, it has since become the market leader in the web design world.
2. GIMP
- is short for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a program used for graphics editing just like Photoshop. Although it is not considered as a clone of Photoshop, there has been a lot of comparison between the two. GIMP supports a lot of Photoshop’s files and performs a lot of tasks that Photoshop can also do. But their great difference? GIMP is for free and Photoshop is not.
- is a vector graphics editor than can be used in creating logos, typography and other images. Just like other programs of its kind, it allows images to be resized without degradation.
4. CorelDraw
- is another vector graphics editor that is widely used by graphic designers. It has been used by professionals since its release in 1989.
5. Adobe Flash
- is also a vector graphics editor but is more geared towards creating animated graphics. It can also be used in creating games and even entire websites.
The Power of Usability Tests
Once the web design stage is passed, it’s time to perform some usability tests to fix problems and bugs – such as layout structure, spelling, redundancies etc. Since you’ve been developing the page for a while, you know exactly, how it works and what should be done in order to get from point A to point B. However, most users won’t have the knowledge you have, which is why the usability testing phase isn’t only important, but also essential in almost every project.
This web-tool offers an effective website task management system you, your colleagues and your testers can use to exchange information and discuss some critical issues related to the page design.
No download and no installation are needed. It’s enough to insert one line of code in the page you’d like to test and your users can assign, comment and manage tasks directly on your website. Furthermore, they can discuss the problems they’ve found and offer suggestions and ideas on how the problem can be solved. The latter option can be extremely useful once you design a corporate web site, which involves different target groups or if you’d like to find the best compromise between your professional know-how and your clients’ requirements.
As a project manager you can see a list of URLs that have tasks assigned and be notified about new tasks by email. The current beta-version of Taskee is free and can be used without any restrictions whatsoever.
Tweak My Theme: The Importance of Changing Your WordPress Theme
Tweaking your theme on your WordPress blog or web page can have amazing effects on your readership and success of your business. Here are some ways you can make your theme stand out from the rest.
How to Tweak Your WordPress Theme
There are millions of different themes available on the Internet. You can choose one from sites that sell them or give them away free. You could also have someone custom-make your theme, which could cost you a good amount of money. If you choose to select one already made, there are things you can do to make it customized to suit your taste.
• Header. Create a header with your business or blog name on it. If someone stops by your page and sees a header they have already seen somewhere else, they may be inclined to move on.
• Background color. There are simple ways to change the background color to your theme so it matches your header and provides readers an easier to read web page.
• Text color and font. Choose a text color that will be visible on the background color or pattern you have chosen. You also want to pick a font that is clear and large enough for people to see. You don’t want people to have to strain to see the information you have provided for your customers or readers, because they will give up and leave your site.
• Incorporate pictures. Images are a great way to capture someone’s attention and give them a reason to read what you have on your website.
• Do not clutter. Some themes have many frames so you can fit a lot of information on the page. Take out some of these frames so your page looks organized and clean. You don’t want people to have to search for things for too long or again, they will leave your site.
The Importance of Tweaking Your WordPress Theme
Many of the reasons why you should tweak your theme are listed above, but there are additional benefits to doing this.
• Make it your own. You have your own personal style for your blog or business site; don’t settle for someone else’s taste when it comes to what you want to present on the Internet.
• Tailor it to your readers and customers. You know your audience best, so make the page that will be pleasing to them. The more people like your site, the longer they will stay.
• It’s easy. Making a few changes to your WordPress script is not difficult. Sometimes all you have to do is change a few codes and you are all set. There is a lot of information on the Internet that will guide you.
Finally, you want to tweak your WordPress theme because it will give you the success you are looking for in a blog or business website.
4 Web Design Tips for Designers
In the following lines, I have jotted down a few points that I noticed during my online journeys, important from the point of view of web designers. Some of them may be taken with a pinch of salt; for it is not possible to please everyone everytime. But most of them are simple enough to be used as a rule of thumb.
- A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. A picture file, alas, is also almost as big. Images, no doubt, enhance the look of a page, but it is not advisable to go overboard in stuffing your page with a truckload of images. Most net-surfers use a dial-up connection, and the average time to load a page should be no longer than 5 seconds. If it’s longer, the surfer will most probably click away elsewhere. So, within this time, all the images on a page must be loaded as well. So, as a rough yardstick, keep the aggregate page size less than 30k.Another important point to note is that each file on the page requires a separate HTTP request to the server. So a lot of small images – even if they do not add up to a lot in terms of bytes – will slow down the loading a lot.Even when you must use images for navigation, please give a second thought to the users who will not be seeing those jazzy, fantastic & truly amazing buttons that you spent hours to design. Yes, I’m talking of the ALT text attribute of the IMG tag. Do not forget to provide an Alternate Text for each image that you use for navigation. (It may be left blank for certain images that are purely for aesthetic reasons, but let that be an exception, rather than the rule.) Though not obviously apparent, ALT text can help such users immensely.
Modern browsers offer users a choice to turn off images. This gives an idea of how troublesome the unwanted images could be.
A couple of more attributes that make your pages load faster are the HEIGHT and WIDTH attributes. Without these, the browser must wait for the image to download since it cannot know how much space to leave for them!
- Navigability & functionality come before artistic excellence. It is no use making your site a masterpiece of art if users cannot navigate around it – even after they reach the main page, they have no clue as to how to go where they want to go.
- Especially common, is a kind of navigation that some people call Mystery Meat Navigation. That means, that unless your mouse moves over an image, you have no idea where that link might take you. Only when the mouse hovers do you see the actual link. This is cumbersome because users need to move their mouse all over the place to find out which part is a link and which is not.
- Follow the K.I.S.S. principle: Keep it simple, stupid!