Printable Web Pages as an Overlooked Marketing Resource

It becomes more and more clear, that online presence has to be viewed as just one side of our total presence in the market place. One aspect to improve the situation for many websites would be to make it easy for visitors to print web pages.

This should be possible with longer texts as well as with product pages and pages displaying just overviews. The potential of prints from your website as a marketing tool should be activated.

Some ideas for print pages:

- Full contact information of all kinds on one page, including a map showing how to find you.

- Catalogue like pages.

- Reviews.

- Schedules for deadlines, publishing dates or the like.

- Annotated lists of useful resources.

- Product descriptions.

- Teasers of book chapters etc.

- Fax and mail order forms.

- Guaranties.

- Instructions in how to use your products.

- Frequent asked questions with answers.

- If you run an advanced customer support system make a page that shows how easily to find the relevant email address for a specific inquiry.

- Reports (longer in pdf format or zip)

- Online ebooks.

- Newsletters.

Remember to include on all print pages:

- The full url of the page.

- The url of your home page.

- Basic contact information

- A short indication of which kind of product or service you are offering.

- If needed a copyright notion (but don't spoil the potential of viral marketing).

Optimize your print pages:

- Make your pages look valuable for the customer.

- Make the pages inviting to be filed.

- Avoid heavy graphics.

- I will recommend avoiding all banners etc.

- Make your printable pages look like they are designed to paper, e.g. make proper use of the space available and use a font that is good for reading on paper.

- Keep the text column rather narrow to facilitate quick reading.

- Prints will typical be made without background color or picture.

- White text on black background will not be visible.

Take into account that the standard paper formats for North America and Europe are different. The standard for Europe is the A4 format, which is slightly less wide and a bit longer than the American standard.

When you implement these aspects of printable web pages you help your visitors to get the most out of the resources from your website. You help them, too, to remember your site and to come back. And - You help yourself with bridging the gap between online and off-line marketing and visibility.

About the author:

Get help from Soren Breiting to find ideas for your online marketing at http://www.ALLeMarketingTips.com and receive the latest really useful tips at http://www.StockPhotoNews.com (about pictures and marketing). Enjoy Soren's wonderful stock photos at A-Z FOTO http://www.azFOTOS.com. Soren has written more than 20 printed books, and countless articles in journals and magazines about his special fields of expertice.

Written By: Soren Breiting