| |
| |
|
Web Design Information |
|
7 Web Site Design Mistakes That Will Lose You Clients
In today's world, a web site is virtually mandatory for any successful business. But there are web sites that will win you customers, and there are web sites that will lose you customers. Good design has a lot to do with which category your web site will fall into. But what is it that makes good or bad web site design? In my personal opinion, a good web site is one that's simple, informative and gives me a reason to come back frequently. That's what you should get from a good web designer/writer team. Bad sites, on the other hand, are complicated to use, slow loading, confusing or just plain annoying. Here's a list of my personal top 7 turn-offs as far as web site design is concerned: 1. Slow loading pages Studies have shown that you have less than ten seconds to grab a visitor's attention. If your web page hasn't finished loading within that (very short) amount of time, you might as well forget about it. The main culprit I've found here are huge, slow-loading graphics, especially when they are embedded in tables. If large images are absolutely vital to presenting your business, compromise by adding thumbnails to the main page and allow the visitor to click on them to access the main image. Nobody minds a longer loading time, as long as it's them who can make that choice. 2. No contact information As I've already mentioned in my article "Do's and don'ts of web site copy", one of my pet peeves is a web site that has no contact information accessible form the main page. If I can't get in touch with a company quickly and easily, chances are that I'll go to the competition. My advice is to have a whole page dedicated to contact information - address, phone, fax, email, and preferably a map of where you can be found (remember item #1, though - no huge graphics!) And please, don't use a graphic to display that information in a particularly clever way. I like to copy and paste that information directly from the web page to my contact management program. If I can't do that, you'll likely never hear form me - and all other customers who do the same! 3. Difficult to navigate Don't try to be clever with navigational features. Simple text links or, if you prefer, quick-loading graphics are perfectly good means of allowing a visitor to navigate your site. Anything that requires interactive navigation, like menus that expand into sub-menus, sub-sub-menus and so on, is more an indication of a wrong information architecture than of a true need for complicated navigational features. 4. Non-HTML features Don't get me started on this one. I've got a firewall on my computer, and my browser is set to block all those little nasty things that can mess with my PC. As a result I come across many a site that won't display or function properly, because it relies on features like JavaScript, Cookies, Interactive Headers or Java Applets. None of these are necessary to build a good web site, and unless you want your web site to lose you potential customers, you shouldn't use them. Or, if you absolutely have to, make sure that they are not integral parts of the web site! 5. Huge splash page Another pet peeve of mine. As mentioned earlier, you have less than ten seconds to get your message across. Now guess how many visitors are going to wait longer than that just to watch a fancy animation? 'Nuff said. 6. Pop-up ads A huge turn-off as far as I'm concerned. As a matter of fact, I've got a pop-up blocker installed on my PC, so if your web site tried to tell me something important via a pop-up window, I'd never even see it. If you feel that you have to use pop-ups, consider going for the less intrusive (and annoying) pop-under windows instead. 7. Sideways scrolling Not everybody has a monitor with the same screen resolution as you, so make sure that your web site displays on monitors with a lower resolution without forcing your visitor to scroll sideways. It's a singularly annoying thing, and chances are that you'll lose those visitors very quickly. Or, if you have information in a column on the right side of your web site, it may simply never appear on the screen. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MORE RESOURCES:
Goal-Setting - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Facts You Should Know About Web Site Design and Search Engine Optimization 1. Web site File Structure / File NamingMost search engines do not recognize beyond two directory levels. How Do We Know When Its Time To Redesign Our Web Site? A question we frequently get asked is, "how do we know when it is time to redesign our Web site?" The answer undoubtedly varies.The first thing to analyze is your existing Web presence. Very Cheap Website Design Services Are you looking for somebody to build you a website, however do not have a very large budget? This is the position many people find themselves in and are on the lookout for very cheap web design services.There are companies out there or people who are just starting out in a career building websites who to start with will often offer their services at a very reasonable rate, basically to build up a portfolio. Design Your Site For Your Customers The most important person that you need to please when you design your site is your potential customer. I can not stress that enough. 3 Simple Ways To Dramatically Improve Your Website Before you start worrying about marketing your website on the internet it always pays dividends to look at the website itself and get the fundamentals right before looking to shout about it from the virtual mountain-tops.You may already have thought about the following 3 ways and some of you may already have them in place on your website. Keyword Density We can't emphasize enough the importance of including keyword-rich content on your site to increase your ranking potential. Simply put, keywords are the words and/or word phrases people use when searching. Building Your Website to Save You Money Does your website make you any money? Does it SAVE you any money?Websites are more than just marketing tools, out there in Cyber-Land effortlessly promoting you and your products. While that's great, why not use that same website to save yourself some money?How? Well, while I don't know your particular situation, I can provide you with some thought-provoking ideas that you can take back to your web designer for more input. 15 Website Elements That Attract Visitors Here is a quick list of components that make a websiteattractive. They are listed in layers of attractivenessbeginning with the "must" haves, to "nice to haves. Why Long Web Pages are Better than Short Ones Many Internet sites that try to sell you something have very long pages. Why is that do you think? Well, it appears that long, scrolling, web pages lead to more sales than short pages. Transforming A Site From Good To Excellent One of the challenges of moving a web site up from good to excellent is transforming it from just a bunch of web pages and graphics to an interactive experience. Another term for this is community - a place where people can come to communicate with others. Does Your Website Induce Seizures? QUESTION: We promote our web site in all our ad campaigns, but according to my website statistics program, we are getting very few visitors who click past the first page. The site has a cool Flash introduction page that the designer said would impress visitors, but it doesn't seem to be working. How To Use Unsafe Web Colors With Minimum And Safety And Maximum And Profit Do you want to use unsafe web colors without offending anyone? You can and you can do it by using JavaScript. It will determine which style tag the user uses by looking at whether it can use unsafe colors. How to Make a Website (Minus the Headaches) There is nothing wrong with making your own website if you are looking to save some money. Be prepared however, for your finished product to resemble an after school project; cutesy, homemade touches and all. So You're Hiring a Web Designer-You Have the Right to Demand these 7 Perks Whether you're hiring a designer who has created 10 sites or 1000 sites for other businesses, there are 10 things every website should do for you.1. The Next Marketing Tool: Deisgn Design sells. It's something that all of us know, but few of us consciously acknowledge. Your Site Map: Spider Food or Just A Light Snack? Mechanical spiders have to eat. In fact, they usually have bigger appetites than the real-life spiders you squish under your shoe. Website Promotion and Design Tips Are you thinking that it is about time your small business had an internet presence, however are not too sure how or who to go to build and promote the website.This article will hopefully be of benefit to you as it will give you free tips on website promotion and on how to obtain a website on the cheap. Content is Crucial! Content is undoubtedly the most important element of a website. It is the defining factor for a website, that which catches the interest of your visitors and keeps them hooked to your site. Web Page Building for Beginners 2 A search engine robot actually reads the wording on your web pages and places a certain amount of importance on what the content says, but not quite like a human does. A human will place the words together in their head and try to decipher the relevancy to them personally and decide within a few seconds whether they will continue reading or click to another site, whereas a robot counts words and places all relevancy in the numbers it finds. Copy Editing: 10 Powerful, Mind Blowing Secrets For Writing A High-Impact Ad No matter what product or service you're promoting,unless you are able to write and use a highlypersuasive Ad, you may not generate a lot of trafficsand sales.Writing a high impact Ad that will deliver truckloads of sales requires some skill and practice.
|
| home | site map | ArticleGecko | A ClashX Production 2006 |
| © 2006 |