Tumblr 101: Tips And Tricks To Get Started
Sebastian Thrun: Google's Driverless Car
10 rules for your small business home page
If you're in business and reading this article, chances are your company has a Web site. Before we all go to Web 2.0, does your site measure up to Web 1.0? Let's check how your site stands up to Web pages that "suck."Read on to learn how you might be sending your potential customers fleeing in terror.
- WHO ARE YOU?
Does your homepage have your logo prominently displayed in the top left area? Can I go to your home page and click a link for email or find your telephone number? If not, smack your Web developer and tell them that contact information is critical to your site visitors and it shouldn't be hidden on the "contact us" page. - WHAT DO YOU DO?
Your mission and vision are lovely sentiments, but I want to know what you do. Can I use your services? Do you sell to my business or are you wholesale only? How do I find out what products you sell and what they cost? If your site says, "Call for pricing," I'm not calling because someone else displays the price online. Is there a single statement that says what you do or sell smack in the middle of your homepage? - WHERE IS IT?
Does your site have a homepage search field? If your links aren't complete or itemized, I'm not clicking all over to find what I want because I'm a firm believer in single-clicking to get where I want to be. Give me a search box, please. - OUCH! MY EYES!
Did you go through your font list for the weirdest fonts that exist, add neon color and then enlargify them? Don't think I'm going to use my credit card on a site that drips bright colors in a mishmash of fonts (or for that matter, on a site whose home page is titled, "Home Page"). - BIGGER ISN'T BETTER
Did you take the photo on your homepage with your new digital camera and then slap it up on the Web site, maybe dragging the corners to make it smaller? That giant photo (which only looks smaller) takes at least 20 seconds to load in my browser and I've already clicked the next link in my Google search results. If you don't know how to work with photos on the Web, hire someone who does. - LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
While it's true that Flash-driven sites are very cool and some spectacular, when I hit a Flash-only site, I rarely hang around for the file to play. When I see one that's fresh, I might watch it but soon I'm off to another site where I can buy something. Generally, if you're selling anything online, lose the total-page Flash and make the site look sleek, professional and trustworthy. - TOO BIG, TOO SMALL, JUST RIGHT
It's difficult to know what size monitors your visitors have, so why is your home page so wide that it doesn't fit in my browser window? Scrolling left-to-right is a big no-no on a homepage (or any other page). If you're not sure how to make the page flexible, then make it wide enough for an average monitor (750 pixels, and if you don't know what pixels are, please hire a Web person). - NEW FROM 2004!
If your homepage has news or upcoming events and the latest one happened in 2004, get it off your homepage. In fact, get "news" off your homepage because no one updates their site often enough. Is your photo album so hopelessly out of date that you can't identify the pictures? (Hint: lose the calendar. No one uses it. If you're event-driven, get one from Google.) - HELP! I'M LOST!
Navigation (links) should be clear, logical and intuitive. If I can't find what I want from your homepage, I'm leaving. Write a simple outline of what pages you want on your site. (Remember the Roman numerals and capital/small letters from seventh grade? That's an outline.) Give that to your Web developer and wait for the kiss that is sure to follow. - NOTHING TO SAY?
If you have nothing to say, delete that page from your site. Bigger isn't better and there are no prizes for number of links on your homepage. You need concrete information that visitors and buyers want to read and not a lot of fluff, but we expect at least one fluffy page (usually "About Us").
Then advertise it so it shows up on Google searches. But that's another article.
Comments
16
Subscribe to commentsDuaneApr 20th 2007 9:23AM
How is this at all relevant to Download Squad? Just jumping on the "make a list about increasing your traffic/business/blogposts and the traffic will come" bandwagon?
GUPTHADEEPAK2005Apr 20th 2007 10:05AM
hai i see these in googl.
glacia00Apr 20th 2007 6:46PM
#6 is a huge problem. Web designers should be beaten night and day with this. Sites of any kind that automatically play media especially sounds or music chase people away.
Unless they're giving away money there is seldom anything important enough on a website to make people return to it after it screams at them through headphones.
Sue PolinskyApr 20th 2007 1:18PM
glacia00, good point. It's amazing the nasty looks you can get in a crowded room when your speakers start blasting something you weren't expecting. Controls are a good thing for all media!
2241Apr 20th 2007 8:28PM
It all comes down to "Who Are We ?"
"Where do we want to go ?"
www.2241glasses.com
glaciaApr 20th 2007 2:42PM
"Controls are a good thing for all media!" To have your speakers on in a crowded room is the fault of the user. But to have media automatically play on a website is unquestionably bad design. If someone wants to have media on their site it should always be off by default.
Many people listen to their own audio while surfing whether it be music or an audio feed and for a designer to not know this borders on incompetence.
CharlesApr 20th 2007 3:02PM
I agree with most of these, but the 750-pixel rule is actually starting to become obsolete IMHO. I spent 6 years priding myself on making certain that none of my sites required horizontal scrolling, but 800x600 is quickly starting to fall off the map (it's down to about 13% of all web surfing monitors according to TheCounter.com). Over the past year, 2 of my clients have specifically instructed me to abandon the 800x600 crowd in favor of larger graphics, etc.
music2myearApr 20th 2007 4:36PM
Which means, and I agree with this, glacia, that all myspace and it's designers are incompetent.
MattApr 20th 2007 4:15PM
But when you use CSS, you don't have to limit the width of your page merely by pixel #, you can have it scal to % of screen space...thus filling the screens how you want.
Sue PolinskyApr 20th 2007 4:19PM
Matt, you're absolutely right - CSS (heck, even flexible tables) allows for width changes to fill a monitor/screen. You'd be surprised how many business owners DON'T want that. They want the site to look exactly like they see it on everyone's monitor, no matter how wide it is. One of the reasons often is lack of content - short content looks silly on a 20" monitor's screen when stretched.
I wonder how long it's going to be before the 1024px width is going to become the 'accepted' standard?
anthonyrApr 20th 2007 4:23PM
Some very good points... Now if only you guys can do something about all those glaucoma causing lime green links on the right.
OscarApr 20th 2007 4:55PM
Flash, Ahrrrg, I could not agree more with you. Stay away from flash, albeit that it has its uses and even a place, but it is absolutly not on the home page.
CarolinaApr 24th 2007 1:23PM
I'm digging this post just for the sentence: "Repeat after me: Webmaster is a real job."
glaciaApr 20th 2007 5:33PM
"I wonder how long it's going to be before the 1024px width is going to become the 'accepted' standard?". That's the same bad design philosophy that has led to software bloat. "More resources, lets eat it up."
Just because there is on average more monitor space doesn't mean people want to fill it with browser. One of the things I love about large monitors is the browser is a smaller percentage of the screen.
I understand everyone who creates anything for the computer screen believes users will love it so much they will never want anything else on their screen (which is where 'run at boot' programs come from) but it just isn't reality. I can think of very few instances, especially on business sites, where a wider format page truly adds anything.
Sue PolinskyApr 20th 2007 5:43PM
I thought I was the only person who didn't full-screen a browser, glacia. Happy to know I'm wrong. (And people wonder where their icons went...)
Steven G. AtkinsonApr 21st 2007 8:47AM
While I would agree with many of the points on this, to me it seems more of an article on why you should hire a web designer.
You may want to read my article saying many of the same things, but without the 'hire me' that I see in this one.
http://tt4sb.wordpress.com/2007/02/15/things-to-consider-when-developing-a-web-site/
http://tt4sb.com