People surf the web for content. It's really that simple. As a rule,
they are not looking for cool graphics or strange plug-ins or anything
esoteric - they just want to read, look at or buy something.
If your site is a store, they want to purchase a product;
if it's a fan site for a favorite actress, then they want pictures;
Most of the time they want to read something interesting.
One important fact to remember about the internet is how incredibly
huge it really is. There are hundreds of millions of people logged on at
any one time, and there are almost 100 million web sites available to
them! Those numbers are staggering.
Because of this, surfers are very fickle. They know that if your site
does not immediately or at least quickly give them exactly what they want,
they can go somewhere else. This fact applies regardless of whether you
are selling a product or displaying pictures of Heather Locklear - people
visiting your site want to find something useful or pretty or they will
leave immediately.
In order to keep those surfers at your site, you must work hard and you
must be smart. Your pages not only have to have good content, they
cannot violate some basic rules-of-thumb.
- Text
- The text must be readable. How can you
communicate anything if the communication cannot even be read?
- Multimedia
- Sound, video,
java, animations
and ActiveX must be well thought-out and it
must make sense. There is little that can kill a site faster than poorly
implemented multimedia.
- Advertisements
- You must not bury your site in extraneous
advertisements. In fact, as far as
advertising is concerned, subtle is better. In general, people do not
want to see banners, text links, testimonials or any other kind of
advertisements.
- Colors
- Colors must not hurt the eyes. You should
use colors to enhance your message, not detract or degrade it.
- Load Times
- You really want to kill your site fast, then make it load slow over
a dialup connection.
- Site Layout and Navigation
- Your site layout and
navigation must be excellent. Poorly
designed layouts and navigations make it difficult for your site to
communicate because they hide the communication.
- Organization
- Your site should be well organized.
As with layout, if your site is poorly organized then the communication
becomes lost.
- Page Lengths
- Keep your page length's short and
sweet. This is the web - people want shorter rather than longer pages.
- Dynamic HTML
- Unless it's essential to your site's intention, it's a good idea to
avoid dynamic HTML.
- Cursors
- Personally, I would avoid special cursors,
specially those using the loathsome Comet Cursors.
- Graphics
- Your graphics must be well planned and
useful. Too many graphics will make your pages difficult to understand
and increase load times.
- Bad use of webrings
- Webrings are great, but they need to
be carefully integrated into a site or they can be tacky and actually
cause you to lose traffic.
- Popup Windows
- Don't use popup windows at all. There is
little that is more hated on the web than these idiotic, loathsome,
in-your-face pieces of trash.
Yes, I know it sounds like a lot to remember, but your job is
entertain, enlighten or sell to your visitors. You have to be good and do
a good job in order to do this.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.
