| Top Web Hosting Provider of The Month: |
 |
| Visit Bluehost.com | Read Bluehost Review |
|
|
| >> Web Hosting Geeks // Web Hosting Articles // Web Design |
|
|
 |
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:
Web-Design - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Tips on How to Design a Great Site Have you ever walked pass a shop that, for some reason, you just felt that you had to go in? Maybe it was the décor, or the window display, or the pretty girl, or a combination of all those but something in the shop called out to you, "Come in" and you just had to obey.In the online world, won't it be nice to have a site that buyers just had to buy from, despite themselves? Surfers will be drawn to the "Add to Cart" button that squealed, "Click me!" to them. Creating Personal Web Sites This is a two-part article about creating a web site on the web and the tools that you need to do that.During the last decade we have truly entered the information age. 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. Tips For An Effective Website A successful website is something that everyone venturing into the new arena of Internet marketing and communications wants to have. Your website will often be a potential client's first impression of you and your business. Get FASTER Download Times By Making BIGGER Web Pages! As a webmaster you already know how important it is that your web pages download fast. In a nutshell, if your pages are slow, then you're losing visitors. Using CCS to Eliminate Tables CSS or Cascading Style Sheets has opened up tremendous possibilities for improving web site designs, web page layouts and adding new features. The HTML code can be made shorter, cleaner and simpler by CSS resulting in faster loading of web pages, and making them more accessible to search engines. Should You Bother Learning HTML to Build Webpages? The most popular method to build webpages today is to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software. Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver are prime examples of WYSIWYG software. You Too Can Have an Amazing Website It is a well-known fact that a successful business depends greatly on how it is marketed. With an ever increasing dependence on the web, the use of a professional website is not only a necessity, but a priority. 10 Ways Web Site Text Can Impact Your Readers Buying Decision 10 Ways Web Site Text Can Impact Your Reader's Buying DecisionThe appearance of your web site text can actually increase or decrease your sales. The size, font, style and color of your text can easily affect your reader's buying decision. How to Double Your Online Sales Without Spending Another Dime on Advertising Learning how to convert visitors to your web site into buyers, is the single most important factor affecting the success of your online business. If you don't have paying customers, your business will fail. Great E-Cover Creation in 5 Steps There are several graphic software packages available to help you create your own e-covers for your product or service. Most provide you with a set of templates to choose from, and have varying degrees to allow you to modify the templates provided. How To Design A Web Site I'm not a professional web site designer and openly admit there is a lot that I don't know. But if you're a beginner I probably know more than you do, so listen up. Why Ugly Sites Sell More Than Pretty Ones What the heck is going on lately? Most internet websites I go to now, all I see are pretty graphics everywhere. I see moving images, I see crazy JAVA, things flying around. Use Feng Shui Techniques To Design a Harmonic Website For Your Business By following feng shui guidelines and techniques, you can build and design a business website that is not only visually attractive but also attractive to wealth and prosperity. The elements that are part of a business website are somehow equivalent to the objects distributed through a working space since the website is the electronic version of the actual business' offices. Tableless Web Designs: Why I Switched Since I made the switch 6 months ago to a tableless design on my main site, I've noticed some interesting things: My search engine rankings have dramatically improved My bandwidth usage has dropped about 50-75% I can now make changes to the look and feel of my site easily by just changing the one file, the stylesheet. Let's look at why my search engine rankings improved. Technology vs. Usability When JV Media Design was formed, the year was 1995 and the Internet was a very different place than it is today.The first websites we created used simple layouts, a modest amount of graphics, standard "web safe" colors, and no javascript. Website Design For Small Businesses There are many different website design companies, offering different facilities such as flash design, however what should a small business look for when seeking an internet prescence?When choosing which company you would like to build your website, there are many factors which you need to take into consideration.Firstly how much is the website going to cost to build and host. Choosing A Web Designer : A Plan to Guide You Through The Minefield Choosing a web designer can seem like a daunting task. They come in all shapes and sizes - from freelancers working at home to glossy new media agencies, and there is as much variation in prices and service as there is in size. How Not To Get Web Design Work I get the occasional web design lead from my website. I wanted to find a company I could pass these onto. Create A Web Site That Builds Trust If someone doesn't know you personally, will they trust you enough to do business with you just by visiting your web site?Most people view organizations - and web sites - they don't know with great skepticism. Given all the identity theft and viruses running around, people are understandably cautious and somewhat skeptical when they go to a new web site.
|
|
|
|
|
| © 2004 - 2008 "Web Hosting Geeks" | Web Hosting Reviews | Customer Reviews | RealMetrics Reviews | Hosting Articles | Directory | Partners | Contacts Over 7000 articles: web hosting, web development, domain names, ecommerce, web design, site promotion, ppc advertising, seo, site promotion and many others. Web hosting reviews, ratings and awards are not based on any incentives or commissions. Names and trademarks are the properties of their respective owners. A direct link to Web Hosting Geeks (http://webhostinggeeks.com) must be provided in order to use any of the above information. Contact us for more info. Partners: Hosts by speed, Cheap Website Hosting, Free Website Hosting, Cheap Web Hosting, Top 10 Web Hosts, Top 10 Web Hosting Deals, Best Website Hosting, Free Web Hosting, Free Web Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting, Adult Web Hosting, Web Hosting Discussions, Dedicated Server Reviews, Best Web Hosting, Web Hosting Discounts, HostProfessor.com, rsuog, halyava, PHP Website Hosting Services, Web Hosting Reviews, Hosting Uptime, Best Web Hosting Reviews, Cheap Webhosting, Web Hosting, Flash Templates, CMS Templates, Web Hosting Reviews, Website Hosting Reviews, Web Hosting Providers, Best Web Hosting, Top Web Hosting, RSUOG Web Hosting |