My Top Ten Website Pet Peeves

I do a lot of surfing on the Internet. I’m always Googling something. Sometimes I’m doing business research. Other times I might be shopping, looking for fun stuff, free stuff, product reviews, or news. The Internet is a wonderful thing when it’s done right. When websites are designed poorly, it can be very annoying.

My top ten pet peeves about the design of web pages:

10. Websites with nothing on the home page to identify itself.

You’ve seen them. Nice graphics, artistic, elegant looking home pages with no information. It might say “ BXY Inc.”, with a link for ‘Contact’ and a list of clients. You click on every link, but you still don’t know what the company does. Hmmm - must be top secret … or they are spies … nobody knows.

9. Flashy, sparkly, swirling intro pages.

You click on a link, expecting to get someone’s home page with the information you’re after. What you get is a page with pretty pictures flashing or blinking or swirling around. It does this for several seconds, or longer if you’re not lucky.

Website programmers enjoy playing with these fancy features (ooh, aah!). They look cool, but they waste the reader’s time. They serve no useful purpose, unless you’re selling flashy, sparkly things.

Another kind of intro page that is slightly amusing … you click on the link to a website and you get another page that just says “click here to enter”.

8. Music, or any other sound, that starts up when you click on the home page and you can’t turn it off.

In the first place, I resent it when people assume I want to listen to their choice of music. There should at least be the option to turn it off.

I find a website that has some good content that I’m interested in, so I go to their home page and the music starts playing some sentimental, mushy song like “Feelings”. So I hit the ‘stop’ button on my browser, but the music goes on … and on.

OK, fine, I click on one of their interesting links and thank you God, the music stops. When I’m finished with that page, I have to go back to the home page to get to the next link and guess what happens! That’s right – “Feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings….” So I quickly hit the next link. They have several interesting links on their homepage so I’m am going back and forth 15 times and the music is going off and on 15 times.

Pretty soon, my husband says, “What the heck are you doing over there?” So I either give up on that website or mute my sound.

7. Excessive drop down menus.

Drop down menus have their place when you have an option of 50 states or 100 countries, but I think they should be avoided when there are only a few menu options. This is another one of those cool features programmers like to play with that isn’t necessarily productive for the user.

One problem I have with drop down menus is that too often they are coded in text about the size of the width of my cat’s whiskers. You have to have the dexterity of a Swiss watch maker to click on the right option.

If the drop down menus have several nested levels – one wrong click on level 5 and you have to start over!

If you have a drop down menu with 100 items, for heaven’s sake, please have them in alphabetical order! I was filling out a form with a drop down menu with about 100 countries listed in random order. I had to read the whole list and I finally found my country near the bottom listed between China and Transylvania!

6. Too many moving parts.

Too many moving graphics on every page make it hard to read the content. I know, it’s fun to have cutesy animated graphics on personal web pages, but they shouldn’t get in the way of reading the content. A little animation is interesting and artistic – too much is annoying and cheesy.

Oh, let’s not forget the most annoying graphics of all – animated banner ads that talk to you! Excessive animated banners are distracting and annoying and they look unprofessional on business pages. If a page has too many of them, I won’t stay there long.

5. Web page that is too long or too big.

Long web pages are too hard to follow. These are the web sites where the first page goes on and on with no discernable structure. It’s like trying to read a 400 page book on 1 very long sheet of paper with no chapter breaks.

Web pages with huge pictures are a problem, especially for Internet surfers on a dial-up connection. Pictures should be resized to no more than 50k-100k and/or compressed. When someone is on a dial-up connection, it can literally take 5 or 10 minutes for a bunch of large pictures to be displayed.

Couple a bunch of large pictures with a web page that never ends and you might as well go watch your favorite movie while the page is loading. People on a slow connection will just give up and go to someone else’s website.

4. Totally invalid search results.

If you spend a significant amount of time researching on the Internet you have probably run into this. You enter ‘cat jewelry’ in the search engine and you get a page that is selling a bunch of stuff, but it has nothing to do with cats or jewelry – and it’s not a rock group called Cat Jewelry either.

This happened because the keeper of that website is using the search keyword phrase ‘cat jewelry’ for their website because they found out it is a popular keyword. This is known as keyword spamming.

What are these people thinking? I guess they think if you throw enough spam against the wall, some if it will stick.

If Google catches you keyword spamming they send a burly guy named Bruno out to stomp on your keyboard. No, seriously, they drop you from their ‘lists’ and act like you don’t exist.

3. Websites that look like they were shot out of a shotgun.

These websites often have the #5 problem also – going on and on with no structure. They have tons of obnoxious banner graphics with no common theme. ‘Save the Orphan Rats’, ‘Best Long Distance Rates’, ‘Are you a good kisser?’, ‘Free Insurance Quotes’. They have all kinds of unrelated text links in different text sizes and colors, with no organization or relationship.

Often these unorganized, unfocused websites use about 15 different fonts, sizes, and colors, giving it the look of the work of a 10 year old.

Somewhere on this website there must be something related to what I Googled to get there, but darned if I can find it!

2. Text size that is too small or too large.

Have you ever seen a web page where the text size is so large you have to scroll down to read 3 words? Does the author of that website think they will get their point across by shouting at the top of their lungs? How smart does that make the author of the 4 inch letters look?

Sometimes the text size is way too small. It must be wonderful to have such great eyesight that you can comfortably read letters the size of the year on a penny from 18 inches away. It’s ridiculous to go to all the work of creating a website with great content, but it’s too hard to read. I know sometimes you can change the text size in your browser, but sometimes you can’t.

1. Content is hard to read because of text and/or background colors.

The purpose of having written content on your website is so people can read it, right? So why make it hard to read by having light pink text that you can barely see on a pink background. Add to this scenario text that is too small (see #2) above and have some butterflies or fairies flittering across the screen, and you have a pretty picture that is impossible to read!

The easiest to read is a very dark text on a very light background. Even white text on a black background is harder to read.

When you create a website or web page, avoid anything that wastes the reader’s time or causes confusion. Too many fancy features slow down the loading speed. If you want people to read your content, make it easy to read. Your structure and design should be straightforward and organized. When you are building a web site, you need to consider what is best for the readers and they are more likely to stay on your website longer.

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Until Next Time!
Arianna


Nancy Barney is the owner of http://www.WritingPlanet.com which has free articles, free article submission and free writer's resources. http://foxiedesign.blogspot.com http://foxpromotions.blogspot.com

How Easy Can a "Bot" Crawl Your Site?

Many webmasters believe that great content is the key to Search Engine Optimization but they have forgotten an even more important factor, how easy can the bots crawl their sites? Making a 100% crawlable site should be the top priority for all the webmasters. There is no point having a unique and fresh content but cannot be searched from the search engine index.

In order to ensure that bots can crawl a site successfully, one must make sure that all pages can be found by going from page to page via the inter linking mechanism. It is recommended to use text links as a form of linking between all the internal pages. Webmasters can also provide a sitemap that lists all the pages’ links in a page to facilitate this indexing.

One point to take note is that if the site has more than 100 links, it is advisable to split the sitemap into several pages with each page containing no more than 100 links. A page with more than 100 links may be classified as ‘Links Farm’ by the search engine. This is stated officially in the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Google Sitemap is another great tool to index a new site. Creating a Google sitemap is encouraged because it tells the search engine what are the pages in a site and how often the content is updated. This is particularly useful when some pages are not linked to within the site.

Many sites have faced crawling problems because of the way they linked up the internal pages. Search Engine bots have difficulties indexing JavaScript and Flash navigation menus. If it is not possible to remove this kind of navigation in a site, it is advised to implement a text-link navigation system in the footer of a site. This will help the bots to index the site easily.

According to Google Webmaster Guidelines, it is advised to have a static and short HTML link destination rather than a dynamic URL. Dynamic URL especially those with tagged session identifiers will not be indexed because bots will ignore these pages. It is also encouraged to avoid using the ‘&id=’ parameter when passing variables between pages as Google does not include them into the index. If parameters are needed to pass between pages, a meaningful parameter like ‘&count=’ can be used instead.

When the bots conduct a visit, they will crawl the page like what a general user will see in their browser. Therefore, the bots will never index a password-protected page. If the objective is to get the site indexed by the search engine, it is advisable to remove any password-protected pages to allow access for the bots.

A site should always be search engine friendly so that users can locate the content easily. To conclude, search engines like to index simple and content rich pages. A simple and crawlable site with great content is the essential criteria to Search Engine Optimization.

Fun Site:
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Until next time!
Arianna


TAN KC is a SEO consultant with several years of related experiences. His advice has helped several Webmasters to increase their SERP. KC is also the founder of www.useseo.com a site that offers free SEO techniques. http://foxpromotions.blogspot.com

10 Tips for Killer Website Design

Does website design make a difference in how long people will visit your website or if they'll stay and shop? You bet. You've seen the websites that scream "bad idea" and you know those folks are losing potential customers to their ineffective website design. Whether you are an internet newbie or an experienced marketer, you should understand that good website design is part of the success equation.

So here are my 10 tips on how to create killer website design that will invite potential customers in instead of scare them away.

1. Easy Navigation- The road to success

When people come to your website they are usually searching for something in particular. It might be recipes for a healthy low fat diet that takes less than 30 minutes to prepare or what is the best business to start online. Whatever they want, you need to have the answer. So ask yourself, why do people come to my website? When you know that then you know you should make it easy for them to find it.

I have been on countless websites that make it difficult for me to do business with them. And you know what my first response is? "Next!"
I am onto the next website to see if they can answer my question. People don't want to waste their time hunting for things that should be easy to find.

So, if people come to your website to find widgets, have a button easy to see and locate that says "Widgets". People have been trained to look to the left of the website for the navigation bar.

2. Flashing Gizmos - The exit ramp to a dead end street

You've seen those sites where the elephants are dancing and the poker chips are running across the screen asking you to click on them…the only thing they have ever done for me is give me a headache and to reach the "let me get out of here as fast as I can" button on my computer.

If you are a running a professional site, please don't use flashing graphics. Guaranteed you are encouraging people to leave your site. People have come to you for information. Not to click on an ad or have their brain scrambled.

Make your website a pleasant environment for the customer to be in. Just like a store. Think about when you go to the mall. You want to go in a store that is clean, well laid out, has good customer service and the products you are looking for. Your website should reflect this. If it is what you expect in your shopping experience then does it not reason, your customers are looking for this in your website.

What about music? Well, it depends. On most business sites I would suggest not. But let's say you have a realtor by the ocean who rents out homes for summer vacations. They have music that sounds like the ocean is lapping at the foot of your desk. I think music is appropriate in this venue but I would definitely have it "off" as people log onto your site and give them an option to turn it on. Don't forget many people are surfing in their office environment and don't want the boss to find out. If your music is loud or on as people log onto your site and can't find a quick way to turn it off, they will leave your site faster than a cat that just saw the jaws of a Doberman!

3. Color - Enhancing the highway scenery

Color is an individual preference but studies show that colors have an affect on people's emotions. Look at the top sites like Amazon; their layout is simple and so is their color scheme.

My recommendation would be to go with the flow. If you have a financial investment site then conservative colors seem to follow. If you sell beach items then lots of fun colors apply. If you have a bridal shower website, I would say soft pastels. Think about your audience and you will know the color scheme.

4. Page Links - I-95 to your destination

This is a no brainer but make sure all of your buttons are hyperlinked to a page and the right destination page. No one including Goggle likes broken link pages. It can be tedious but do it anyway. As you hover over the button and look down in the left-hand part of your screen, you will see the hyperlinked page. Just verify that yours are correct.

5. About Us - Is your map reliable?

People usually want to know basic things before they do business with you. Who are you, how do I get a hold of you, what is your product or service guarantee, will you resell my email address, what is your privacy policy, when will I get the product, etc. You need to answer these questions to create trust between you and your potential customer.

6. Sitemap - How do I find my way around this big city?

Let's say you have a lot of products or pages and resources. A sitemap helps people where to find what they are looking for quickly without have to rummage through your whole site like a lost soul. They are not hard to create but are useful for large sites. It also helps the search engines to know what you are about very quickly.

7. Fast Loading Pages - All lanes are go!

There is nothing worse than slow loading pages. You can optimize your graphics for your website. People hate to wait. You can check your page load time and page rank on Alexa.com. Slow pages equal death to an online business.

8. Shopping Cart - Need to buy some souvenirs

If you are selling items or services, you need a reliable and well organized shopping cart. I have seen some websites that have a zillion products listed and to email them for orders. What a nightmare! Yes, the shopping carts will charge you a fee but it is worth it for them to handle the transaction. There are many good shopping carts available and I would research them based on your business' needs.

9. Templates or Original Design- Chevrolet or Porsche

People often think that to have a website designed is going to cost thousands. So they opt for the templates and throw together sites. There is nothing wrong with this approach except I can tell the difference between what I call a "canned" site and one that was created from scratch. While I don't think a website that uses templates will turn off a customer, I just think it may not be as appealing.

Have fun with your online business. You can go to any number of photography sites and download professional photos from cows to race cars. This will make your site look more customized.

Again, I recommend that you shop for a good web designer. I paid around $400 for a basic site to go up. I know others would have charged me $1000 or more. That's why you need to shop and see examples of their work.

10. Customer Service - The Finish Line!

Okay so how is customer service a website design? Well, customer service should be written all over your site. From tips, to free reports, to guarantees, to fast and reliable shopping. People want to know you know what you are talking about and can deliver the goods they want.
Give a little and I guarantee you'll get in back tenfold.

Fun Sites:

• HostMonster (Click Here)
• Click Here to Check out some great photos for your website!
  
  Until Next time!
  Arianna
  
  
  Jan Peterson founder of www.goldstarreview.comresearches and reviews business opportunities including internet marketing, real estate investing, affiliate marketing, financial investing and more. Over 400 FREE reports available. Source: ArticleTrader.com http://foxiedesign.blogspot.com http://foxpromotions.blogspot.com