What makes you click the back button immediately? For me, it is cheesy music with no way to shut it off.
Signs of Webmaster Newbies
All of us have been “newbies” at one point in our webmastering lives.We spent hours at dhtml, javscript and graphics sites looking for copy-and-paste stuff that we thought would make our sites look impressive.
First timer’s sites are easily recognized with their smorgasboard of animated gifs, javascripts and other features. Unfortunately, this makes a site look amateur.
Creating an Amateur Image
You might have a brick and mortar business that’s been around for the last decade, with tons of satisfied customers.On the Internet, however, you are somewhat anonymous.To inspire trust, you want a professional image. When designing your website, here are some things to avoid so that your business does not look amateur or like a fly-by-night operation:
- Dark, heavy backgrounds with hard-to-read fonts – For a business website, it’s best to use a plain white background and black text so that your visitors can read it easily. Some first timers are tempted to have patterned or colorful backgrounds, with different text colors. Not only is this hard to read, but if you have a product line, it is difficult to make pictures of your product line blend in with the background.
- Pages that are larger than the browser screen – There’s nothing more irritating that trying to read a web page that scrolls across the screen. Most web usters have their desktop resolutions set at 1024 x 768. Try to stay within those confines.
- Sound effects – Everyone has different tastes when it comes to music, but even if you discovered music that appeals to every single person alive, don’t make it automatically load on your site. With a music site, there are scripts that allow the user to click play and listen at his or her free will. The same goes with audio advertisements or other background sound effects — have a pause or “off” button.
- “Cool” effects – About 8 or 9 years ago, it was real “cool” to have a flash presentation on the index page. Most everyone was doing this. This does not establish your online reputation. Flash introductions take forever to create and many of them are just downright stupid. These introductions can take a long time to load and generally, people will not view them. Other things that beginners think are cool include animated images, page fading effects and scrolling text. When I first started out, I was guilty of adding these things because I thought it made me look like I knew what I was doing. However, the harsh reality is that these effects are a turnoff. I’ve seen some sites, designed by supposed design specialists, where the links scroll by really fast and you have to “aim and shoot” just to be able to click a link. Do not bother including these effects. People visiting your site are looking for products or information, and are not there to look at animations that will give them a headache.
- No clear navigation scheme – Many people enter a website by the interior pages, not at the home page. You need to give them a way to easily navigate through your site. Because of their popularity, your visitors will be most familiar with menus that are on the top or the left. Regardless of where you place your menu, make sure it’s consistent throughout your entire site. A surefire indicator of an amateur web design is the absense of a navigation menu.
- No search feature – Particularly if you have a large product line that you are selling or if you have a content rich site, always include a search box to help your visitors. Google’s fre search box is a tool that you can use if you don’t know how to include a search feature. This makes your site “user friendly” and shows that you care about your visitor’s experience on your site.
- “Secret” prices - If you’re selling products, include the price. Don’t force your potential customer to go through the shopping cart process just to find out the price — many are turned off by this and will not do it in the first place.
- Policies – An amateur site will not include privacy policies, terms of use and, when selling products or services, returns and shipping policies. It’s a good idea to provide contact information, particularly if you are selling products or services.
- Under construction pages – “Under construction” or “coming soon” pages are a surefire way to announce that you’re an amateur. Do not bother linking to pages under construction. Once the page is completed and uploaded, then you can add a link to your menu and sitemap.
- No online shopping cart – If you are selling a product, provide a way for people to purchase your product online. If a web surfer is beyond the ‘research mode’ and ready to buy something online, he or she wants to be able to buy it immediately. For the most part, your potential buyer is not interested in spending the time mailing in a check or money order. Paypal is a good option if you don’t have a merchant account and if you’re selling digital products, services like Clickbank are worth considering.There are free shopping carts available for people who already have a merchant account, such as Mals-e.com, which also provides an affiliate program option.
What’s Your Beef?
Newbie or pro, you can voice your opinion about what makes a stinking website at the NotGuru’s survey about poor website design. If you’re looking for software, giveaways and other things to help your fledgling online business, the NotGuru blog provides plenty of resources.If you have a couple of seconds to spare, take the site design survey and feel free to comment – the results are interesting.
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