¡Tu mensaje de bienvenida, twitter o publicidad aquí!

| Suscríbete vía RSS

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Your Stinking Web Site

| |

By Matthew Henage

Your website stinks, I can smell it from here. The following is one of many reasons why your website might stink.

You forgot to Plan

You were on a tight schedule, you needed customers fast or you just didn't want to take the time. Whatever your reason for not planning was probably a poor one. And this is could be a good reason why your website stinks. First plan out your navigation, your brand image, the type of visitors you want to attract and then build out your web design.

Your Budget Stinks

So you thought you just needed a website and traffic would magically show up. Spending the entirety of your budget on design and content is a mistake worth filing chapter 7 bankruptcy. Not only do you need a website, but you also need to market it. Without an audience, your website is useless. Follow the flexible rule of thumb: spend a quarter on design and branding, a quarter on content and development, a quarter on public relations and SEO, and a quarter on your initial advertising budget.

You Forgot to Do Cross Browser Testing

Your website looks great in Firefox, but looks awful in Internet Explorer or vice versa. With problems like this, you are presenting a destructive image to half or more of your audience. Make sure your website works in Internet Explorer 6-8, Firefox 2-3, and Safari browsers. Heck, It couldn't hurt to check it out in Google Chrome as well.

Your Lacking a Singular Voice or Direction

You thought you could create a site with no thought to what you wanted to accomplish with it. As the cat from "Alice in Wonderland" said to Alice when deciding which road to take, If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." If you have no end destination, it means your website has no purpose; so congratulations, you've wasted your money. One of the most lucrative steps you can take in creating a website is to determine the prime purpose of your website and gear every effort towards accomplishing this goal.

Your Site Does Not Have Any Substance

If your traffic is not better off after visiting your site, your site probably has nothing of value. And if your site has nothing of value to your visitors, do you really think they are going to stay long or come back? Give them a reason to stay on your site, give them a reason to come back, and you can do this by putting value into your web design and content.

You Make Your Targeted Traffic Impatient

Your website is slow or it has an splash page (intro) to get to the actual content. Whatever it may be that is making your potential clients wait, it is not acceptable. Give them a first rate service, and please them with quick content and you'll see them come back for more.

You Forgot to Put Design into Web Design

Form follows function, and if your website is for your business the function of your website is to make more money. If you focussed on how good your design looks, over a design that persuades your visitors to make a profitable action your running a risk. Your web design should tell a story about your company. But first you need to create a story that influences your audiences to do what you want them to, and then you need to tell that story through your web design.

About the Author:

0 comments: