Tips For Do it Yourself Web Designers
So, I just had a big conference to promote my business and I found it truly amazing at the number of people who were looking for website design. To sweeten their interest, I offered free website assessments for those people who already had an existing website, but weren’t getting their money’s worth from what they’ve spent on their design.
When I got home to start reviewing these websites, I quickly discovered WHY these people were having such a terrible time drawing internet traffic….bad design and way too much content.
Let me elaborate on both of these points. Bad design can be anything from a website that is functional on one browser but not another. One business had a splash page up but it didn’t show an enter button on IE8. When I sent him my assessment, I told him that there really wasn’t anything to assess since there weren’t any pages. He called me the next day and said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Well, from where I’m sitting there is no other pages to look at except for a splash page (another web design no-no, by the way). When I looked at his site via Firefox, there was the button!
So, lesson number one for those who think they can design a site themselves….you MUST test your website across all web browsers and different versions. This includes IE6 through 8, Firefox AND Safari. Don’t make the narrow minded assumption that everyone looks at websites through your browser of choice, because that’s just not realistic.
Lesson number two for individuals who want to design a website themselves: Just because you think blinking graphics or button sounds are cool, doesn’t mean it is…EVER. Keep in mind that people click a lot on a web page. Do you realize how many button sounds that equates to within one minute? If you had a cat, it would be crawling up the ceiling with the annoying sounds from the clicks of the buttons on the page. And, blinking images or scrolling text, IN RED NO LESS, doesn’t attract people to your site. If, and only IF they find your site and they stumble across your scrolling red text, they will think it’s an emergency alert and immediately be drawn to it rather than the meaningful content you took hours to put together so you could sell your service or product.
Lesson three: How much content is too much? Every single person who requested a website assessment had entirely too much content on their pages. Simple facts about their product or service turned into diatribes about the history of air pollution, or there were so many adjectives used to described a cleaning product, you forgot what it was they were selling! Keep your content short and to the point. Use bullet points to emphasize the key takeaways for what you are trying to sell. Put these “above the fold” on the web page rather than toward the very bottom. Reducing the amount of content on your site eliminates the need for the end user to scroll and they’ll be able to find the information they are looking for and stay on your site!
Lastly, if you are going to design a site on your own, don’t forget best practices for SEO. Without that, every single keystroke, all those endless hours of code and picking and choosing about button sounds will have gone to waste. No one will find you on the internet anyway.
Nancy Chovancek is the owner of Pegleg Web Designs, a web design company located in Bloomingdale, Illinois. Nancy has a college degree in Web Graphic Design from DeVry University as well as being a Certified Project Manager thru the Project Management Institute. Please visit Pegleg Web Designs website for more information at http://www.peglegwebdesigns.com
Author: Nancy Chovancek
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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