WebMastersLoom

Don’t knock it; “Keep It Simple, Stupid” is a great rule to live by. Nobody likes a website to “yell” at them, with blaring colors and flashing lights. Too many buttons will turn customers off. I had this problem with my homepage at http://www.antion.com. A colleague of mine, who makes a lot of money, pointed out the cluttered look of my site. I had worked so closely on every detail of the page; that I couldn’t see it for what it was anymore.

I set out to simplify my site, first by removing the banners and combining my navigational buttons. The goal was a clean looking homepage, so possible customers would not get frustrated or confused and click away.

I also eliminated many of the choices on my site, narrowing it down to two groups for my main clientele, “Need a Speaker” or “Be a Speaker.” The concept here is to make it simple for my customers to locate what it is they are looking for. Reducing the choices on my site will save customers from having to wade through all of my stuff. This would do nothing more than waste their time and reflect poorly on me and my ability to help them.

There is nothing wrong with making your own website if you are looking to save some money. Be prepared however, for your finished product to resemble an after school project; cutesy, homemade touches and all. It is pretty hard to make your own website and have it look professional; but, there is an easier way that will leave you with fewer headaches in the long run.

You must first do some web research. Click around and find websites that have the look you are going for. Make some notes and jot down what it is you do and do not want representing you. You should also start thinking of some keywords that will help people find you if they were to type them into a search engine.

After you have a rough idea of what you would like your site to look like, you should contact a professional who will take care of all the hassles that come with making a webpage. I recommend contacting Global Presence in Tucson, Arizona, http://www.saeler.com; they do great work and pay special attention to detail.

Your website will be created so that you can make changes when and if you see fit. To do this, you should purchase a web authoring program, and learn how to properly navigate the system to make revisions on your site. After the site is up, you only need to know how to do 4 things in order to keep your site up to date.

1. Be able to add a new page, complete with all of the navigation buttons from previous pages.

2. Have the ability to add text.

3. Be able to add a graphic.

4. Know how to make a hyperlink.

These are 4 easy steps that will be repeated numerous times throughout your website’s existence.

Not everyone uses the same browser, so your webpage may look very different from one computer to the next. To get a quick look at how your site may appear on other browsers, go to http://www.anybrowser.com/. When choosing a font, use something standard like Times New Roman; one that virtually every computer has. A good resource to help guide you through all of your website problems is Robin Williams’ (no, not that Robin Williams) book, The Non Designers Web Book.

*Remember to keep your site simple, so that customers don’t get confused by all the buttons, and click away.

Yes, in a world that is obsessed with makeover madness, even your website needs to follow specific color guidelines when picking out “what it will wear”. The colors you use when designing your website tell an awful lot about your business, though you may not know it.

I had this problem myself. I loved my website, it was so cool looking. I had a red, black and white color scheme, and it matched all of the material I sent to meeting planners. They were my colors and I fought changing them.

That is, until I paid $640.00 an hour for Corey Rudl, arguably the most successful small business marketer on the Internet, to critique me. That may sound like an absurd amount of money to pay for a consultation, but Corey is the best, and he definitely came through. Corey told me point blank, my website says “I am trying to sell you something”.

That is not the look I was going for. I wanted my customers to be at ease on my site.

Corey taught me that colors that make people feel comfortable are those that they are used to seeing. So, I toned down my harsh (but still cool) colors and replaced them with gray and blue. I did this because some people are still new to the computer and the Internet. They are tentative with new sites and many haven’t a clue what they are doing.

However, many of those same people are very comfortable navigating Microsoft programs, which are gray and blue.

My hopes were that the similar colors of my site would put newcomers at ease, giving them the same sense of simplicity and control they have when using Microsoft programs.

I have been a student for many years. I even took the 7-year plan to go through college for my Bachelor’s degree. Every so often I still take another course. Since much of my studies and background involve web-related stuff, I tend to notice other people’s websites. (My wife who owns a little hair salon always notices people’s hair.)

My colleges have normally been well supported, and in my last one the teachers had their own web page on the campus website. It included a one-page description of the teacher’s credentials, a picture and some contact information. I found this very useful - since I could find the email for the teacher (especially since I tended to loose handouts that were given a month ago). It also helped me get to know a little more about the teacher.

Unfortunately, these pages were seldom (if ever) updated. Eventually they disappeared with budgetary restrictions.

Lately I have noticed on the web that there are a lot of teacher websites around. Elementary schools, high schools and colleges all had teachers with their own web pages. Many are funded by the school district or by the college campus administration. But few teachers tended to fill this out. I talked with some of the teachers and only a few had the skills or web tools to build their own web pages. Of those who did, there were varying degrees of utility in the pages. Some were very good - with useful information organized in a way to be helpful to students and parents. Others were rather sparse with little information and a couple of class pictures - but who could blame them? These teachers are normally very busy - and the fact that they took the initiative to start one is admirable. Any teacher who took this kind of effort must really love his or her students. (Most teachers don’t have one.)

Here is one teacher who did an outstanding job creating her own website: http://pfinck.tripod.com

I have found a few websites that are focused on providing teachers already built templates in that are nicely organized and useful to the students - and they have web-tools to help the teacher put the information in so they don’t have to be webmasters. They just have to be teachers. Hurray!

This is a TIME SAVER and a valuable information tool for the students (or their parents). All of these listed do not require the teacher to know HTML!

ALSO: Students who have learning disabilities such as dyslexia or ADHD may have difficulty remembering or copying down homework, especially if it is given in the last moments of the class period. Websites that tell the homework and projects can be a very helpful tool – especially for these ones.

WEBSITE #1: http://www.inetteacher.com

ANNUAL COST: $24.95

There is a 30 day free trial available.

This is a very nice template site. I would definitely recommend this for teachers who have only one class.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Place to put information about the teacher or class
• contact information
• calendar of events
• ability for students to check grades
• homework calendar
• materials list page
• student work page (to view student’s work)
• EASILY CUSTOMIZE the look and feel (colors/backgrounds)
• Ability to add other pages as needed

DRAWBACKS:

This site seems to be designed for those who ONLY HAVE ONE CLASS. There is only one page for class news, one for class policy, one calendar of events, and one homework calendar. If a teacher had more than one class, students from the different classes could easily get confused about what information applies to them.

FAVORITE FEATURE:

My favorite feature here is the student work page. This is an innovative feature that I haven’t noticed on the other sites. I think that having a student’s work posted on the website can be a great moral booster.

WEBSITE #2: http://www.schoolandteacher.com

ANNUAL COST: $19.95

There is a 1 YEAR free trial available. (There is a link on their home page for this.)

This too is a very nice template site. I would highly recommend this for any teacher.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Place to put information about the teacher or class
• contact information
• calendar of events FOR EACH CLASS
• homework calendar FOR EACH CLASS
• projects calendar FOR EACH CLASS
• exams calendar FOR EACH CLASS
• quick view FOR EACH CLASS (today’s homework, next exam, next project) This is automatically generated for each class based on the current date.
• files to download (for homework lists and such)
• Email sign-up - to get email reminders for homework or projects or exams
• EASILY CUSTOMIZE the look and feel (colors/backgrounds)

DRAWBACKS:

I didn’t notice any drawbacks. I would like to see a student work page on this site though. (Who knows, they might add this feature this soon.)

FAVORITE FEATURE:

I have 2 favorite features for this website.

My first is the email sign-up for the homework reminders. I have 2 daughters and wish my teachers would have this service - just for this particular feature. That way I could get daily emails on what my kids have for homework. I wouldn’t even have to browse to the website.

My second favorite feature here is quick-view. For students in a hurry, this is an awesome thing to check. In one page, you can see all the current data for your class.

WEBSITE #3: http://www.myteacherpages.com

ANNUAL COST: $39.95

There is a $10 off the first YEAR subscription available.

This is a very nice template site. I would definitely recommend this for teachers who have only one class.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Place to put information about the teacher or class
• contact information
• calendar of events
• homework list
• EASILY CUSTOMIZE the look and feel (colors/backgrounds)
• Ability to take a survey
• Slideshow of class pictures
• Form Creator tool to create feedback forms

DRAWBACKS:

This site seems to be designed for those who ONLY HAVE ONE CLASS. There is only one page for class news, one for class policy, one calendar of events, and one homework calendar. If a teacher had more than one class, students from the different classes could easily get confused about what information applies to them.

FAVORITE FEATURE:

I have 2 favorite features for this website.

My favorite feature is the Form Creator. I realize that there can be special circumstances where a teacher wants the students to fill out a specialized form. The other two websites don’t offer this.

I also think having the ability to take an online pole is a nice idea.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

All three of the above tools offer some very nice features and all would be of great value to teachers and students. You must choose what features are most important to you.

If you are teaching more than one class, then I would recommend the http://www.SchoolAndTeacher.com website.

If you are teaching ONLY one class, then any of them will do. (I REALLY like that sign-up feature on http://www.SchoolAndTeacher.com for the homework and projects. That has such value added that I tend to favor this one on this feature alone.)

Take some time. Do a little research. The cost is not to much to start out. If you don’t like the first choice, then at most you will loose $29.95.

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. Both programs allow you to create webpages as though you were creating a document with your favourite word processing software like Microsoft Word or WordPerfect. Its as simple as entering paragraphs, headings and inserting clipart or images.

WYSIWYG software like those listed above are prefect for beginner webpage builders who want webpages constructed quickly without having to learn HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language).

All webpages are brought to life using HTML codes, regardless what webpage building software is used. WYSIWYG programs simply create the HTML codes as you construct a webpage (in the background, without you knowing), so you don’t need to understand them.

This is without a doubt the biggest advantage over any other type of webpage building programs. It means that if you can press keys on a keyboard, you have what is required to create your very own webpage!

However, most WYSIWYG programs don’t give you absolute, total control over webpage design (ie, exactly the way you want the page to look). There are design limitations.

For example, you may want to place headings, sub headings and a navigation menu in a particular arrangement on the webpage, but no matter how many times you try, the program won’t permit such placement or position them correctly. This is one big disadvantage of WYSIWYG programs if you desire a custom look to all your webpages.

Knowledge of HTML, however, can assist you to overcome such design shortfalls in WYSIWYG programs. How is this possible? Let me explain.

If you understand HTML codes, then you understand why webpages appear the way they do in a web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. This is powerful stuff because the moment you change/modify HTML codes, the webpage will take on a new design/appearance.

And don’t forget that HTML codes are exact, giving you total freedom over how everything appears on the webpage. Most WYSIWYG programs allow you to view and modify the HTML codes. As you can see, knowledge of HTML is beneficial.

The downside to HTML is the learning curve. It takes time to understand how HTML works and why, but once you know, using HTML to create totally custom designed webpages is easy. For the beginner, HTML can be challenging, but don’t despair because there are HTML tutorials available that teach you basic and advanced HTML in a matter of days!

So the question is - Should you bother learning HTML to build webpages? The answer - yes and no.

It is obvious that WYSIWYG software speeds up production of webpage development regardless of your knowledge on how to build webpages. However, to further refine and tune your webpages exactly to your liking, it is usually necessary to add and modify HTML codes. So yes, HTML is worthwhile learning if you are unsatisfied with the webpages produced by WYSIWYG software.

There is little point learning HTML if you are 100% satisfied with the webpages made with WYSIWYG software.

One thing is certain. Using WYSIWYG software and learning HTML codes is the answer for those of us who want webpages made exactly to our requirements. Learning HTML is not as hard as you think. To get started, simply search any major search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN using the search phrase “html tutorials”, its that easy!

Simply ensuring your website is accessible to screen reader users is unfortunately not enough to ensure these users can find what they’re looking for in a reasonably quick and efficient manner. Even if your site is accessible to screen reader users, its usability could be so incredibly poor that they needn’t have bothered coming to your site.

Fortunately, there are plenty of simple-to-implement guidelines you can follow, which not only drastically improve usability for screen reader users, but for all web users:

1. Descriptive headings

The use of on-page headings is one of the most important usability features for screen reader users, as it helps them more easily understand the page structure. Although text on the page may appear to be a heading for sighted users, it must be labelled as a heading within the HTML code for screen reader users to know it is a heading.

Screen readers don’t look at web pages - they read through the HTML code. If a piece of text is called a heading within the HTML code then the screen reader will announce that it’s a heading. If not, screen reader users won’t actually know if something that visually appears to be a heading is actually a heading.

Another usability benefit of using headings for screen reader users, is that these users can call up a list of on-page headings and jump to the section of the page in which they’re most interested. This works in much the same way as sighted web users scanning through web pages by glancing at headings. If headings are descriptive of the content contained beneath them it becomes far easier for screen reader users to find the information which they’re after.

2. Descriptive link text

Screen reader users can browse through web pages by calling up a list of on-page links, and activating the link in which they’re most interested. As such, non-descriptive link text such as ‘click here’ should be avoided at all costs as it makes no sense whatsoever out of context.

The good news is that the use of descriptive link texts represents a usability benefit for everyone. When we scan through web pages, one of the items that stands out to us is link text. ‘Click here’ is totally meaningless to web users scanning through pages and forces users to hunt through surrounding text to discover the link destination.

3. Lists

Using lists within the HTML code is extremely useful for screen reader users, as screen readers announce the number of items in each list before reading out the list items. This helps these users know what to expect when hearing a list of items (such as site navigation).

This works in mush the same way as an answer phone telling you how many messages you have, before listening to them. By informing you of how many messages you have, you instantly know what to expect. If there’s only one or two messages you can probably remember them; much more and you’ll probably want to get a pen and paper and make notes.

The use of lists is really just a behind-the-scenes change to the code and needn’t affect the visual appearance of the website.

4. Logical linearization

Screen reader users generally have to listen to web pages from start to finish, top to bottom, left to right. Sighted web users on the other hand can glance through a web page almost randomly, spotting important information wherever it may appear on the page. Because of this, important information should always be placed towards the top of the page.

One example of how not to do this is to place instructions for a form at the bottom of the page.

Placing important information towards the top of the page actually benefits everyone, as the important information is now in the place where sighted users look first - the top of the page.

5. Short, succinct ALT text

ALT text is the alternative text for images that gets read out to screen reader users. Any website offering even basic accessibility will provide this alternative text. Some websites try to over-explain the information conveyed by images, forcing screen reader users to have to listen to a lot of unnecessary and irrelevant information.

Screen reader users often take longer than sighted web users to work through websites, so help make their surfing time easier with succinct ALT text.

6. Short, front-loaded paragraphs

Front-loading means placing the conclusion first, followed by the what, why, when, where and how. By placing the conclusion first, screen reader users can instantly gain an understanding of what the paragraph’s about. They can then decide whether they want to keep on listening or if they want to skip to the next paragraph (which they can easily do with the screen reader). If the paragraphs are short, they can do this safe in the knowledge that they won’t be missing extra information.

Front-loading content obviously benefits everyone, as web users no longer have to search around for the main point of each paragraph.

7. Descriptive page title

The page title is the very first thing that screen reader users hear when arriving at any web page, so it’s truly essential that it’s descriptive of the page. Again, this benefits everyone as users can use the page title to orientate themselves and confirm that they’re on the page they think they’re on. This is especially true for web users on dial-up connections where the page title displays a number of seconds before the rest of the page.

Conclusion

There are a number of relatively simple and painless things that can be done to improve usability for screen reader users. Fortunately, nearly all of them improve usability for all web users, meaning everyone benefits - which is never a bad thing.

An automated accessibility tool is a piece of software which can test a web page, or even an entire website, for accessibility. Automated accessibility tools are useful because they can save you a huge amount of time. Don’t want to check images for alt text on each and every page on your website? Run the site through an automated tester and it’ll do it all for you!

Automated accessibility testing tools have been around for a long time and have historically been a useful way of checking websites for accessibility. Bobby, one of the first and most well-known automated accessibility testing tools, is now almost 10 years, and although is no longer freely available, plenty of other free tools such as WebXact (http://webxact.watchfire.com/) and Wave (http://wave.webaim.org/index.jsp) do exist.

But are these tools a little too good to be true? Can you test a website for accessibility so easily? Unfortunately the answer is a resounding no. There are a number of underlying problems associated with using just automated tools to test for accessibility:

Literal interpretation of guidelines

Any automated accessibility testing tool, being a piece of software, doesn’t have very much in the way of common sense. It will interpret each and every accessibility guideline literally, without bearing any other thought to what else is on the page.

The definition of the word guideline, according to Dictionary.com, is “a rule or principle that provides guidance to appropriate behaviour”. A guideline simply offers guidance to what the best practice is - it shouldn’t just be applied without regard to other factors.

For example, one of the W3C accessibility guidelines states that a table summary should be provided for all tables. (This summary doesn’t appear on the screen, but it’s read aloud to screen reader users before reading through the table content.) Table summaries are useful as they tell screen reader users what to expect in the table. However, there may be a heading directly before the table and it describes what the table is about. In this instance, this summary is essentially useless as it will just repeat what the previous heading said.

Can’t check any content issues

The way that content is structured both on the page and across the website is a massive part of accessibility. A website may be perfectly coded and conform to the highest coding standards. If its content is poorly structured though, the site will prove difficult to impossible for some special needs web users.

There are a number of important accessible content considerations, none of which automated accessibility testing tools can check for. Some of these important considerations include:

• Front-loading content so that each paragraph begins with the conclusion
• Ensuring content has been broken down into manageable chunks with descriptive sub-headings
• Using lists wherever appropriate
• Ensuring that plain and simple language is used

Can’t check many coding issues

The vast number of accessibility guidelines tend to be related to how the site is coded. Automated accessibility testing tools are unfortunately unable to test for many of these too. Examples of HTML-related accessibility considerations which these tools can’t check for include:

• Ensuring that text is real text and isn’t embedded within images
• Making sure that the site functions without the use of JavaScript or Flash
• Providing equivalent text links if using server-side image maps
• Ensuring that the structure within the HTML reflects the visual appearance (e.g. headings are labelled as headings within the HTML code)

Outdated guidelines are used

Automated accessibility testing tools generally use the W3C accessibility guidelines, which by now are over five years old. As such, a number of these guidelines are outdated and don’t apply anymore. In fact, some of them are now thought to hinder accessibility rather than help, so it’s best to totally ignore these guidelines.

For example, an automated accessibility testing tool will probably insist that form items contain default place holding text. It may also insist that links need to be separated by non-link text. Neither of these guidelines are relevant anymore and their implementation could make accessibility worse rather than better.

Most guidelines aren’t properly checked

Automated accessibility tools can check for a number of guidelines, and can tell you when a guideline isn’t being adhered to. However, when the tool claims that a guideline is being fulfilled this may in fact be a false truth.

For example, if all images contain alt text then the software will report a pass for this guideline. But what if the alt text isn’t descriptive of its image? What if alt text is crammed full of nonsensical keywords for search engines? How can an automated accessibility tool possibly know this?

Warnings may be misinterpreted

The reports generated by automated accessibility tools provide warnings, as well as errors. These warnings are basically guidelines that the automated tool can’t check for, but which may be errors. Often they’re not, and in fact they’re often not even relevant. However, some people reading a report may try to get rid of these warning messages by making the appropriate changes to their site. By doing so, they may be implementing guidelines that needn’t be implemented and inadvertently lowering the website’s accessibility.

Conclusion

Automated accessibility testing tools can be useful as they can save a large amount of time in performing some very basic checks for accessibility. However, they must be used with caution and they cannot be used as a stand-alone guide for accessibility checking. Indeed, some expert accessibility knowledge should always be applied in evaluating a site accessibility, perhaps in conjunction with the fantastic web accessibility toolbar (http://www.nils.org.au/ais/web/resources/toolbar/) to help dramatically speed up manual checks.

Writing Links

In the first part of this article we learned some techniques to build a solid potential link partner list for your website. Those sites aren’t any good to you if you don’t use a strategy for writing the textual content of those links. Yes. I mean those few little words that are underlined in blue. In the right order they give the key to your website door to the world. In the wrong order, they don’t budge the cylinders in the lock.

Number of links takes second place to quality of links. The words you choose, varying them for each targeted link site, and incorporating some tried and true direct mail standard tactics will make your links more popular in the search engines, which is our ultimate goal. So lets get started!

As we said earlier, links are a crucial part of attaining high search rankings. The key to writing good “link content” uses the same tactics for writing all good web content. Namely, don’t write for the search engines. Write for your readers and target audience. After you do that, then go back and tweak the little details to optimize for the engines. Why? The search companies attempt to give results for human readers, and because a number one search engine position is worthless if the description of your site is the most boring thing anyone has ever read.

You have humans that are examining your site to see if they want to link to you. Even if you pay for links someone has to make the decision that you’re worthy of being on their site. And further, you’ll never sell your product or service or attain any readership. Let’s take a simple step-by-step approach and make sure your links are lively, catchy, searchable and gushing to be clicked.

Pretend you’re the owner of a pumpkin company website. You sell all things made from pumpkins.

Step 1- Review Your Keyword List

Those are the words and phrases that you want to rank highly with in the search engines. They are the starting point for your link text. Note: “link text” is the clickable part of the link, the underlined blue type. Let’s take some keywords and apply a few tactics to them to develop a good link.

A few keywords might be:

pumpkin retailer
pumpkin festival
pumpkin plant
pumpkin holiday
pumpkin festival

Step 2- Create variations on those keywords.

Think of phrases that someone might enter into a search engine. Using that thought as the core, build outward by elaborating and specifying. Ask yourself “what type of ____?” to help you expand. For example, take the few keywords above and make them a bit more specific to:

pumpkin pie recipe
pumpkin bread recipe
cooking pumpkin seed

pumpkin patch
how to grow pumpkin
planting pumpkin seed

pumpkin carving design
carve Halloween pumpkin
pumpkin carving pattern

pumpkin costume
pumpkin centerpiece

Note: When coming up with additional keyword phrases (for use within your page elements and link) try this tool. www.inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ is part of Overture sponsored listings (now Yahoo) that will tell you how many times a phrase was searched in their engines on the web. Target the phrases with the most hits.

Step 3 Word Varieties

Your link should contain enough words so that when read out of context it still makes sense. Not so many words that it becomes blurred when a reader scans through a page.

Take the list you just made vary your keyword links using all of those keywords. Search engines raise an eyebrow at seeing “pumpkin recipe” on 50 sites with the exact same phrase all pointing back to you. It doesn’t see natural. Mixing up your link text with “pumpkin pie recipie”,”pumpkin bread recipe”, and “cooking pumpkin seeds” and the rest of your list keeps you well diversified without danger of spamming. And your keywords are more focused and targeted which gives you a better chance of being ranked higher.

Step 4 Incorporating Direct Mail Tactics

Now we have the words that will make up our link text. We’re almost finished. We need to give people some motivation to click.

The simplest of direct mail programs or incentive marketing campaigns all have a solid “call to action.” We need one here too. Why should a reader go to your site? What’s in it for them? They’ve got better things to do.

So many websites use the phrases “Click here,” “Learn more,” or “More info”. There’s a definite boundary between keeping things simple and clean on a web page and just copping out. When I see those phrases on a link I think the writer didn’t have time to get me excited about their product so I don’t have time to go look.

It doesn’t take much to write a simple call to action. For example:

Instead of “pumpkin pie recipe,” say “Grandma’s pumpkin pie recipe and all things pumpkin at The Orange Pumpkin.” Now your reader knows the name of your business (which will also be indexed), and thinks if it’s made by Grandma it’s probably good… I think I’ll have a look.

Step 5 Put it all together

Take your keyword phrase and surrounding text and create your link. The coded form looks like this.

Grandma’s pumpkin pie recipe and all things pumpkin at The Orange Pumpkin.

Every single link doesn’t have to be different, but you should have quite a variety if you follow these steps for all your keywords.

Don’t forget to use those keywords within your page too!!

Step 6 Final Thoughts

Stay away from link farms and free for all link sites.

List in as many Directories as you can, especially ones that are of the same nature as your site.

Try to get one-way links. You might be able to buy some from someone fairly cheaply. If you have to get a reciprocal link, stick to sites that are similar in theme to yours. They don’t have to be identical, but in the case of The Orange Pumpkin Company, a link from a car dealer is a waste of time…unless that car dealer happens to have a collection of the world’s greatest pumpkin recipes on their site. If that’s the case, then try to get a link on the page with the recipes.

Even though you’re goal is to rank high in the searches, write for the end user. Then go back and fine-tune things for an optimized search engine friendly page.

Good luck and happy linking!

Here’s some mistakes to avoid when selecting or building your Web site. You know on those days when you have to wear your tech hat.

1) No Value - Too Simple

This is probably the most common mistake made by small business owners online. The site has little value for the service or product their offering. Often it starts out as a “brochure” site. Meaning their current offline marketing material is put online. Unfortunately many sites never progress past this point.

Now don’t get me wrong at leasts it’s a start, but it may not be enough.

You need to take a hard look an ask if there is anything of real value for the customer once they get there. Does it go beyond your contact information and service offering? Does it need to?

You can build a brochure site, but you might quickly find it’s not getting the results you expected.

2) Overkill

This mistake goes in the opposite direction. These sites fall in two categories:

They either are so loaded with content that the customer says “oh no, I don’t want to work this hard” or the site has been so “over-teched” the lights dim in your house when you access it.

The first site suffers from a lack of proper categorization and navigation. Probably the designer read one too many books on effective Web sites - 50 articles per topic minimum of 10 topics, blah, blah, blah. It misses the critical difference between mass marketing and local community marketing. The fact is of the 100 articles on your web site 5 of them are being read if you’re lucky!

Now the second site, the bandwidth hog, suffers from mis-guided flash intros, excessive movie downloads, cute images sliding in and off the page, and all of this is happening at the same time. You can almost hear the customer crying out “I just want to schedule an appointment online”.

3) The “All In the Family” Site

Also known as the relative site. Be it your talented son of 16 or your brother-in-law who knows all about this technical stuff, the site was designed, developed, and released by someone in the family who is “very technical”. The chance of success of these sites is very low because it’s not the technical side of a site that makes or breaks it for small business, it’s the business side. How much does your 16 year old son know about your business? Or more importantly how much does he care to learn?

4) Free Web Site with Purchase of Candy Bar

Yeah, it’s almost got to that point. Web sites for free! Anyone can have one like giving away a promotional magnet for my refrigerator (actually promotional magnets are much more effective). Costs nothing, design it in minutes. However, most are worth nothing and are a waste of time and effort.

5) Over Priced and Difficult to Change

The business owner looking for something really “special”. Cost is not the issue. This mistake can have significant ramifications because you can spend a lot of money and then realize you need something different. Make sure you get a site that you can change easily. Not a site that the company you hired can change easily, but that you can change. Make sure YOU see how easy it is to change before you agree.

Web sites offer you the opportunity to try different ideas, promotions and services quickly. The Web site you launch today will not be the Web site you need in six months. Small business owners are reluctant to re-design or change Web sites because of cost and experience.

Make sure that the Web site you buy at a minimum is database driven, supports templates, and can be changed by anyone, not just the “original manufacturer”.

Would you buy meat from a grocery store that left the bad meat in with the good meat or wasn’t clean? Would you buy a car from a sales lot that had totaled automobiles on the front lot? I wouldn’t and neither would you. Your website is your grocery store; your car lot. You must have an atmosphere that is pleasing to buyers. One that tells that buyer that you are not an amateur, but instead a trained, seasoned professional. Your site is a direct reflection of your product and that is why that having a well designed website can make or break your sales.

The first thing to keep in mind when designing your website, is “surfability”. Take a few minutes a look around at several web pages. What makes them appealing? Were there some that you closed out of immediately? Why? Take notes and do your research. Keep in mind that when a person visits your site they have a goal in mind. They are either seeking information or shopping for a product. Give the person what they want without having to search for it. Be sure that all the information on your site is relevant to your product. Make the buyer think that they need your product to solve their problem.

Your main page serves a very specific purpose. It should be an avenue by which the customer can shop your site. It should be easy to view and load very quickly. This is your first impression and we all know that first impressions can either close the deal or loose the deal. Make it simple. It is best to have links that are easily viewable by the reader that will navigate them to where they want to be. Tables are often a great choice when deciding on a way to design the main page of your site. Your main page should load very quickly, chances are if it takes the page more than ten seconds to load even on a 56k modem, the customer will click away to save time, hoping to find the information or product elsewhere. To increase the loading speed of your main page you should avoid large graphics or excessive graphics. To many banners or special effects can cause a page to load slowly as well.

To make your web site more appealing to the eyes, you should stick to mild colors. If your site is a content site where the user will be doing a lot of reading, it is best to stick to black and white. Color can be added when using tables, as a way to brighten up the page, but remember to keep the overall look of the page professional and appealing to the audience that will be visiting most often. Since screen resolutions vary among monitors, it is a good idea to set the pixels to a standard 800×600. You may also choose to set the tables in your web page to span a percentage of the page rather than a set number of inches. This will be sure to accommodate all screen sizes. You should remember that a lot of Internet users will not use the same browser as you, and therefore you should be sure that your site looks as good on other browsers as it does your own. You can do this by downloading several browsers through which to look at your page.

Be aware of the fact that the overall look of your website is a way to make money. The appearance of the site, if designed properly, can be an excellent marketing strategy for your product or service.