There are many reasons why web site design falls short of the ideal, and these design faults cost prospective Internet marketers dearly. Sometimes they are obvious and sometimes they are subtle. Often older people need larger text; only the seventeen year old could thinks that the world can read a size 8 weight of font! Making your page as accessible to as many people as possible is not nuclear physics.
Many of the design mistakes cover presentation and silver surfer affiliate marketers don’t make them! They need white space separating a grid otherwise they cannot find what they want and they will go. We understand conformity and it gives a smooth transition between pages, again silver surfers can find change unsettling, they appreciate ease of navigation. Silver surfers understand what makes a good webpage naturally they don’t need to be taught. They often don’t know the bells and whistles that can be added, therefore they tend to omit them and in the process achieve a cleaner design. Some Web designers can have a tendency just to add something because they can, make sure that every part of your web design adds to the functionality of the site.
Common Reasons Why Web Sites Fail.
Too many Graphics.
The average non-specialised website should be designed with low bandwidth in mind. Not everyone has a broadband connection, and if you have too many images, your page will be slow to load. One of the reasons silver surfer internet marketers don’t make that mistake is the fact that we remember windows ’95 and waiting four minutes for a picture to appear pixel by pixel. A web page should load in double quick time, because if it does not your customer will not wait. If there are too many graphics or graphics that are not compressed and saved in efficient formats, your pages will load about fifteen seconds after your potential customer has left. Generally, graphics with few colours should be saved as gif’s, and photographs or colour-laden graphics are best left as jpeg’s.
Too Many Animated Graphics.
Every web site has a purpose and whether that purpose is educational or commercial, animated graphics distract, by drawing the eye away. If you must use animation, use it sparingly, and if it is not necessary do not use it at all! Plan for clear presentation and easy access. Graphics and navigation options must present a variety of options to all users, including those who are visually challenged – without distracting from the quest of information.
Present Your Information so That it is Easy to Read.
Too many colours, fonts and long-winded passages of text, distract and do not fulfil the criteria that people read web pages. Ideally, they should have short passages, and link pages with active and working hyperlinks, most people will not scroll down pages.
Before going live get a friend to view your site try to locate something. Ask them to place an order, or find the support page. Stand over them whilst they test and adjust your site accordingly. A glaring mistake in web design is just because you understand your site layout others will. If they cannot find what they want easily in your site they will visit someone else’s.
Brand your Product.
The look and feel of a site should tell you something about the company you are dealing with. Your website is a first impression; you need to make navigation user friendly so the user can find the information they seek, rather than click to someone else’s sites. Reinforce your brand, but smoothly. Consistency means your customers know where to look in the transitions from each page.
Bad Colour Choices.
Just because it looks cool to you does not mean everyone will find it easy on the eye. Worst still some colour combinations make web sites impossible to read for the colour blind, and remember one in twelve people have a degree of colour blindness. Test your colour choices thoroughly, do not guess test and test again.
Never underestimate the Importance of white space.
Active white space separates your content and structures your page. The lack of white space makes a page confusing it reinforces the impression that there is too much information on the page
Flash Splash Screens.
Flash is huge, but it is distracting, apart from the fact that there are many people out there over twenty who would love to strangle whoever invented flash graphics, the purpose of a web site is not to be seen from the other end of the cyber space universe! O.K. I will turn my personal preferences aside it can be useful for many tasks, I am assured of that fact, although I will not hang around to find out. A flash welcome banner does nothing at all to add to a web sites design, and to have to turn it off is irritating. That is if your customer has hung around long enough.
A classic example of why a silver surfer would not make that mistake is that it rattles their cage, because they hate it they assume others will as well. Flash can cause fits in a limited number of people especially epileptics, television is obliged to issue a warning before using them. Search engines should too!
Cross Browser Compatibility Issues.
Always check out your site by viewing it in the main browsers Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, and Opera. It should also be tested on a Mac as well as a PC. Never assume that what good on your PC, with your browser will look the same on an old browser, because it will look very different. Never leave it to your customer to tell you that something is wrong and by designing to new browsers you cut out potential customers. The purpose of the World Wide Web is content for all, not just eighty percent of people.
Broken and Inactive Hyperlinks
Broken and Inactive Hyperlinks There are tools available to do this for you if you have a large site. Broken links give the appearance that you do not care about your business, if you do not who will.
Incomplete Endings
Update your site regularly with new fresh content, even if you do not add content an RSS feed counts. Silver surfer affiliate marketers were brought up on a diet of Judy Garland films with an introduction, a story and a conclusion. They prefer their websites to be the same, why look on the web if it fails to give you complete information.
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