Websites
Many of us are claiming our little corner of the internet, launching a website for our company or our pleasure.
Over the last dozen years I have helped many clients launch their website and I have worked hard to ensure they achieve their ambitions. Along the way I have learned a few things I thought I might share.
The first thing to remember is to keep it simple. Winking, blinking and moving icons should be avoided at all cost. Clutter only confuses the visitor so use the KISS Rule liberally. Use images and graphics keep text to a minimum they won’t read it anyway.
Hire a designer and don’t do it yourself. The navigation needs to be intuitive and the site needs to look great when you are out there competing with the whole world for attention.
Code is king. Elegant web designers adhere rigidly to the clearly established web coding principles and standards, your web savvy nephew may not. Why should you care? Because Google looks for properly coded sites and places them higher in the rankings and that is reason enough to go see a professional.
Keep the design consistent. You don’t want your visitor to become confused or feel like they are entering an alternative universe with each new page.
Content. Content, Content. Why bother going to a website if there is no meat? A great website gives the visitor the information they are looking for quickly and clearly. Change a portion of your content monthly. The bots that travel the net look to see if the content on your site has changed recently and if it has they think the site is active and relevant.
Link out of your site and find folks willing to link back to your site. The internet is a web after all and if your site is a dead end the web Gods frown on you and slowly your ranking will slip and you’ll end up in internet hell. Trust me.
Ensure that your site displays on a variety of browsers. More and more computer users are escaping the clutches of Internet Explorer and opting for Firefox, Opera or Safari. If your new site looks goofy they won’t be back.
Spell check…please.
Make sure you look at the contrast between text and backgrounds. Keep you colour selections consistent and within the same family of hue, tone and intensity. Don’t try to fit in more copy by shrinking the font size. Anything below 9 point is too small.
Hire a creative company that have done websites that you love. Sit down with them and work out a visual site map. Review a couple of page design ideas. Write the copy and get a good editor. Then let the creative types get creative.
See you online.
Over the last dozen years I have helped many clients launch their website and I have worked hard to ensure they achieve their ambitions. Along the way I have learned a few things I thought I might share.
The first thing to remember is to keep it simple. Winking, blinking and moving icons should be avoided at all cost. Clutter only confuses the visitor so use the KISS Rule liberally. Use images and graphics keep text to a minimum they won’t read it anyway.
Hire a designer and don’t do it yourself. The navigation needs to be intuitive and the site needs to look great when you are out there competing with the whole world for attention.
Code is king. Elegant web designers adhere rigidly to the clearly established web coding principles and standards, your web savvy nephew may not. Why should you care? Because Google looks for properly coded sites and places them higher in the rankings and that is reason enough to go see a professional.
Keep the design consistent. You don’t want your visitor to become confused or feel like they are entering an alternative universe with each new page.
Content. Content, Content. Why bother going to a website if there is no meat? A great website gives the visitor the information they are looking for quickly and clearly. Change a portion of your content monthly. The bots that travel the net look to see if the content on your site has changed recently and if it has they think the site is active and relevant.
Link out of your site and find folks willing to link back to your site. The internet is a web after all and if your site is a dead end the web Gods frown on you and slowly your ranking will slip and you’ll end up in internet hell. Trust me.
Ensure that your site displays on a variety of browsers. More and more computer users are escaping the clutches of Internet Explorer and opting for Firefox, Opera or Safari. If your new site looks goofy they won’t be back.
Spell check…please.
Make sure you look at the contrast between text and backgrounds. Keep you colour selections consistent and within the same family of hue, tone and intensity. Don’t try to fit in more copy by shrinking the font size. Anything below 9 point is too small.
Hire a creative company that have done websites that you love. Sit down with them and work out a visual site map. Review a couple of page design ideas. Write the copy and get a good editor. Then let the creative types get creative.
See you online.
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