Web Page Development

 

I build custom and semi-custom web pages for both home and business users. One of my semi-custom web pages maybe your choice if you need a personal, family or small business page. The following hints may help you to produce a better web site.

The 10 Most Common
Webpage Mistakes

Web pages are created to "sell" a product, service, or idea. To do this a web page must attract visitors, keep them at the page long enough to make the sale or get the idea across, clearly promote the topic of the page in an easy to read and understandable way, and ask for the sale.

A web page is much like a magazine add or TV commercial. With the proper application of pleasing colours, graphics, text, layout, and promotion, a well-crafted web page can do wonders for you. On the other hand, a poorly done web page will actually drive visitors away. The following are the ten most common web page errors:

  • Too slow to load. Many web pages are too large or contain large, slow to load graphics. If a web page takes more then about 30 seconds to load most people will lose interest and surf on. They never hang around long enough to see your wonderful creation.

  • Too much animation, sounds and other gimmicks. Many pages are way too busy. They are a mess of flashing, winking, rotating, graphics and weird sounds or music. They look like a circus. This is OK if you are in fact a circus, but for most, it detracts from the main purpose of the web page.

  • Dark background and mismatched colours. Dark or busy backgrounds can make the text hard to read. You may see the colours properly on your monitor, but another's video may display the background much darker. A web page developer must check his creation on multiple computers to ensure it looks good on all. Mismatched colours may grate on some visitor's nerves. Remember, you are creating a web page for your visitors, not you.

  • Wrong fonts and sizes. Some font styles and sizes are inappropriate for web pages. For instance, Old English, when used sparingly and large enough can be pleasing, but too much or too small makes for a hard to read page. If the page is hard to read your visitors will leave.

  • Too crowded, confusing layout. Keep your layout simple and easy to follow. Don't try to do too much on one page. Make several simple pages behind the first page.

  • Inconsistent pages. All your pages should have a common look and feel. Having wildly different colors, layouts, fonts, etc. from one page to the next will look like a hotchpotch. Keep a common logo, layout and look and feel on all your pages.

  • No Give-Backs, no reason for a revisit. Commonly called "Give-Backs", this allows you to show your expertise and give back something of value to your visitors. Your visitors are much more likely to save and revisit your web site if you offer them some valuable information or links. For instance, if you are selling real estate, have an area where you offer your visitors hints on how to make your home subconsciously more attractive, like the smell of baking bread, etc. Think about a news section that is kept current with news and topics of interest to your potential customers. These kinds of features promote revisits. This page is one of my give-backs. See my Technical Support , Free Virus Checker for other examples of my give-backs.

  • Unclear subject matter. Make sure your web page is very clear about the subject matter. Many pages require a substantial amount of reading before a visitor fully understands what the main topic of the page is all about. If they don't know what you are selling, they won't buy it!

  • Lack of Meta-Tags. Meta-Tags are invisible words and phrases, embedded in your pages, that tell search engines how to index your page so it can more easily be found. With the proper application of meta-tags your web page may come up in the first few returns of a search engine. Having your web page listed as the ten thousandth one in a search engine will get you no visitors, having your page in the top five or ten can get you lots of visitors.

    Doing it Right

    Here are a few facts and things to do, to make your page something that your visitors will stay with long enough to get your message:
  • A session of online reading averaged out at 34 minutes.

  • 64% of photos were looked at for,on average, one-and-a-quarter seconds.

  • Highlight your keywords.

  • Indented bulleted lists.

  • One Idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)

  • Keep the word count small. Long paragraphs will be skipped over.


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