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The
Top 10 Most Ludicrous Things You Can Do on Your Web Site
by Courtney
Heard
We have a
running joke in our office that one day we’ll load a page and it
will say “You have reached the end of the World Wide Web” and it
will be the truth. I’ve visited so many web sites in my time,
it’s unreal. There are a few web site features and practices that
keep popping up, in spite of their highly detrimental nature. I find
myself, day in and day out, advising clients to remove something or
other from their web site, as it is stunting their online business
potential. But cleaning up the World Wide Web one client at a time
isn’t very efficient, so I’ll share with you the Top 10 most
ludicrous things you can do on your web site, and hopefully we’ll
get this mess cleaned up.
1. Frames - Most of you are probably rolling your eyes right now,
saying “I know, I know” but there not only still is a large
amount of sites that use frames, there’s actually a very dangerous
counter-argument to this going on.
Frames section off your web site, making multiple smaller windows
within one page. It sounds harmless enough, but the code behind a
page with frames is very short, only referring to the pages that
fill in the smaller windows. This hides any text you have on the
page, any headings, any links, image names and alt text, comment
tags, and a lot more from search engines. In short, frames hide 99%
of your site’s content from the view of search engines, fooling
them into thinking your site is virtually bare.
Now, recently Google has announced that their search algorithm is
newly able to see past frames and find all of your site’s content.
Problems remain, though, in that the algorithm does not yet index
pages with frames well. This also doesn’t fix the problem with
other search engines.
There’s some kind of Rebel Frames Force or something that use
Google’s new indexing ability as an argument for frames, among
other even less valid points. “But what about this and what about
that?” they argue. I say to you, rebel framers, why bother? I
really don’t understand why this inane argument continues. You can
easily avoid any potentially harmful side-effects of frames by using
tables. It looks exactly the same, if not better, and we know for
sure that all search engine robots can decipher the uncomplicated
table code. A smart site owner would simply not take the risk.
2. Keyword-rich Text Embedded in Images - Another fabulous way to
shoot yourself in the proverbial foot. Search engines can’t read
text in an image, so if most of your web site’s textual content is
within images, you’re pretty much done for. Come on people,
keywords are what make the Web go ‘round! The idea is to have as
many applicable keywords as possible within your site visible by
search engines, right? So it really doesn’t make much sense to
take some of those keywords and hide them. There is no
counter-argument to this. It’s simple, if you want traffic, get
your keywords out of images.
3. Entrance Pages/Flash Intros - This practice will not just have a
negative impact on search engine optimization, it also subtracts
from your site’s user-friendliness.
Search engine robots want to find out what your site is about as
soon as they can. In other words, they want to find content on the
front page. This means that there absolutely must be keyword-rich
text on your opening page. It is fairly easy to comply with this
while having an intro page, but it doesn’t solve the
user-friendliness issue.
Think, for a moment, about how you surf the web. If you’re like
the majority of surfers, you’re looking for information and you
want to find it fast. Simply put, an intro page is one more step
that has to be taken before getting to the good stuff. Speaking from
personal experience, if a site has a flash intro or an entrance page
and I’m in a rush (which defines my life), I’ll leave and find
another source of the info I’m looking for. Essentially, I feel
that sites with such opening pages, have little respect for my time
and I don’t want to venture into the site any further to find out
how many other ways the site owner has found to elongate the simple
act of supplying information. It’s simply easier to find another
site. Really, what exactly is the purpose of an entrance page? Try
as I might, I just can’t think of one.
4. Music - O.K., This is my biggest pet peeve. There is nothing more
annoying than sitting down on Sunday morning, steaming cup of coffee
in hand, opening iTunes to listen to the latest R.E.M., starting to
surf the web and suddenly hearing a midi version of Greensleeves
turn Losing My Religion into something that sounds more like a cat
dying.
With the growing popularity of mp3s, you’ll be hard pressed to
find someone who doesn’t listen to their own music while they’re
on the web. It is absolutely guaranteed that you’ll turn some
visitors away from your site if you insist on having music load with
it.
“But, what if I offer a button that will turn the music off?”
some people ask. Most web site visitors who are listening to music
won’t stick around long enough to find your off button. In my
case, as soon as I hear one note, I hit the back button. There is
always another site to find the information I’m looking for.
5. Large Media - Java applets, video media and images can be a real
pain in the you-know-what when they haven’t been optimized. There
are so many poorly written java apps out there that will actually
crash browsers. Large videos and images will cause your site to load
slowly and visitors to leave before they even see the fully-loaded
page.
Make sure you test any java apps across several browsers. If
there’s any delay in loading, trash it or fix it.
Optimizing large images is also necessary. Adobe ImageReady will
significantly cut down the loading time of your image while saving
it’s quality and dimensions.
Video should be an option. Never have it load with your site. Most
people don’t have the time to sit around watching videos on web
sites, let alone wait for videos to load. Pictures and text will
tell your story just as easily.
Internet users still use dial-up accounts and with the rise of
people accessing the internet from their mobile devices, shaving
every second possible off the loading time of your site will ensure
that visitors do not get impatient and leave.
6. Limited ways to contact - Believe it or not, I’ve actually come
across commercial web sites that have absolutely no way to contact
anyone associated with the site. Unless you hope your web site
visitor’s reaction to the online representation of your business
to be a string of profanity, I wouldn’t suggest taking this route.
In fact, I’ve always urged clients to offer as many ways as
possible to contact them on their web sites. Phone, fax, e-mail,
contact form, mailing address, etc.
Everyone has their own preferred method of contact. A lot of my
clients prefer talking on the phone and probably wouldn’t be my
clients if all I offered as a contact method was e-mail. Me, I hate
talking on the phone and filling out forms. If you don’t offer a
link to your e-mail address on your site, you probably won’t hear
from me. But what about spam, you say? Well, you’ll just have to
decide for yourself what’s worse, losing potential paying
customers or getting more spam.
7. Long Pages/Entire Site in One Page - When loading a site, finding
a page that seems to go on forever can seem daunting. The same
amount of information, organized into several pages will seem a lot
less scary to your visitors. Labeled pages and sections will lead
your visitor to exactly the information they’re looking for as
opposed to making them search lines and lines of text to find it.
Well organized content on several pages is also something that
pleases the search engines.
8. No Link Exchange Policy - A lot of web sites out there don’t
exchange links as a rule. This will not only stunt the growth of
your link popularity, but potential traffic that could come directly
from those links would be lost. You don’t have to exchange links
with every interested site, but turning them all away is a dangerous
practice.
9. Cross-Browser Compatibility Check - Always, always, always check
what your web site looks like and how well it functions on other
browsers. Do this whenever you update, make new pages, or new
versions of browsers come out. I’ve seen some pretty funky stuff
around the web that’s been caused by non-compatibility. Title
images on the bottom of the page, invisible links, missing images,
even some sites that cause browsers to crash.
Here are some of the more popular browsers:
Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE)
Netscape
Opera
Mozilla
Apple Safari
Download a copy of each of these and check your site! I realize most
of you use Windows and can’t check your site on Safari, so find a
friend who has a Mac. Mac users are growing in numbers and can be
some of your web site’s visitors. Make sure what they see is what
you want them to.
10. Free Web Space/No Domain Name - This one is all about
professionalism. To avoid having your business seem about as serious
as little Sally’s lemonade stand down the street, don’t host it
on free web space like Geocities, Angelfire, etc. Get your own
domain name. It costs an average of $30/year and you can find good
hosting for $10/month, sometimes less. If you can’t afford that, I
suggest you turn off your computer and sell it for food. Free
hosting is straight cheese, and your visitors will get the feeling
you’re not taking your business seriously.
So, there you have it. The top 10 most ludicrous things you can do
with your web site. I’ve heard some web site owners argue that
their site visitors have complimented their videos, java apps,
music, etc. Just keep in mind, the visitors who don’t like this
stuff leave and you probably won’t hear from them.
The goal of your commercial web site should be to soak up every last
potential paying customer from the web. Any of these 10 points can
turn paying customers away. Respect your visitors’ time, try to
make their experience on your site as quick and full of information
as possible. Be organized and professional and let your audience see
that you know what you’re doing.
About the
Author
Courtney Heard is the founder of Abalone Designs, an Internet
Marketing and SEO company in Vancouver, Canada. She has been
involved in web development and marketing since 1995 and has helped
start several businesses since then in the Vancouver area. More of
Courtney's articles are available at www.abalone.ca/resources/
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