15 Website Elements That Attract VisitorsWritten by Catherine Franz
Here is a quick list of components that make a website attractive. They are listed in layers of attractiveness beginning with "must-haves" to "nice to haves."1. State website's purpose up front and clearly. Do this as quickly as possible. The visitor needs to know immediately if they have landed on right site. They also need to know "what’s in it for me to stay here". If you don't provide this, they are gone. 90% of sites on Net don't do this. 2. Give visitors ability to search for exactly what they are looking for, especially if they have something exact in mind. A "site search feature" satisfies this best. Allow search feature to be prominently displayed and not hidden away somewhere. It is best to place it in navigational system so that it shows up on every page. Sales letters that are only on websites are an exception to this rule. Return visitors and visitors that have something specifically in mind want option and ability to find what they want fast, so give it to them. 3. Photos allow connection. Especially to people who process visually. Clip art gets them to pay attention, however, it doesn't create much of a connection. Personal photos connect within reason. Keep them less than three to a page. One photo always needs to be in top portion of screen on first page. It doesn't need to be large, it just needs to be attractive. 4. Find ways to capture visitors' information wherever possible. 5. Place items on site that will keep them lingering. Audio and video are one of these, yet there are other less time consuming and inexpensive ways to keep them entertained.
| | Internet addiction!Written by Daniel Punch
The Internet is fast becoming just another part of everyday life, much like TV and computer itself. What started as something amazing, exciting, and often out of reach, has become commonplace and freely available. Technology is advancing at an amazing rate. I can remember when 56k connections were new exciting fad that everyone just had to have, and now you’re almost abnormal if you still chug along with your trusty dialup. The Net has become integrated into our lives, as people are becoming dependant on its services. The advent of Internet has its threatening side though. It has been found that some people are becoming addicted to online world.A recent news story reported that Finnish army has sent some of its conscripts home due to fact that they are unable to handle compulsory six months in army without access to their computers. When computers and Internet are becoming integral components or even main focus of leisure, education, and work time, it’s not hard to see how losing access can really affect someone. I can see this new technology getting blamed for all sorts of woes in future much in same way television has in present. Internet addiction comes in many forms. The common areas of Internet addiction that are often listed are cybersex, cyber-relations, gaming, information addiction, and simple addiction to computers and Internet in general. Information addiction is an interesting concept to me. Basically sheer volume of information freely available online has lead to some people desperately ‘needing’ to find out more and more. To me, getting people obsessed with learning seems kind of like a good thing, but it does seem that it can form a similar sort of mentality to drug addiction where user is always searching for their next ‘hit’ which becomes harder and harder to find. Often depth of information available is actually lacking. We tend to skim read information online by just picking out a few points and then moving on. I’ve found in my own case that it’s sometimes quite hard to concentrate on a page long enough to read it in its entirety. I tend to read a little until I get basic idea and then move on. This process has carried over into ‘real world’ in some ways with newspapers rarely keeping my interest long enough to actually get through a whole article of any real length. I’ve witnessed similar experiences with friends and families and I think that attention spans are gradually getting shorter.
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