Coporate Website Content Design Failures

Written by Joel Walsh


Continued from page 1

Of course, Flash can be used as a way to present content—words, both printed and recorded, and pictures that actually illustrate something. But more often, it is used to impress. And most often, it ends up annoying. Who wants to spendrepparttar better part of a minute waiting for a rotation of generic pictures of smiling models?

Special Effect that Bombs Number 2: Splash Screens You type in duracell.com expecting information on batteries—which you will find, if you haverepparttar 136992 patience not to hitrepparttar 136993 “back” button whilerepparttar 136994 site shows a picture of a battery revolving painfully slowly. On www.mcdonalds.com you're met with pictures of happy children playing with Ronald McDonald and a menu to select what country you're from. Johnson's and Johnson's web site shows a logo before automatically redirecting you torepparttar 136995 main page—that is if it doesn't crash your browser first (which happened whenrepparttar 136996 author tried to accessrepparttar 136997 page on May 2, 2004 ).

Another way big consumer corporations' web sites from Schick to Mercedes-Benz to Thomas Cooke waste your time with splash pages is by making you choose what country you're visiting from. This could have been detected automatically, or at least, useful worldwide content could have been placed onrepparttar 136998 homepage, with an option to choose a country prominently displayed.

Splash pages arerepparttar 136999 internet equivalent of making patrons wait in line out front before letting them inside. Unless a site belongs to a night club or a professional services firm with too much business, this can't be a good idea. Onrepparttar 137000 web, whererepparttar 137001 “back” button andrepparttar 137002 URL bars loom temptingly, making people wait is business suicide.

Special Effect that Bombs Number 3: Overbuilt or Badly Built “Dynamic” Functionality Every web surfer has a story about a shopping cart that malfunctioned just when they were about to click “purchase” on something they really wanted. Or a detailed form that lost allrepparttar 137003 information afterrepparttar 137004 “submit” button was pressed. When there are so many good “dynamic” sites out there, why are there still so many bad ones? Part ofrepparttar 137005 problem may be overbuilding and needless custom design. There are already excellent Open Source databases out there, which can be endlessly customized and updated by any skilled designer. Yet many companies prefer to spend their money reinventingrepparttar 137006 wheel so they can have their own proprietary technology, even if it doesn't work.

Sometimes, dynamic content can distortrepparttar 137007 way an entire site presents itself. Ifrepparttar 137008 dynamic content is so complex that it presents problems for many users, it is unlikelyrepparttar 137009 dynamic content is worth it. On disney.com, your first greeting is a message that your computer is sufficiently up-to-date (or not) to handlerepparttar 137010 site. Is that reallyrepparttar 137011 magical and fun impression you want to give visitors?



Joel Walsh is the founder, owner, and head writer of UpMarket, an online copywriting / internet marketing services firm & web content provider to small and medium-sized businesses.


New Form of Click Fraud Discovered

Written by Joel Walsh


Continued from page 1

What Is To Be Done about this New Click Fraud Menace? Tracking this form of click fraud may be more difficult than with other forms, since your server logs won't be any help whenrepparttar criminal has never visited your site. Still, as withrepparttar 136991 other forms of click fraud, one of your best defenses is to monitor your click-through rate, and look for sudden changes. Only now you'll have to watch out for sudden drops as well as sudden spikes.

If you've been a victim of this kind of click fraud, or think you may have been, we'd love to hear your horror story, along with how Google responded (or didn't respond). Of course, if you don't want us to share it with our readers, you can trust us to keep a secret.



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