Web Design: Do visitors leave YOUR site feeling confused?

Do visitors leave YOUR site feeling confused?

Written by Tony Murtagh

I recently spent a little time surfing repparttar

web looking at general web marketing and promotion sites and was somewhat surprised at how many were making what I consider, basic design mistakes. How many of repparttar 134654

following apply to YOUR site?

Difficult to see from repparttar 134655 top half of repparttar 134656 page (ie, that part that first comes into view in my browser window) exactly what it is that repparttar 134657 site is meant to be promoting.

- if it is not clear from what can be seen in repparttar 134658 browser window repparttar 134659 average visitor will move on.

- some sites were so full of banners, news headlines and various other links that it was impossible to know what they were offering. Some were in fact offering marketing services, some provision of news services, while others were even offering web design services - no thank you!

At repparttar 134660 top of your home page should be a headline/paragraph which answers repparttar 134661 visitors most important question "What's in it for me?" What is this site offering that will improve my business? Make my life easier? Earn me some money? Provide repparttar 134662 answer to my question?

Loads slowly - if visitors have to wait too long for repparttar 134663 site to download, repparttar 134664 chances are that they will close repparttar 134665 page and move on. If you must have lots of graphics on your site, use a gif optimisation tool.

Flash presentations - they are great if you are doing an offline presentation to a captive audience, or if your visitors are coming to your site for a specific reason - but if you are hoping to catch repparttar 134666 casual visitor, don't bother - or at least offer them repparttar 134667 opportunity to be able to skip repparttar 134668 presentation.

Putting Sound on your Web Site - Part 2

Written by John Rickey

In repparttar

prior article I discussed repparttar 134653

fact that MIDI is repparttar 134654

best choice when adding background music to autoplay on your web site. Choruses of favourite songs can be looped to play while images and text are loading. MIDI is repparttar 134655

best choice as it takes up very little space on your web space(2-7k bytes). Other types of sound files that are useful on web sites are MP3, au, wave, real audio(.ra) to name a few. These are not practical as background sounds due to their large file size but do have some unique features that make them useful .

MP3 MP3(Moving Picture Experts Group1Layer3 Audio) is a type of sound file used to compress large sound files. The most common use of MP3 files is to compress a CD album. A complete CD album can be compressed into a file size of 50MB. This has sparked a great deal of illegal copying on repparttar 134656 web as people can copy Cd albums into a MP3 and send it to others on repparttar 134657 web. Nevertheless, a good use for MP3 is as a 'download' on a web site. If you have an audio speech or song album you want people to listen to, MP3 is repparttar 134658 way to go. Many musicians put their songs as wave files on their sites for download which take just too long to download. A typical song might take 35-50MB in wave form but saved as an MP3 would take only 3-5 MB. The amazing thing about this type of compression is that it replicates repparttar 134659 quality of repparttar 134660 wave file as well. However, even though a song in MP3 format takes only 3-5MB in file size, it still may take 15-20 minutes to download for most people on a 28.8 modem line. Although with faster lines this is becoming repparttar 134661 best way to give downloads of music. There is a faster way to broadcast your songs that will play a large sound file almost immediately . This is repparttar 134662 Streaming Audio File (.ra). Many web sites wisely give repparttar 134663 visitor a choice between a streaming audio or a MP3 download.

Real Audio There are many types of streaming audio on repparttar 134664 web but Real Audio seems to be repparttar 134665 most popular. A Real Audio file will play in seconds. The reason for this is that repparttar 134666 real audio file plays as it downloads. This is true of even a very large audio file. The quality of real audio file can be poor though on slower modem rates (28.8). It is excellent for talking but not for showing off a musicians album unless you are using a faster line. In which case repparttar 134667 sound quality is quite acceptable. Many radio stations keep archives of broadcasts so repparttar 134668 visitor can go back to programs to hear a certain person talk. Sometimes when there is net congestion a real audio file will cut out and then come back which can be frustrating to a listener if repparttar 134669 net congestion continues. The other problem with real audio is that it can cost repparttar 134670 web owner to use it. Anyone using real audio can go to someone owning a real server. They are given a text file on their server(.ram) that connects to repparttar 134671 real server. This in turn connects to repparttar 134672 real audio file(.ra). Most real servers charge about 5$ to$40 US/month depending on repparttar 134673 amount of space you need. This same process can be done on your own server if it is configured correctly. This is obviously cheaper but you will need large amounts of space for repparttar 134674 ra files. Many of repparttar 134675 real audio options are not available on your own server also. Real Audio Files compress well but still take up a large amount of space if you're putting albums etc on your web space. Many servers that offer free space limit repparttar 134676 amount of streaming audio files on their server. There are many competitor's software available for repparttar 134677 streaming audio but Real Audio seems to be repparttar 134678 most popular. Some you might look at are Playstream, Beatnik, Quicktime and Windows Media Technology.

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