Is Your Web Site Too Hard?

Written by Roger C. Parker


Is your website too hard?

Takerepparttar “Easy Test” to see if your website is as visitor friendly as it should be! Websites often fail to producerepparttar 132340 desired results. This can be because visitors find them too hard to understand or navigate. Here are some potential usability problems to avoid.

1.Hard to find

Is your website easy to locate? Do you promote it everywhere, (i.e. business cards, invoices, envelopes, etc.) and is your site search engine friendly? Do you promoterepparttar 132341 benefits of visiting? Is your site address easy to remember and easy to type? Does your url contain easily misspelled words? Is it complicated by repeated letters, i.e. “theentity?” Are there numbers, which can cause confusion, i.e., “1shopping” or “oneshopping?”

2.Hard to engage

Do you make it easy for visitors to understand why they should read on? You have only a few seconds to persuade visitors to begin reading your message. Unless your home page immediately provides an obvious “why buy from us?” benefit, visitors are likely to leave—wastingrepparttar 132342 time and money you spent attracting them to your site.

Home pages should begin with headline that immediately communicates you are familiar with your visitor’s problems and can help them achieve their goals. Time-consuming animations, vapid “welcoming” statements, and “brag and boast” claims, usually turn visitors away.

3.Hard to decide

Do you make it easy for visitors to decide what to read next? The best web sites have a clear and immediately identifiable focus and sequence. Many home pages, however, offer so many navigation options that visitors are paralyzed and choose to leave.

Studies have shown that, if you offer grocery store visitors an opportunity to sample 6 jams, 30% of customers will eventually buy one. But, if you offer 16 samples, response drops to 3%!

4.Hard to return

Do you make it easy for visitors to register for your e-mail newsletter, so you can invite them to return? Unless you obtain your visitor’s e-mail address and permission to contact them inrepparttar 132343 future, you’ll probably never see them again! Many web sites offer visitors an opportunity to sign-up for their e-mail newsletter, however, only a few offer a meaningful incentive to sign-up. Without an incentive, without showing or describingrepparttar 132344 benefits of registering, why should visitors sign up? Most e-mail in-boxes are already filled with unread newsletters!

A Webmaster’s Toolkit and Tricks

Written by Jason OConnor


TERMS OF REPRINT You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long asrepparttar bylines are included and you follow these rules: *Email distribution of this article MUST be opt-in email only. *If you post this article on a website, you must set any URL's inrepparttar 132339 body ofrepparttar 132340 article and most especially inrepparttar 132341 Author's Resource Box as hyperlinks. Please send usrepparttar 132342 URL. *Please send email to Jason@oakwebworks.com when posting or sending to a list

A Webmaster’s Toolkit and Tricks Author: Jason OConnor Copyright: 2004

If you own a website, operate or run a website, or you’re a webmaster, this article is for you. A successful website is created and managed by a person with an effective toolkit who knows how to use each tool. There are a huge amount of software applications out there for people to use for creating, building, coding and running websites. Here arerepparttar 132343 ones you’ll find in my tool box. I’ve been using these for many years and have had wonderful success with each one of them.

As a bonus, I am going to include a few tricks for some ofrepparttar 132344 tools that may be of interest to you. (These ‘tricks’ are for pc users only.)

** Toolkit Item 1 – Dreamweaver ** I have a client who owns and runs a small business website and who has been using Microsoft Frontpage since he started. He is not a programmer or Web designer and has been very frustrated managing his website. Frontpage adds strange html code behindrepparttar 132345 scenes that takes control away fromrepparttar 132346 user and often produces undesirable results. I suggested that he try Macromedia’s Dreamweaver, which isrepparttar 132347 software I have been using for many years. It’s excellent and does exactly what you want, does not add extraneous code and makesrepparttar 132348 life of a webmaster a breeze. After playing with it for a while, my client thanked me profusely for suggesting it. Get it at http://www.macromedia.com.

Dreamweaver Trick: To make a global change in your website, that is, change some specific text or html code on every page in your site, here’s what you do: In your top menu bar, choose ‘Edit’ > ‘Find and Replace . . .’. Inrepparttar 132349 dialog box that pops up, choose ‘Entire Local Site’ inrepparttar 132350 top dropdown box labeled ‘Find In’. This will allow you to make a global change. Also, noterepparttar 132351 other choices inrepparttar 132352 dropdown box. Using this feature will save you lots of time.

Dreamweaver Trick: Did you know Dreamweaver has a ‘Check Spelling’ feature? If not, go torepparttar 132353 top menu bar and click on ‘Text’ and then choose ‘Check Spelling’ atrepparttar 132354 bottom ofrepparttar 132355 menu. Or you could simply use your ‘Shift’ F7 keys.

** Toolkit Item 2 – Photoshop ** Since images onrepparttar 132356 Web are both illustrations and photos, Adobe’s Photoshop is hands-downrepparttar 132357 best choice for graphics manipulation for a webmaster. It has a little bit of a learning curve, but well worth it if you want to include awesome graphics on your website. It allows you to create buttons, borders, shapes, symbols and of course, it allows you to change, alter, edit and improve any kind of digital photograph. Get it at http://www.adobe.com.

Photoshop Trick: The Web allows two main graphics file formats, .jpg and .gif. Therefore, any image you plan to use on your website needs to end in one of these two extensions. (The Web allowsrepparttar 132358 .png extension too, but you ought to use either .jpg or .gifs only). So, whenever you plan to use a graphic on your website that you created or edited in Photoshop, you need to save it as one of these two file extensions. And you also want your images to be optimized so they are not large causing long download times for your site visitors. Do this by going to your top menu bar and choosing ‘File’ > “Save forrepparttar 132359 Web . . .’. You will then be able to choose .gif or .jpg inrepparttar 132360 top right ofrepparttar 132361 dialog box that opens up. You’ll also be able to see 1, 2, or 4 versions forrepparttar 132362 same image, optimized in different ways and having different sizes for you to choose. Always use this tool in Photoshop for Web graphics.

Photoshop Trick: Want to create soft, almost rounded edges on your rectangular images? Here’s what you do: In your vertical ‘Tools’ window in Photoshop, chooserepparttar 132363 top left tool called ‘Rectangular Marquee Tool’. Then click and drag your mouse on your image to make a rectangle that is 5 to 10 pixels smaller than your actual image. Make sure that it is equidistant on all four sides. Then go to your menu bar and choose ‘Select’ > ‘Inverse’. This chooses (or selects) everything outsiderepparttar 132364 rectangle you just made. Finally, go to your menu bar and choose ‘Filter’ > ‘Blur’ > ‘Gaussian Blur’ and type 1-5 pixels inrepparttar 132365 dialog box. That’s it, and now your image will have soft edges.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use