Keeping Your Site Current

Written by Jeff Colburn


It's imperative that your website's information be current. This can prevent you from many problems with your clients.

If you have anything on your site that's date sensitive, such as a sale, promotion, coupon or similar items that have expiration dates, then remove them when they expire. I had a friend who used her website to advertise a sale she was having at her store. The ad filled one entire page. Well, about six months afterrepparttar sale had ended I went to her site and foundrepparttar 132629 sale still listed. She did have an expiration date, which was a good idea, but also caused some problems.

By leaving this expired ad up it caused some problems with a few clients. Some people came to her store expectingrepparttar 132630 discount mentioned inrepparttar 132631 ad, and became upset when they found outrepparttar 132632 sale was over. Some people became so upset that she gave themrepparttar 132633 discount anyway.

While this solvedrepparttar 132634 immediate problem, she still had unhappy customers. These customers no doubt told all their friends aboutrepparttar 132635 unprofessional wayrepparttar 132636 store was run. There's no way to prove it, but I'm sure she lost sales from these unhappy customers spreading their unfortunate experience. Also, you have people coming in that when they findrepparttar 132637 sale has ended feel cheated, stupid (Jeez, I didn't noticerepparttar 132638 expiration date), embarrassed, and all around unhappy. They then try to funnel all of these negative emotions ontorepparttar 132639 storeowner, or whoever happens to be behindrepparttar 132640 counter. Now you haverepparttar 132641 owner and employees feeling unhappy. It goes on and on. All becauserepparttar 132642 owner didn't removerepparttar 132643 page or update it with something like, "I want to thank everyone who maderepparttar 132644 sale such a success. Keep checking back to see when our next sale will happen."

Making a simple change torepparttar 132645 one page like this would have prevented all ofrepparttar 132646 misunderstandings, made everyone happy and increased site traffic as people kept going back torepparttar 132647 sales page to see whenrepparttar 132648 next sale would be.

Inconsistent Design

Written by Jeff Colburn


One problem I often see on websites is inconsistent design. This not only looks unprofessional, but it also makes a site difficult for visitors to use. I recently visited a site, and each page was so different from every other page that I thought I was being sent to different websites. I found it so disconcerting that I leftrepparttar site after going to three pages and have no plans to go back. Do you think I would every buy a product or service from this kind of site? Not likely.

You want to make your site have a consistent design. By this I mean that allrepparttar 132627 links and contact information should be inrepparttar 132628 same place on every page. Each page should haverepparttar 132629 same design and colors too. A minor change in color isn't really a problem, but be sure that it's necessary. A change in color or layout should have a definite purpose and not be done just because you feel like it or want to show people what a great website designer you are.

Here are a few design tips to remember when creating a website.

 Don't use blinking text. Everyone hates it because it's so darned annoying.  Don't use more than 3 font styles on a site. Ideally, you should use only one font forrepparttar 132630 entire website. You can use a fancy font for your site title, but be sure to make it into a graphic, such as a JPEG file. If you use a fancy font, it must be onrepparttar 132631 viewer's computer or it will be replaced byrepparttar 132632 viewer's default font.  Keep italic and bold to a minimum. Use bold to highlight something important on a page, but if you use it too often people will ignore it. Most people find italicized letters hard to read, so if you must use italic, do so sparingly.

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