Webpage Tips

Written by Angela Barbeisch


As a working mother of two, I must admit that sometimes my house isn’t ready for company. Yes, you might trip over a few pairs of shoes when you walk in and you might have to wait for dinner while I dig around for some frozen pot pies and some clean dishes to serve them in. However, as Web Mistress of http://www.allparody.com, I’m always prepared to have company come into my “home. Here I can easily hide allrepparttar dirty socks underrepparttar 134825 bed butrepparttar 134826 only thing you’ll see is is my best foot forward. When you present a website for your readers, you are inviting them to observe your house to take part in your metaphorical meal. To keep company in your house, you'd better make sure thatrepparttar 134827 coffees hot andrepparttar 134828 service is fast and good.

Julia Child did not become a successful chef without using her tools ofrepparttar 134829 trade to provide a visual, culinary masterpiece. Brando wouldn’t have been able to scream at Stella without his script, staging, lighting andrepparttar 134830 direction! Bill Gates wouldn’t have been able to build Microsoft without being a programming geek!

But where do YOU, asrepparttar 134831 novice, findrepparttar 134832 tools ofrepparttar 134833 trade? And are they expensive? The beauty and wonder ofrepparttar 134834 web is ANYONE has access to FREE you need to put together a truly terrific website.

You’ve registered withrepparttar 134835 top search engines, such as yahoo.com, excite.com, google.com. Your site is advertised in newsletters, bulletin boards, guestbooks, link exchanges, top site lists and more. Customers hit a key word and find themselves at your site.

Nowrepparttar 134836 question is, are they STAYING, or does your site become a 5 second pit stop inrepparttar 134837 Internet raceway?

Terrific graphics are wonderful, but guess what? They are passé onrepparttar 134838 net if they are slow loading! Did you know that Yahoo.com’s splash page loads in under 6 seconds, even on a 14.4 modem?? There’s a reason they are so successful!

Let’s say you arerepparttar 134839 owner of JimBob’s Fishing Hole, selling quality lures and hooks. A fisherman will wait patiently for hours for a catch. Onrepparttar 134840 net,repparttar 134841 same fisherman will wait an average of 8-12 seconds ifrepparttar 134842 site doesn’t load quickly enough. The average Joe doesn’t want to wait three minutes to seerepparttar 134843 jpeg of that 22" bass you caught on Lake Kokomo! This potential “fish” is going get away unless you masterfully baitrepparttar 134844 hook.

AFTER YOU GRAB ATTENTION, TIGHTEN YOUR GRIP!

Written by Bob McElwain


We know that something like 80% of visitors will abandon our sites without finishingrepparttar headline. And we know that "What's in this for me?" isrepparttar 134824 question every visitor asks immediately. We know we must demonstrate there is something here that matters. And we must do so quickly. Within seconds.

Suppose you have worked at this. And suppose you have this right, or at least close. What next?

Show Them The Good Stuff

The next step is to quickly reveal what is available onrepparttar 134825 site and why each segment matters. There must be a promise of complete information, and this promise must be kept. A page of banners, by contrast, will never work.

The Contrary View In Place

For some time now I've wanted to get into a hobby-type thing to give my days a better balance. I tend to just keep working, unless I build in alternate fun things of some kind or another.

Then it hit me. I love growing stuff. But where I live, this means a greenhouse to keep outrepparttar 134826 gophers, rabbits and especiallyrepparttar 134827 deer. So I went surfing, something I seldom do.

Thoroughly excited withrepparttar 134828 idea, I fired uprepparttar 134829 computer, went to AltaVista, and entered, "hot house" + plants. Notrepparttar 134830 best starting place, but hey, I was seriously surfing for something I had never before tried to find onrepparttar 134831 Web. A glance atrepparttar 134832 first 10 listings showed I hadrepparttar 134833 wrong key word. The fourth item caught my attention.

"Your #1 Stop for old fashion Cottage Plants,repparttar 134834 once your Grandmother used to grwow."

An Odd Happening

I'm by nature a thoughtful, somewhat introspective fellow. So I was taken by surprise byrepparttar 134835 feelings that washed over me in looking atrepparttar 134836 above listing. "Whorepparttar 134837 heck is this joker? Two misused words inrepparttar 134838 site description that a spell checker can't find. Maybe "grwow" is a word, but I don't recognize it. Does this clown know anything? Am I really expected to click on this nonsense?"

Noterepparttar 134839 lack of reason in my response. Which was frustration that converted to anger so quickly I did not noticerepparttar 134840 change. "Whorepparttar 134841 heck are you, wasting my time like this?" I muttered out loud. And instead of thinking things over, which is my usual mode, I plunged on with an aggressive demanding attitude I don't recall ever having before.

Next Stop: Greenhouse

Mostly greenhouse effects regardsrepparttar 134842 planet. Of no interest at all. (Well, sure. Critical stuff. But not just then.) So I tried greenhouses (plural). Better. So AltaVista seesrepparttar 134843 plural as different fromrepparttar 134844 singular. I decided to try to remember that, but knew I wouldn't.

A furious scan of descriptions followed. I clicked on those that seemed promising. On every third one I hitrepparttar 134845 back button, forrepparttar 134846 site didn't seem to want to load.

Site after site was lovely. Virtually all were catalog operations. Lots of pictures with options for bigger ones. And lots of "Add To Cart" buttons. But little information about much of anything. I'm going to spend $500 to $5000 based on a picture? Has everybody lost their mind?

Shutting Down

I was surprised when I glanced atrepparttar 134847 clock. I had "visited" over 50 sites in less than 45 minutes. This may berepparttar 134848 essence of surfing to many. Frankly, it'srepparttar 134849 first time I recall "attacking" a topic in such fashion.

Some sites offered gardening tips. None appeared to feature great content or solid information that would help me make a practical decision. I saw no mention ofrepparttar 134850 need for heating and cooling. I guess these ups and extras are meant to come as a surprise. And I did not find mention of how well their stuff can handle two feet of snow, which I get routinely here inrepparttar 134851 foothills ofrepparttar 134852 Sierra Nevadas.

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