A while back, a friend of mine pointed out that his Web site (which is very basic) gets a fair amount of new business for his family-owned printing company. The secret: there’s a snapshot photo of him and his wife on the Home Page, and many new customers comment that they saw their photo...
Free Web Site Advice
Empty Space is not Wasted Space
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of dense Web sites. You know, three columns jammed with stock quotes, recent news, ads, highlights, customer login boxes, sale-of-the-day. The clutter in these sites drives me mad. It’s like a pack rat was turned loose on the Web, armed with everything that could possibly go on a...
Site Navigation: Keep it Simple
As Web sites become more crucial to a company’s marketing and visibility, good site design is becoming critical to the long-term success of a site. (Some would say it always has been critical, but let’s not get lost in that point just now…). Problem is, as sites are being more heavily designed, navigation generally...
Confusing Homonyms
Be careful to use key words that are simple and clear for your visitors. Web site visitors don’t really read — they scan. Usually, they look for highlighted text and other noticeable keywords that give them quick clues to 1) “What’s on this page” and 2) “What can I do from here?” The trick...
Web 101: Hosting
Web Servers For more about how Web servers work, see How Stuff Works. To get started with your online business, you’ll need a Web host. This is simply a company that hosts Web sites like yours. It could be a guy running an operation out of his garage or a giant server farm located...
Web 101: How does the Web Work?
What’s the Internet? For more basics on the Internet, see How Stuff Works. Sometimes when I present my E-Biz seminars, an attendee is lost about the foundation of the Internet — what is it, exactly? Here it is, for those who like to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start)…...
Web 101: Picking Domain Names
My Name is URL For the real basics on Web addresses (aka URLs), see How Stuff Works. Before you register www.myname.com, consider: Choose carefully: pick a name that’s easy to say, easy to remember and easy to spell. Shorter is good, but easy and memorable is better. Avoid traps like these: TWOWRITE.COM: over the...
IE7 and FF2: Will my Web Sites Still Work?
As you may know, Microsoft recently released a major upgrade to Internet Explorer (version 7.0) and about the same time, the Mozilla Foundation came out with Firefox 2. Both are major upgrades, but IE in particular is significant, since it had been so long since the last major upgrade (and since about 80-90 percent...
Finding links — the sooner the better
People are in a hurry, when they’re looking for something specific on the Web. They hit your homepage, and all they want to do is get off it — ideally, to the thing they’re looking for. So, give them clear visual cues to help them along. Make your main navigation clear and simple. Don’t...
Steps in the Process
One of the crucial things I cover in my Web 101 for Business seminars is an overview of the development process for building a Web site from scratch. (Those of you used to project management life cycles will recognize the basic Plan > Develop > Test > Implement > Evaluate project cycle.) In the...