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Just like these companies have: Need to find a lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio area? If you ever move North... we have a great piano teacher in Flint Michigan for you. Ever wanted to have your own custom watermark?
Expand your company's advertising persona with a dedicated website, just as this company who manufactures aluminum extrusions has... for construction forms or this natural stone importer website or one of the preeminent environmental testing labs in the nation.
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You can have your website hosted by BetterBuilt.com on BetterBuilt.com Windows 2003
Servers. With all the extra features included with our service, it will be hard
to sway from the practical, no-nonsense, low-load-servers, coupled with BetterBuilt.com’s
personalized service staff. Our staff is experienced with handling anything from
changing a word on your website to a complete redesign. Call today
1.877.325.1109 and speak with a website specialist about your needs.
Can you afford to wait another day with the
website that you have now? Here's one business that's specializes in personalized stationery that
has decided to add another Income Stream. When not thought through
carefully, there are a lot of issues that plague website owners, and one of
the most common is having a "bad" website-badly designed, inaccessible,
slow, disorganized, or obsolete. This list of 10 things includes a few
things that drive your audience nuts. Save yourself the
embarrassment of finding this out later. Here are the top 10 things that
separate a good website from the bad ones.
1. Old Websites aren't Antique. They're Antiquated.
In the world of web, internet users only return to sites that either serve their
information needs or regularly offer new and updated content. Outdated content on
a website (whether it is your products, hours, or other important information) serves
no purpose and kills the lucrative market of return customers. Fresh, updated and
changing content keeps customers coming back to find out more about your business.
Be sure when evaluating the performance of your website to ensure that your investment
continues to bring you business, rather than scaring it off with a horrible old
man smell!
2. Consistency ConSISTENcy cONsistENCy
When a company chooses to outsource to new web talent for each project—whether it’s
to find the lowest price, or replace “bad” designers, or even due to momentary indulgence
in ADD—a website can evolve into a patchwork design quilt over time if not given
proper attention. Users get very confused—and annoyed—when they move between pages
on a site and find drastically changed designs at every turn. Consistency is
the key to useable interactive design. When all interface elements
interact and function the same, users feel more comfortable and confident using
the site.
3. Granny Hangs Ten Too
Usability is the most researched topic of good web design. Imagine a complicated
obstacle course that had to be overcome by every customer you have. It wouldn’t
sell a lot of services. So why do so many websites seem to make it impossible to
navigate, find information, or understand the basics of how they work? Take a test;
see if your grandma can surf your website without any input from you at all. If
she can surf it without issues, then you’re off to a great start. Making your website
easily navigated by anyone is what will separate your website from the seaweed.
4. Wile E. Coyote Catches the Roadrunner.
While high-speed Internet access is growing more popular among personal home users,
not everyone can surf the web at lightning speeds. Making sure that the design of
your site is “light” enough to download at fairly fast speeds is important in reaching
your market. If a webpage takes more than 15 seconds to load on a slow modem, you
should know that your customer will leave to find a site they are not obligated
to wait for—even if your design is amazing.
5. Does This Look Infected To You?
Not all web browsers are created equal—some display designs differently than others,
depending upon the coding used. Your designer should take the time to test their
design in multiple browsers and on different platforms to ensure that the image
you think you’re presenting is the image everyone sees, not a mutilated version
of it. There have been major advances in the last couple of years in web design
to overcome this limitation and it is an extensive topic. Suffice it to say, it
helps to have a designer that pays attention to the standards from the World Wide Web Consortium; this is one of the easiest ways
to help this compatibility issue. It goes hand in hand with usability issues: your
website should be useable for everyone, and look similar to everyone.
6. Accessibility is Awesome.
If your business can cater to the physically impaired, your website should too!
If this is a concern, you should indicate this to your designer and they should
be able to create an intentionally “accessible” website for your customers. Ignoring
this aspect can be a damaging choice for your website’s success.
7. Splash Pages, Music, Construction Pages and Flashing
Images (Oh My!)
There are few things that irritate a web surfer more than having a website load
and blast music at full volume from the website, not to mention being unable to
turn it off. Unless your website is for a musician (and even then!), this is never
recommended. If you think your audience would like to hear music, offer the considerate
option to turn it off, up or down.
Splash pages are the web pages that have awesome text flying around the page, emphasizing
mysterious words like, “Success”, “Quality”, “We’re So Awesome”, for 5 minutes before
your customer ever gets to the website. In most cases, this is nothing short of
a waste of time. There are ways to tastefully incorporate animation and interactivity
into a site without making your visitors suffer this punishment.
And while on the topic, flashing images are a plague upon the face of the Internet.
It doesn’t matter if it’s scrolling text (impossible to read), a cute little email
envelope that jumps all over the page telling you to “CLICK HERE”, or irritating
rotating images. Not to mention that certain types of flashing images can cause seizures! Save the World Wide
Web, and skip the rolling color bars across the page.
Good websites are continually under construction. There’s no need to put a link
that goes “nowhere” only to announce to your customer, “We’re under construction”.
If it’s not ready, don’t put it up. Keep your viewers from as many “lost” pages
as possible. Broken links, inconsistent design, and time-wasting attention grabbers
all send your customers running to a website that doesn’t assault their senses.
The moral of the story? Unless it’s tasteful and absolutely essential, stay away
from things that jump, squawk, or otherwise waste your viewer’s time.
8. Remember When Hair spray Was Cool?
Web design, and how it “looks”, is always changing. Some changes are good, like
usability and organized design, and some are bad. Take the aforementioned splash
pages, for example. Be sure when your website is designed, it is something that
will last for a year at least. Otherwise, you should keep on top of the fads, and
be prepared to stay trendy with your new design by updating it every 60 days.
9. Bumps on Logs Do Nothing Special.
Websites without marketing are bumps on logs. Marketing, in all of its various options,
means tell everyone about your website. When a customer calls, and asks you your
hours, tell them, then mention your website and how it has FAQ’s with even more
information, and that they can sign up for your email newsletter to get special
offers in the mail. When you put out a flier, a classified ad in the paper, a business
card, or a commercial, everything should have your web address on it—don’t let your
website be a bump on a log now that you’ve put so much time and investment into
it.
10. Copycat! Copycat! Naner naner!
“I Want the Site to Look Exactly Like His…” When this is said, to be short and to
the point, this is stealing. Whatever name you want to call it, duplicating the
identical design, elements or other aspects of another site is copyright infringement
and could result in a nasty cease and desist letter from the offended company’s
not-so-friendly attorney—if not a lawsuit. Not to mention, this is an insult to
your designer whom you are paying good money to be a creative professional. Stolen
design is bad design.
When it comes to websites, you’ve now got the down low on what makes a website good
or bad.
Paying attention to these important tips will help your website maintain its nice
“spring chicken” smell, and keep those customers coming back again and again because
they know just the place to get what they need and want without any hassle. Trust
us; they’ll be elated now that you know.
At BetterBuilt.com we’ll address your website questions, concerns, design needs
and we’ll do it in a manor that you can understand. If you’re working with a web
designer that continuously tries to talk over your head you’re in for a bumpy ride.
Good websites take effort and work on both the part of your company and BetterBuilt.com.
Anyone that tells you that they can design a website for you without gathering any
information is just going to give you something worthless to your business. Worse
yet a bad website can create a bad image for your company. Call today
1.877.325.1109 and start off on the right foot.
Receive two months free hosting for every referral that transfers their website
to us. Applies to site revamp, hosting transfer or a complete new website. Once
the customer is setup and initial payment is received, your account will be credited.