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Internet 101
Find Information on
these topics, and more! >
The Basics:
• Why a Website?
• Advertising on Internet
• Minimum Requirements
• Attracting Visitors
• About Search Engines
• Your Internet Name
• What is Hosting?
• Designing Your Site
• Your E-mail Address
For Beginners:
• What to look for in a web hosting
company and top web host provider
• Become a WebMaster
• Learn the things you need to know to create a website that gets high search engine rankings and the qualified
visitors you want.
FAQ's:
• How can I deal with your company long distance?
• Are you a web host?
• Where do I register domain names?
• Can I host a website myself?
How-To:
• Make your website work
• Make a webpage the search engines will like
• Create a webpage your visitors will like
• How to pick the best search engine keywords
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INTERNET 101
Create a Web Site Your Visitors Will Like:
Obviously, there is no one answer to the question
of what any given visitor will like or not like in a website. However, there are certain aspects of a site which
can make it more appealing in general.
One of the most critical aspects for a website is navigation. It can be extremely frustrating if you feel you are
"finding your way through a maze", rather than using a "carefully organized guide".
Tips for keeping navigation simple:
• Keep navigation placement the same on
all pages throughout your website
• Eliminate "click-through" page
structures which require you to view
page A and B before you can get to C.
Instead, keep all pages accessible at
all times.
An exception to this would be if you have obvious groupings on your website. If this is the case, you can have
sub-navigation for the groupings. However, it is again recommended that all sub-navigation is offered/displayed
on all pages of that grouping.
Another extremely critical aspect of a website is loading
time. Very simply, people are not patient. The guideline that we use for loading time is no more than 10 seconds
per page. This seems to be a happy medium that pleases most visitors. Of course, if you are able to optimize for
faster loading times, by all means do so!
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Tips for minimizing loading times:
• Optimize your images using photo editing software, such
as:
PhotoImpact, or PhotoShop. Many of these
programs have options which
can reduce the color palette in images
to speed loading.
• In all cases possible use text rather than images. If you have a headline
that you currently are using an image for,
scrap that and type it in to
speed your times.
Note: An
exception to this rule would be times when a specific font
is critical to your
design - when using text on pages, specified fonts
can only be viewed
by those visitors which have that font installed
on their computer.
Tips from our Creative Director:
• Maintain a consistency to the pages throughout your website.
Visitors
 usually do not
like the feeling of having to "get to know" your site with
each click.
• Represent yourself accurately by making sure that your website reflects
the information
you are claiming to have. Visitors do not like to sort
through 10 sites
claiming to have information about a subject/product to
find one that
really does.
• Do not use both red and blue on the same page when avoidable. The
human eye cannot
focus fully on either color when the other is present in
the same line
of sight.
• Minimize animations, or eliminate them all together. Minimizing excess
movement on
a site will allow a visitor to focus on what they came for,
rather than
being distracted.
• Keep pop-up's and advertisements to a minimum. Also, be sure that
those advertisements
which are on your site are relevant to your site's
content/visitors.
• Avoid the bold option! It seems that people think that if some bold text is
good, than all
bold text is better. Wrong! By keeping only "main-point"
text or headlines
bold they stand out more than being surrounded by all
bold text. If
you feel that all of the information on your page is the most
important, take
some time to reorganize your information and prioritize
the intentions
of your website.
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By Scott Creative
Services