|
|
|
A Network Of Web Sites Is Not Enough!
The big thing these days is your ability to capture the market. So how do you do that? Do you... 1) Use spam tactics? 2) Have a massive banner campaign? 3) Spends lots of money of PPC Advertising? 4) Build a huge web site? 5) Link to...
How To Run A Profitable Website
Copyright 2005 Ronald Gibson All Internet business owners want their websites to be profitable.Here are a few tips that could help you make your website a profitable one. 1. Address your targeted audience on your business site. Example: "Welcome...
Is your Website Doomed for Failure Before you've Built it?
One of the things that many people overlook when building a new website is keywords. I have to admit, I did exactly the same thing myself when I started out. You can build the flashiest, most professional looking website, with lots of great...
Search Engine Optimization and Web Site Usability
Build a Web site and the people will come. Ha! If it were only that easy! The Web is the one sales environment where the customer has total empowerment. They have all the resources (i.e., your competitors) just a mouse-click away. Not only are you...
The Top 10 Most Ludicrous Things You Can Do on Your Web Site
We have a running joke in our office that one day we’ll load a page and it will say “You have reached the end of the World Wide Web” and it will be the truth. I’ve visited so many web sites in my time, it’s unreal. There are a few web site features...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Eyes on your eCommerce Website
Copyright 2005 Richard Keir
In a recent article I talked about Google AdSense placement based on eye-tracking research. However, research by The Poynter Institute, Eyetools and the Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media has a lot to say about more than where to put an AdSense block.
Designing an eCommerce site is more than making it pretty. You have certain desired actions you're looking for from your visitors. You have specific things you want to be sure they see and hopefully act on. Now, there's some research that can guide your design. Certainly you want your site to look professional, but you want it to do its job as effectively as possible too.
People are surprisingly alike in some of their basic visual behavior. It's been argued that our evolution as hunter-gatherers has shaped much of our ingrained visual patterns. Whether you buy that particular argument or not there are still important commonalities.
Typical behavior on initially viewing a site is to do a fast scan of the entire visible screen with short focusing periods around the areas that attract attention. First pass tends to include headlines, the page logo, photo captions, subheads, links and menu items. And the big hot spot is the upper left corner of the screen. I haven't seen any definitive research on whether these patterns also hold for users with native languages that read any way except left to right, but I'm assuming most of you are building sites for left-to-right readers.
The clear message is that your most important real estate is in that upper left area and that the lower right (particularly if it's below the fold) is the least likely to receive much attention.
How you use your words in a headline, paragraph or link can make a huge difference in your success at capturing a visitor's attention. The concept is called frontloading. Wherever you can make sure your critical terms appear at the very beginning of headlines, links and other text. It's still got to make sense, but the first few words are far more likely to be at least scanned then the middle or end of a headline or link or the inside of a paragraph.
The exact same words can have drastically different capture rates depending on their order. You want to maximize the probability that the visitor will read a whole headline or link and then act on it. So put the most significant, enticing words first - the ones that are the best grabbers and convey the subject immediately.
You don't have a lot of time to mess about. It's been reported that a typical surfer may be off your page in well under 14 seconds unless something grabs his or
her attention fast. Remember the upper-left? You want to do an especially good job with headlines, link and text in that area.
Dropcaps (where the first capitalized letter in a line is in a different, often unusual, font and extends below the normal text base-line), bolding, font changes and color changes can also serve as strong eye-attractors. If you try these techniques you need to be careful that you don't overuse them (your page will look like a mess), and it's extremely important that you test whether or not they're actually doing what you want. Annoying as it may be, running tests is the only way to make sure it's an improvement.
Do you use lists? Have you made sure that they're in-line and as close to the left margin as possible? Don't ever use an outline format with multiple indents. People scan down, not across and they tend to scan close to the left margin. Indent too much and it might as well be invisible.
An interesting testing result that I read somewhere said that somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of site visitors don't even see centered headlines. Sure they look nice and a lot of sites use them, but if they're totally missed by even 3 percent of your visitors, you're paying a major price to look good. Suggestion? Put those headlines up against your left margin.
This also applies to links. Put those links up against the left margin, not inside a paragraph, centered or off to the right. And if you want any clicks on a link, never put it in that nearly unseen lower right area. Might as well just leave it off your page.
How about indented paragraphs? Now there's a great way to start an argument. Some argue that it attracts the eye, it's different, few sites use it so you stand out. Others insist that you're far better off staying left justified and frontloading each paragraph. There's only one way to resolve it for yourself, yeah, run some tests and see what works with your visitors on your site.
The bottom line is that once you get beyond the basics of placement, frontloading, and left-justified links and headlines, you need to test if you want to fully maximize the effectiveness of your website design. I wish there were a simpler answer too, but in the end only testing will tell you what works best for your site.
About the Author
Richard writes, teaches, trains and consults on business and professional presentations and eCommerce related matters. Visit http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com for more information on eCommerce sites and eCommerce site building - and http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com/articles for more eCommerce articles.
|
|
|
|
|
| Web Design - HTML XML - Web Development - Web Site Design |
| Web Design and HTML are all about creating a great Web site. Use Web development and Web site design to build Web sites that customers return to over and ... |
| webdesign.about.com |
|
| Open Source Web Design - Download free web design templates. |
| Free web designs submitted by web designers behind the open source movement. |
| www.oswd.org |
|
| Web Design Library — One-stop resource for web designers |
| Web Design Library offers professional free web design tutorials, articles, news, software reviews, websites showcase, interviews, free web design stuff, ... |
| www.webdesign.org |
|
| Webdesign Professional WebSite Design by Web Design Auckland New ... |
| Web Design build professional websites for clients all around the world. |
| www.webdesign.co.nz |
|
| Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) |
| The ten most egregious offenses against users. Web design disasters and HTML horrors are legion, though many usability atrocities are less common than they ... |
| www.useit.com |
|
| HTML Help by The Web Design Group |
| HTMLHelp.com is maintained by the Web Design Group to provide Web authoring reference material, tips, and answers to frequently asked questions. |
| www.htmlhelp.com |
|
| Open Web Design - Download Free Web Design Templates |
| Open Web Design is a community of designers and site owners sharing free web design templates as well as web design information. ... |
| www.openwebdesign.org |
|
| Pages tagged with "webdesign" on del.icio.us |
| All items tagged webdesign ??? view popular ... 24 ways to impress your friends with web design · save this. This years advent calendar. ... |
| del.icio.us |
|
| Popular pages tagged with "webdesign" on del.icio.us |
| Popular items tagged webdesign ??? view all ... Open Source Web Design - // Home \\ · save this. first posted by cda on 2004-02-07 ... saved by 11694 people ... |
| del.icio.us |
|
| RAGE Software: More Info on RAGE WebDesign |
| For over 6 years RAGE WebDesign has been the HTML editor and web development tool of choice for thousands of Mac users. There is no other tool available ... |
| www.ragesw.com |
|
| Web Pages That Suck learn usability and good Web design by looking ... |
| Web Pages That Suck -- learn good Web design by looking at bad design. |
| www.webpagesthatsuck.com |
|
| Web Design from Scratch - Free web design course - basics, layout ... |
| A guide on essential skills for designing effective web sites. |
| www.webdesignfromscratch.com |
|
| Current style in web design |
| Current best practice in graphic design for the web, kind of boiled down into an edible form. |
| www.webdesignfromscratch.com |
|
| Web design - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| As the Web and web design progressed, the markup language used to make it, known as Hypertext Mark-up Language or HTML, became more complex and flexible. ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| UK Web Design Association - the Web Standards Organisation in the UK |
| The UK Web Design Association is a not-for-profit organisation - established to encourage and promote industry standards within the British web design ... |
| www.ukwda.org |
|
| WebDesignHelper.co.uk - Web Templates, Vertical & Horizontal Menus ... |
| FREE design help for all. Free page templates, Free vertical & horizontal menus and table templates. Tutorials, Graphics and java plus so much more ! |
| www.webdesignhelper.co.uk |
|
| Web Page Design for Designers |
| Web Page Design for Designers Web Design Archive. The cumulation of over eight years of articles, reviews and information about the graphic design of ... |
| www.wpdfd.com |
|
| WebDesign-L.com |
| Email list for web designers and developers, both professional and amateur. |
| www.webdesign-l.com |
|
| PageResource.com- by The Web Design Resource |
| Design your own web site with HTML! Includes an HTML tutorial, javascript tutorial, tips, tricks, and links to numerous web design resources and other html ... |
| www.pageresource.com |
|
| beautifully : : webdesign - links |
| Beautifully-webdesign.net, annuaire de liens autour du web design, mise à jour quotidienne. |
| www.beautifully-webdesign.net |
|
|