Website Style

A creative individual, the head of a religious organization or charity, owner of a boutique, or a business that wants to project big business professionalism–they’re all going to want a different website style. But there are a lot of design options out there. How do you decide what not to include in your website?

Conventional wisdom consistently lists the following:

Dated gimmicks. Flashing, pixelated GIFs; poor navigation structure (even or especially if it looks “cute”); smiley faces; pictures of puppies and kittens–They’ll make you look like you’re well behind the curve in all of your business dealings, including the one you’re trying to sell (and even if it’s a personal website, you’re selling something–yourself).

Large graphics. This is less of an issue than it used to be as people move more toward high-speed Internet access, but I recommend visiting the local library to try to put yourself in a visitor’s shoes. You’ll have, on average, a half hour. How much of your half hour of library Internet time is eaten up waiting for your website to fully load? Even 5 seconds can be too long for some people.

Poor SEO planning. Flash websites–last I heard–aren’t SEO friendly, though there are ways to improve that, even with Flash sites. Blogs are getting better, but also have trouble managing good SEO. Search Engine Optimization means you’re found when people are looking for what you’re selling. It’s important to be sure that the site is constructed in such a way that the search engines can find it and list it appropriately.

Other things to avoid? I hate the ones above, but the ones following the cut are my top five: (more…)