Deadly Webmaster Disease - SiteRightItis by Gary McHugh
Interesting title and maybe it made you smile, however for some webmasters this
is a very real condition. Do you have it? I hope not, but you can find out by
reading on. Hopefully if you are infected with this disease then this article
should immunize you and ensure you a long and healthy webmaster life. (I'll
send you the bill for the immunization later)
Ok let's get serious. I have spent many years helping all sorts of web
businesses get off the ground from info sites to entire shopping malls, I have
built them all. What is always interesting to me is to see is which sites stay
around and which disappear after a few months.
Over the past few years I have noticed something very interesting. A small
percentage of my clients are constantly tweaking their sites, adding this
feature, adding that feature, changing the look of this page, changing the look
of that page, in essence trying to create the "Perfect" site. For me this is
not a bad thing as I get paid for editing and installation services. However I
often tell clients they don't need this or that and try and re-focus them a
little on what they SHOULD be doing. I do have a reputation of "telling it how
it is" but In my defense I could not do otherwise, I believe we sometimes need
to hear wat we NEED to hear not what we want to hear.
Here is what I discovered, the webmasters that spend the most time tweaking and
perfecting their sites don't have anywhere near the visitors my busiest clients
do. Now while wanting your site to be "perfect" may seem like a good positive
thing, it can be fraught with danger. The reason for the lack of visitors to
these "tweaking" sites is simple, they spend hundreds of hours worrying about
cosmetics and features, and next to no time promoting their business. Some of
them even blamed the layout of the site and not the lack of promotion for its
poor visitor numbers and lack of profit.
Websites are no different from traditional bricks and mortar businesses. You
can have the most beautiful restaurant in the country, serving the best food on
a little back street somewhere, but unless people know where it is it will
fail. Well the internet is FULL of tiny back streets and your business is on
one of the smallest until you promote it, get busy, and move to one of the
busier streets where word of mouth brings you most your trade.
I remember many years ago when I started my first site, I did at least have the
common sense to realize that I knew very little about running an online
business, and went and signed myself up for a few webmaster newsletters to
gleam some tips and advice from those more experienced. I will never forget the
very first email I ever received from one of those webmaster sites, it's
subject was "KISS" which stood for "Keep It Simple Stupid" Something I have
never forgotten.
Sure your site needs to look nice, but what is way more important is the
content and the navigation. If I visit a flower site to order flowers for my
mum's birthday, then what I want to see when I get there is FLOWERS!
Yes my eyes will be met with the "overall look" when I land on the home page of
the site, if it looks messy maybe I won't order. If it has a nice professional
look then great I have a good impression, but believe me when I say this, I
will not stop to think about how your site looks any further than that. I just
want to buy flowers not do a review on your sites design or feature list.
An example: This is one of my clients sites
http://www.anythingflowers.com
the lady that owns this site UNDERSTANDS the above. She UNDERSTANDS that web
users are busy impatient creatures and just want to see the goods. Notice she
even added a button in her top navigation called "In A Rush?" That leads to a
page that basically says, if you are busy instead of wasting time looking
through all our categories let us design a lovely bouquet for you. Which
product do you think her site sells most of???? You got it, the florists choice
bouquets. I rest my case, her visitors want flowers not a pretty site or a live
chat feature.
By the same token and this may offend some of you but it's how things are. I am
really not interested in a large "about us paragraph on your home page, for
goodness sake build an "about us" page and put it in your navigation, if I want
to know more about you I'll find it. Right now I'm thinking about my mothers
birthday, I just want to see the flowers, know how much they cost and how much
delivery is. Try to keep your opening paragraph to a few lines then show me the
product.
If you run a service or information site then tell me briefly about the service
or information you offer, then give me a nice clear navigation so I can look
around and get more details on the service or information I am interested in.
KEEP IT SIMPLE!
Think for one moment about some of the biggest earning sites on the web. Is
Paypal loaded with graphics and layout??? No it is very simple, clean and easy
to navigate. Take a look at Ebay, the first thing you see are products and
categories and a search box. Let's not forget the mother of all simple designs
Google what is it? A search engine, whats the first thing you see??? A search
box, get it???
There was a lot of publicity recently about the free dating site "plenty of
fish" is that a design masterpiece??? NO in fact it's quite ugly, but that site
earns over $500,000 A MONTH! What is the first thing you see there?? Dating
search, dating ads and dating profiles, not "Plenty of fish was established in
1995 and our primary mission blah blah blah" What do you think the folks at
plenty of fish spend their time on? (apart from counting their money) Design?
Trendy features?? Hell no! PROMOTION!!!!!
Do you get the point??? SiteRightItis is no different from "I'm just waiting
for the right time" or "I'll quit smoking before im 40" it is a form of
procrastination hidden behind a rationalized creative reason. I never did like
the word rationalize try a different spelling with the same sound "rational
lies".
Ask yourself this: Does my site look nice?? Yes? Great! Am I hitting my
visitors with the info, service or products they came for as soon as they reach
my site??? Yes?? Great! Is my site easy to get around for visitors and for
search engines??? Yes?? Great!
Here's some very complicated advice if you answered yes to all the above:
STOP MESSING AROUND WITH YOUR SITE AND PROMOTE IT!!!!!!!THAT IS HOW YOU WILL
MAKE MONEY!!!!!!
Exchange links, list in directories, post in forums, list in search engines,
write articles, join some text link exchanges, use the bigger Pay per click
search engines and advertise a little. Promote your site in every legal and
ethical way you can.
In closing some final reminders: Other than an initial 5 second glance 90% of
your visitors don't care about the quality of your site design, as long as it
looks ok and is easy to get around. They are interested in information,
products or services.
Promote Promote Promote! The only place success comes before work is in the
dictionary!
About the Author
About the Author Gary McHugh is the author of many website related articles and
owner of 2001 Web
a complete web hosting and design service for webmasters of all levels of
experience.
You can read more of his articles
here
