There’s a myth in website design that “no one reads the copy.” It’s not entirely true. While most of the people who visit your website will not read most of the copy, the few visitors who are really interested in what you have to offer will. If they’re really interested, they’re your best prospects. And
It’s amazing to me that this still happens with a fair degree of regularity. It would seem obvious that print and the web are two distinct mediums requiring different expertise. But unfortunately, it’s not uncommon. Design-is-design-is-design to many people, and many of them continue to think of web design as “on-screen graphic design.” I’ve discussed
Giving away stuff on your website is a really smart thing to do. It’s an opportunity to spread your ideas or information about your products and services, sometimes in exchange for a little bit of information that could be helpful in your marketing. It’s a very simple process, but companies screw it up all the
You would think that a company that puts many thousands of dollars into its website would want to track website results to find out how many unique visitors it gets, where they come from, what content is most read, and dozens of other useful bits of information that have the potential to inform smart decisions
You’ve seen those homepages with 3 product lead-ins and 2 giveaways and NEW!!! special pricing and the latest news and a billboard about what the company stands for and the mission statement and a picture of the CEO and an announcement about the company picnic and a picture of the dog by the sales manager’s
Splash pages represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the online medium. Often, they come from a print perspective ("books should have a cover"), or sometimes from a broadcast perspective ("a show should have an intro"). In user surveys, splash pages consistently rank as one of the most annoying things on the internet, but there are still
Don’t get me wrong: web designers and programmers are critical to the process of creating a website. But they cannot manufacture a viable web presence without the ongoing interest and participation of C-level (CEO, COO, etc.) managers in establishing, supporting, and adjusting a company’s web strategy. Companies that don’t understand the place their websites have
