Its Not About Glitz and Glamour

They say that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But as we all can see, it’s the first thing that you see. Personally, I don’t pass judgments by the cover but I express appreciation for creative, neat and nice looking covers.

We’ve talked about the effectiveness of quality articles. We’ve talked about making good links. We’ve also talked about social bookmarking tools. But we shouldn’t forget to talk about the basics. While everyone agrees that design doesn’t matter as crawlers and bots go through your page, your potential clients think differently. More often than not, they will make assess you not just based on the content but also on how your site looks.

1. Hold their attention. Content rules but your website has to look decent enough to actually retain the attention of visitors. It can be attention grabbing but if you overdo it (i.e. too wordy or too full of graphics) you can lose their attention instead of gaining it.
2. Don’t be too flashy. You surely can get your point across without being to gaudy or “effects-y” about it. Be considerate of would be customers’ (and their processors’) patience.
3. Be upfront. If you’re selling something don’t drag them into lengthy introductions on how you met the person who sold you blah blah until you finally discovered blah blah. Write down its benefits, put some pictures or demo videos. If you’re doing something else in your site, it’s the same thing; get your point across in the first page.
4. Make sure the important details can be easily seen. Important details include contact information, prices, date, places or time. If you don’t want it seen on the home page, make sure the link to it is visible and distinct.

Check your web design using these criteria. Bots and crawlers may ignore how you look but human beings (read: your potential customers) want it pleasing to the eye.