Gong Xi Fa Cai or happy Chinese new year to everyone celebrating it this year. To Norman who lost a close relative, my condolences and I hope your life will nonetheless continue to prosper as the year of the Fire Pig brings much wealth and luck this year. Now we’ve got the greetings and holiday mood easing off, I’d like to share my 10 tips to test your web design.
Website Lessons
Unsubscribe Already, Damnit!
One of the rules in delivering newsletters is obtaining permission of delivery before delivering. However, there are circumstances involving the delivery before a permission. In this scenario, a newsletter delivered this way is an intrusion of the receivers email inbox.
On the other hand, I believe in bending rules or the principle of give and take. Therefore I don’t mind if someone sends me their newsletter though I might’ve not opt-in for it. But I refuse to accept the inability to unsubscribe from their mailing list. I’m going to share my recent experience so there’s a name in the continuing paragraph.
Categories or Tag Clouds
Let’s talk about something of old and something anew. Clearly, usage of categories are really old. We categorize related information into their appropriate sections. For instance, the location map could be categorized into the Contact Us page.
I believe due to the existence of blogs, there was a need for a more complex and detail way of sorting information. When you write about the company, is it the history? is the vision? or is it the team of the company?
RSS Not End-User Friendly
If you’re a blogger or Internet-savvy user, you might have heard of RSS or better known as Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Site summary does give a clue on its own but coupling that with the word Rich in front, it’s a whole new jargon in the IT world.
So what exactly is Rich Site Summary about? Well, if you ask any technical person or blogger, they might mention more jargon like XML and how it’s a technology used to pull headlines and other content on the Internet.
In layman, RSS is the ability to access or keep track of vast amounts of content easily.
Find Out the Success Behind Good Keywords
Previously I mentioned the growing trend of search engine position in Malaysia and how clients in Malaysia have become more aware of this trend.
Following that I also shared things to watch out when joining an online directory and how to make a wise selection of which online directory to join. This round, I’d like to talk about what we do and what you can do too to find the right keywords for your website.
Search Engine Position and Online Directories
At the end of 2006, I’ve noticed businesses become more aware of the importance in search engine positioning. Clients have asked me how do their competitors appear on the first page of Google when using certain keywords and phrases. This conversation normally leads to the next question, “do you provide search engine optimization?” or “can you do it for me?”.
Well, we know and understand the basics of search engine optimization however we don’t follow and specialize in this craft. Reason being is that it takes too much time in terms of testing, implementation and patience. Lastly, we don’t make a promise we can’t keep unlike some that say they’d guarantee your website on the first page of Google, Yahoo or MSN because we would ask them, “How long will my website be there?” But as usual, that’s a topic on its own.
Unorthodox Registration Process
If it’s one thing I learned through experience and feedback, it’s to make the registration process easy enough that it doesn’t require much thinking. When a person starts having to think about the registration, perception kicks in followed by the ‘what if’ contradiction and that affects the flow of getting them to register as a member.
I’ve got one example here of an unorthodox registration process. It’s been debated about the alert boxes popping up on your monitor and what kind of effects it gives a user. One of it is that its sudden action creates a feeling of insecurity that the user might have done something wrong. But the cooling period later is when they read the alert message.
Why Advertising Position Planning is Important?
I got this of one of the blogs I daily visit. I think it’s really worth sharing with everyone who’s thinking of buying advertising space or is planning to offer advertising space to others in their website. If you view the image, without careful planning of the positioning a big problem such as this can … Read more
Learn to Make Your Website User Friendly
I have to first say I’m no usability guru like Jakob Nielsen. But I can say I’d be a proud apprentice derived from the teachings of Steve Krugg. Both are names mentionable in usability while one’s more known but that’s not the point here. The point is that we all know a user friendly website creates happy visitors thus converting them to be happy customers.
Aren’t you tired of having to dig through dirt to get to the information you’re looking for? Or don’t you find reading the content on the grand looking tourism website just difficult because of the background or the non-contrasting text? The worst scenario, basking in joy with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but not having a way back. Well, we know all about that.
Cover Your Bases or Be Legally Slapped
One of the items freelance designers aren’t armed with is a contract or an agreement that should be signed by the designer and the client. As much as the printed material isn’t all legal without a certified seal but the signature on the paper strictly certifies its officiality and authorization by both parties. This paper can’t rush the deposit or payment remainder from the client to you unless you sue them – which I don’t think you’d want to do.
However, this paper signed on can be your shining armor against some legal actions a client might take on you. For instance; if the client wanted to slap you with a legal suit for not offering what you say then your documentation of the list of items both parties have considered is in the agreement. Don’t get it? Well, legal agreements aren’t made for easy reading.