Entries Tagged 'design' ↓
February 28th, 2008 — blogs, design
Today I signed up for a new affiliate programme for my finance site.
However, I noted that the css for the affiliate banner looked skewed on Mozilla Firefox. That gave the impression that the affiliate programme was quite new and unprofessional.
I then thought about the afilliate banner. In fact they were cleverly getting html links with desired anchor text within it. Therefore the affiliate programme could just be a clever way to get lots of free inbound links to their site.
Therefore, I added rel=”nofollow” to all the links. This way I can test the affiliate programme without having to worry about displeasing the mighty Google for accepting paid links. (I know they are not paying for links, but, I don’t trust Google to differentiate – it can’t be easy)
- Top Tip – Always test your website in other browsers. I have been caught out myself by shockers on Internet Explorer (I mostly use a mac and Firefox )
- If their banners had not been buggy in Firefox I may not have got worried and added the ‘nofollow’ tag to all the affiliate links. The presentation of your site DOES matter. Bugs and errors say you are either 1) incompetent 2) don’t care or 3) Can’t afford to pay a proper css designer.
September 11th, 2007 — design
Web users surf and scan – they click on obvious things. Web users don’t like complexity, the last thing they will do is read instructions or delve through archives to find the best posts.
As a blog owner you want to try and make the experience for web users as easy as possible. Your website should be easy to navigate, it should be obvious what the blog is about. It may be obvious to you, but don’t forget you built it. If you really want to test how simple your blog is, ask your mother to look at the blog and look in exasperation as she struggles to do anything.
Never assume that web users know anything. It is worth bearing in mind how popular searches like “what is a blog?” are.
Here are some simple tips to to increase usability on your blog
1. Don’t offer too many choices.
If you present too many options, people may not actually choose anything. – It is too much effort to read through all the options for them. Make it obvious for readers. Offer 1 choice and you can send them exactly where you want to go.
2. Highlight your best posts.
Make sure you have a best of your blog. This makes sure your best articles are not lost in the archives. Even better consider having popular posts in the sidebar for easy clicking. (see most popular posts plugin)
3. Minimise clutter.
This is difficult if you want to have lots of advertising. But, remember the maxim – sometimes less is more. Reducing the number of google ads, not only makes it a more attractive visitor experience; but, many bloggers have the experience that reducing the number of ads can keep the revenue the same.
Good example: Skelliewag.org
4. Make it easy to know who the blogger is.
Add an about page with contact details.
Continue reading →
September 9th, 2007 — design
If you are looking to stand out from the crowd, a unique web design is a must. When visiting websites, I think we subconsciously give a very high weighting to the visual impact of the site.
If you would like to get a distinctive custom design I can recommend, Pure Web Designs, run by a friend, Sumangali Morhall.
Pure Web Designs, offer custom templates, design and general advice about building websites and Blogs.
An Example from Pure Web Designs:
Pure Web designs is run by Sumangali Morhall, who has her own blog
June 4th, 2007 — design
I am a great fan of white space on websites. It gives space for content to breathe.
Somehow it creates a more relaxed viewing experience.
Most importantly it makes text easily scannable. The importance of this can never be underestimated. – some short tips on making content easily scannable
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May 14th, 2007 — css, design
If I had alot of time on my hands I would definitely spend more time learning and using CSS. It can be very satisfying when you design something good using CSS. However, as a webmaster for several blogs, I know how time consuming CSS can be. Therefore, I tend to put content before CSS.
Nevertheless, a few tweaks to your design can make a big difference to the uniqueness of your sites.
Here are some useful CSS tips. If you would like to add any other CSS resources, please add as a comment.
I particularly like:
1. Pull Quote -
the good thing about the pull quote is people read it
Continue reading →
May 3rd, 2007 — SEO, design
In a recent post, I talked about the importance of getting inbound links.
I discovered on my Economics Blog that somebody wanted to link to a post but couldn’t find the Permanent link, therefore, they linked to the category, even though it wasn’t the best choice.
This made me realise that on the standard blogger design, the permanent link is hard to find. It is actually the small time, – not obvious to the average reader. for example see: poetseers.org blogspot (a blog that got retired)
It is unsuprising that people can’t find the permanent link. But, it means that if they can’t find it, then you will be losing out on potential links.
See: Economics Blog for a more obivous design. – The re-design uses principles of “Don’t Make me think”. This is a design concept I will go into more detail later.
