site analysis: why most websites don’t make money ayo ijidakinro –
TRANSCRIPT
Site Analysis: Why Most Websites Don’t Make Money
Ayo Ijidakinro – www.ayoswebdesign.com
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The typical situation.
Does this describe you?
• You have a good product/service but a frustrating website.
• Your challenge is getting customers who use your website to call you or purchase online.
Why is this problem so common?
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The Money Pit
A bad website is a money pit.
You could:
a) Keep spending money on poor designs.b) Spend thousands on Search Engine Optimization.c) Start buying Google ads.
But you will see no results if users see your website and leave right away.
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What’s the answer?
Stop spending money on your website until you understand why it isn’t working.
This presentation will help you critique your website and make design changes that will:
1) Keep customers on your site.2) Convince customers to purchase your good or
service.
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Who is this presentation for?
This presentation is geared towards:
• Business owners or marketing executives.• Businesses selling products or services through
their website.
This presentation is NOT geared towards:
• Websites that are used for information purposes only with no product or service for sale.
• Website developers looking for technical solutions.
Note: This presentation does not require a technical background.
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Research based approach
• All of this information is based on research from over 25 different business and scholarly sources.
• At the end of this presentation, a table of articles for further reading is provided.
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Where do most websites go wrong?
The average website fails to generate sales because of a failure in one or more of the following areas:
1. Picture quality: Is your picture quality excellent, average or worse…below average?
2. Typography: Are you using a professional font? Is your text easy to ready?
3. Color scheme: Are your colors professional and do they build confidence?
4. Layout: Is your layout uncluttered and clean or does it project an image of poor quality?
In this presentation we will help you answer these questions for your website.
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Presentation format
From here forward, the presentation will be much less wordy.
Instead we will:
• Focus on screenshots from real, live websites.• Analyze website homepages to see what works
and what does not.• Provide you with resources to help solve the
most common problems.
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Why watches?
For this presentation we chose to analyze watch websites because:
1. Watches are a generic product, providing lessons that can apply to many other industries.
2. Watches have a wide price range, making the lessons applicable to both inexpensive and expensive products/services.
3. The watch industry is competitive, as your industry probably is.
4. Using a single industry makes it easier to compare each site.
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Website ReviewOf Fifteen Websites
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OROLUS.comConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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OROLUS.com
High quality images of the watches they sale gives the customer a good sense of product quality.
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OROLUS.com
Crisp, clean, sans-serif text builds confidence in the company.
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OROLUS.com
Image quality. Image quality. Image quality. Don’t forget it. Poor image quality is the #1 reason sites fail to get sales.
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OROLUS.com
Good colors. White backgrounds with subtle blues, reds, pinks and grays, gives a professional and modern feel.
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OROLUS.com
Promotion is prominent but not tacky. Avoid using exclamation points!!!!!! It looks dishonest.
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OROLUS.com
Orolus will generate substantial online revenues.
A bright clean design with high quality pictures is the best website possible.
Lessons:
• High quality pictures communicate professionalism.
• Uncluttered and clean design is enjoyable.
• White backgrounds with subtle colors are the safe colors to use.
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Watches Etc.Consider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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Watches Etc.
Good picture quality. The customer can see product quality and look and feel.
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Watches Etc.
Great font here. They’re using a sans-serif. This is a good use of all capital letters and good character spacing.
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Watches Etc.
Not a bad logo. Nothing really wrong with it.
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Watches Etc.
Not a bad logo. Nothing really wrong with it.
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Watches Etc.
Watches Etc. will generate little online business although customers will visit their physical location.
A poor quality navigation bar detracts from the entire design and makes the site look amateurish.
Lessons:
• Don’t allow a single part of your homepage to appear unprofessional. Customers will flee.
• Avoid using basic fonts like Times New Roman. They make you look cheap. If you need a serif font, use Georgia instead.
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eWatchStore.comConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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eWatchStore.com
They have a good idea with the presentation of the logos. It tells me what they sell and the logos are a crisp and clear high picture quality.
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eWatchStore.com
Avoid the need to scroll horizontally if possible. Most users prefer to scroll vertically.
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eWatchStore.com
This search box looks strange here. How often do you see search at the bottom of the page?
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eWatchStore.com
This block at top looks unprofessional. It would be better to use a solid color font on a white background than to use a white font on a black background.
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eWatchStore.com
Do NOT use a generic email domain like @hotmail, @yahoo, @aol, etc. It scares away customers because it looks like you can’t afford your own domain or just don’t care to buy one.
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eWatchStore.com
eWatchStore.com sales will be scanty because of a few critical errors.
As soon as you use a generic email address it exposes the fact that your company is an amateur operation.
Lessons:
• Don’t use a generic email address like [email protected] or @hotmail.com or @aol.com. It makes you look unprofessional and cheap.
• Avoid the need for horizontal scrolling.
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|red |fingerprintConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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|red |fingerprint
This page header looks clean and professional.
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|red |fingerprint
This company name uses lowercase which is ok. Modern web design uses a lot of lowercase with sans-serif fonts.
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|red |fingerprint
The use of a red background here is ok because the main body background is white. However, it is still a dangerous decision to go with anything but white.
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|red |fingerprint
They did a good job of selecting pictures that match their color scheme.
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|red |fingerprint
This navigation bar is just one big list. It risks making the whole site look unorganized.
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|red |fingerprint
All of this text is tight and a little cluttered, but it doesn’t destroy the site.
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|red |fingerprint
However, the quality, prominent pictures on this website dominate and overall give it a good feel.
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|red |fingerprint
| red | fingerprint’s website will generate medium-level sales.
Quality pictures and a color scheme that matches their company name save them from questionable decisions on site layout.
Lessons:
• Quality, relevant pictures should dominate your homepage.
• A little color at the edges of your site can communicate sophistication and elegance, if done correctly.
• Choose colors that match your pictures not just colors that you think look pretty.
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WatchesPlanetConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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WatchesPlanet
The first thing that leaps out at you is, “whoa this is cluttered.”
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WatchesPlanet
They make good use of a white background.
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WatchesPlanet
The colors are fine. Reds, oranges, and grays dominate this design. No color is too bright or clashes with the page’s pictures.
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WatchesPlanet
Lots of good quality pictures make the customer confident of product quality.
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WatchesPlanet
Crowded pages look like one big advertisement which is a bad thing.
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WatchesPlanet
WatchesPlanet will generate sales, but not to its full potential.
The crowded homepage will turn away many customers immediately.
Lessons:
• If your homepage is overly crowded it will look like one big false advertisement.
• Colors are not bad if they all match each other, pictures, and brand. Research “color theory” to understand what makes a color scheme good.
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About TimeConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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About Time
How many big company websites do you know that use such a dark background like this?
This background is just too dark.
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About Time
Can anybody read this text easily? There is way too much text with no organization.
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About Time
The quality picture is useless among such cluttered text. It is overshadowed by the text.
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About Time
The company name looks professional. This is the only part that will look professional to customers.
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About Time
This red font doesn’t fit. This is too much red. A couple of words highlighted in bright colors is ok. But keep most of your text black, dark gray, or another dark color.
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About Time
About Time will generate no business from their website.
Research has proven that designs like this fail.
Lessons:
• Have as little text as possible on your home page. Try to stay under 250 words.
• Cluttered text with no real organization makes your site completely unusable.
• Avoid dark backgrounds, they are very difficult to do well. It requires exceptional design experience.
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TIMEWAYConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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TIMEWAY
Beautiful picture of their product draws your attention immediately.
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TIMEWAY
Gray text on gray background is difficult to read. It also isn’t very visually appealing.
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TIMEWAY
Research has shown customers distrust exclamation points!!! Do you believe that this is really the last watch available?
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TIMEWAY
Everything about this design is just too dark. The design isn’t horrible, but why don’t Amazon, Yahoo, or Google use dark designs? Because most people don’t like dark designs.
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TIMEWAY
TIMEWAY will generate limited sales but most users won’t use it.
Most users do not like dark designs.
Lessons:
• Dark is depressing to many customers.
• Allowing dark colors to dominate your design is incredibly risky. You can expect to lose business unless your site is designed by an up-scale graphics design house.
• Even a nice picture is going to get lost if your entire design is too dark.
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theperfectwatch.comConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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theperfectwatch.com
A very professional header. But what happened to the rest of the site?
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theperfectwatch.com
The perforated border looks strange and unprofessional. Avoid borders that aren’t solid, unless you’re willing to pay extra to do it right.
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theperfectwatch.com
If any pictures on your website don’t load, you’ve lost 50% of your business immediately.What do you think when you see a broken link?
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theperfectwatch.com
Too much text. Would you read all of this?
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theperfectwatch.com
theperfectwatch.com is not going to get any business.
If your web page has any images that don’t load, you’ve lost your customers.
Lessons:
• Make sure all your images load.
• Make sure you have zero broken links on your website.
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CentralWatch.comConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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CentralWatch.com
Colors galore. Be careful about using too many colors. Most people aren’t going to like all these colors.
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CentralWatch.com
Web designers say you want no more than 4 different hues (colors) on a website. I count at least seven maybe even ten or more on this site.
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CentralWatch.com
There is no logical layout here. It seems like a big mess, especially because of the colors.
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CentralWatch.com
Would you enter your credit card information on this website?
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CentralWatch.com
CentralWatch.com will get limited business.
A few people will like a website with wild colors, 80% will not.
Lessons:
• Don’t use more than 4 hues on your website. You can use varying levels of saturation per hue.
• Too many colors is an immediate turnoff.
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TimexConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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Timex
This is a large successful company we are familiar with. Do you see how much white they use?
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Timex
Remember what we said about using only a few words on your homepage? Use as few words as possible.
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Timex
Only one quality graphic. You don’t need ten pictures on your homepage. Make the pictures large.
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Timex
Here the gray background works because the design is so minimal with lots of white to keep it bright.
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Timex
You see how they only use three hues. Red, white, and gray. Black is a saturation level for any color, it doesn’t count as a hue.
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Timex
Timex is a familiar brand so we know they will generate business.
Their design probably won’t work for you, but remember the lessons. Use plenty of white space on your site.
Lessons:
• Remember no more than 4 hues (colors). This website uses 3.
• Use as few words as possible. Timex uses roughly 30 words.
• Leave plenty of white space and use bright colors only as highlights.
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Aarons WatchConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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Aarons Watch
This is a nice large font.
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Aarons Watch
This is a dangerous color. Most people prefer white.
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Aarons Watch
These are good, quality pictures.
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Aarons Watch
Unformatted text like this is not going to be liked.
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Aarons Watch
This Yahoo reference is good as long as they link to the source so that the customer can see they are telling the truth.
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Aarons Watch
This navigation bar should be a different color than the rest of the website to give us a break from the green.
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Aarons Watch
Very few people will read this tiny text. They should shorten it further and ideally remove it since it detracts from the merchandise.
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Aarons Watch
Aarons Watch will generate some business, but not up to its full potential.
A bad color scheme and poorly formatted text consistently lose business.
Lessons:
• Again, to be on the safe side, always try to have lots of white in your website.
• Choosing a different background color than white loses customers.
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OPMTradingPostConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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OPMTradingPost
This dark background header loses customers. The whole site feels melancholy.
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OPMTradingPost
ALL CAPITAL LETERS fatigues the customer and appears excessively promotional. Don’t use them.
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OPMTradingPost
Try to be exciting without using an exclamation point. Exclamation points in promotions make the customer defensive.
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OPMTradingPost
Centered text usually looks unprofessional. Use centering sparingly.
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OPMTradingPost
Again, when customers see a big blob of centered text it looks amateur.
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OPMTradingPost
These pictures are low quality. They don’t give me confidence in their product quality.
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OPMTradingPost
OPMTradingPost won’t get online business.
A bad background and color scheme, along with other mistakes, will chase away paying customers.
Lessons:
• Don’t use big blocks of text.
• Don’t use lots of text centering.
• Don’t use ALL CAPITALS.
• Don’t show tiny images.
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bacario.comConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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bacario.com
Header uses color, but in an attractive manner.
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bacario.com
Tabs look nice. The gray color is ok.
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bacario.com
Good amount of white keeps the design looking bright.
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bacario.com
This is a nice navigation bar.
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bacario.com
The grid looks organized, though it feels too grid-like.
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bacario.com
Double lined border is not very popular right now. A single line border would be cleaner.
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bacario.com
This is a design flaw. It makes this company lose credibility.
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bacario.com
bacario.com will generate healthy sales, but still falls short of its potential.
The design has many professional aspects, but a couple of noticeable flaws hold their revenue back.
Lessons:
• Typically you should use single line borders rather than double line. Single lines look cleaner.
• Blue is an excellent color to base your color scheme on.
• Most websites use blue as the primary hue. You can use different colors as long as they are bright.
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Bodying.comConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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Bodying.com
White header feels bright.
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Bodying.com
Nice large, bright pictures.
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Bodying.com
Rare acceptable use of exclamation point. This sentence would seem strange without the exclamation.
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Bodying.com
Single line borders. Superior to double line.
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Bodying.com
Rounded corners avoid the grid-like feel.
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Bodying.com
Blue is a web favorite.
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Bodying.com
Glass buttons are very popular right now.
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Bodying.com
This web page is just a little crowded. Otherwise most customers will like it.
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Bodying.com
Bodying.com will generate lots of business.
This website makes Bodying.com feel like a large successful company. That’s the power of a good website.
Lessons:
• A good website can make your company look successful no matter how small you are.
• Bright colors are refreshing.
• Quality pictures also must be bright.
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WatchZoneConsider Before Proceeding:
In your opinion…
Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?
What is good about this design?
What is bad about this design?
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WatchZone
Using a trustworthy company’s logo builds trust.
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WatchZone
Zero border on left side looks strange.
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WatchZone
Small, poor quality pictures leave the customer doubting product quality.
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WatchZone
Pictures like this don’t necessarily help a small company. These promotional pictures work better for big companies.
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WatchZone
The login link looks like an afterthought floating here with no formatting.
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WatchZone
The whole design looks cluttered.
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WatchZone
WatchZone will generate some sales but many customers will leave immediately.
The page is too cluttered. Most customers will quickly leave.
Lessons:
• Clutter kills even the best colors and pictures.
• Remove unneeded elements from your homepage.
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End of Website Reviews
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And the loser is?
Most of the websites we saw will struggle. Why?
• Low quality images make the site look drab and uninteresting.
• Crazy colors make the site seem outdated, melancholy, and/or unprofessional.
• Layout is cluttered, which makes the website look like amateurs built it.
• Text is too plain, or there is too much of it, which again looks amateurish.
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Learn from the best.
What made these two websites so good?
• Use only a few hues (colors).• Timex uses only 3.
• Quality pictures• Orolus has high quality
pictures of their merchandise.
• Font selection• Both sites heavily use
sans-serif fonts.• Both sites avoid overly
common fonts like Times New Roman.
• Layout• Neither site feels
cluttered.• Orolus shows a lot of
information, but it is well organized.
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Learn to do your own analysis.
• We’ve reviewed 15 websites to look at what was good and bad about each.
• Take some time, now if possible, to look at five of your competitor’s websites and do a similar analysis.
• Ask others if they agree with your analysis.
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What should you do next?
• Review your website immediately to identify areas that have:• Poor quality pictures.• Too many colors.• Cluttered or unorganized layout.• Fonts that look ordinary.
• Make the necessary changes immediately. It will generate more business.
• If you decide against making these changes beware the below quote:
“Unless the first impression is favorable, visitors will be out of your [website] before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors.”(Professor Gitte Lindgaard, 2006 Website Research Study)
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Resources for your website• Quality pictures
- http://www.sxc.hu – Thousands of high quality photos at reasonable prices.
• Quality fonts- http://www.1001fonts.com/ - These fonts are good for
logos or text embedded in images. The fonts are not suitable for your website’s HTML based text.
- http://www.dafont.com/• Color scheme generator
- http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html - This tool will help you understand what hues make a good color scheme. Remember, you can use many different saturation levels for each hue.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory - Wikipedia article explaining color theory.
• Layout resources- http://www.useit.com/ - Jakob Nielsen is the premiere
web design guru. Read his articles regularly.- http://webdesign.about.com/od/layout/ig/Web-Design-Des
ign-Gallery/index.htm - This gallery of websites has an expert review for each one. Read the reviews and try submitting your site for review.
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Further reading
Morkes, J., Nielen, J
Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective: How to Write for the Web. (Alertbox) http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html
Nielsen, Jakob 10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/roi.html
Reiman, Heather Does Hype Work on The Web, The Sequel. http://www.thewritecontent.com/hypesequel.html
Stanford University Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility. http://www.webcredibility.org/guidelines/
Website Optimization
First Impressions Count in Web Designhttp://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/blink/
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Best Wishes