Vague Web Designs

Have you ever seen a website that has content that is so vague and images that are so general that the purpose of the website is unclear? A website design that has vague general language as well as a vague design can be difficult to figure out.  There is nothing about the website that is specific. The web design uses high level content that prevents readers from getting a clear understanding of what the website is about.

The problem is really easy to fix.

Every image on your website should add something to your message. If an image was removed there should be a need to add more content to make up for the message that’s missing. While I understand that people in your industry might understand what you are trying to say, that doesn’t mean that the person in charge of making the purchasing decisions will. You want to break your content down enough that even someone like me could understand what it is you are trying to say.

A website that follows a logic that is only known to the author, because you spit out everything that that was in your head and heart and did not take the time to think about what your web site visitor might want to see, does no one any good. You’ve got to build a website that makes sense to your website visitor. Build the first draft just for you and then re-organize everything so it makes sense to the end user.

Here the top 5 things that make a website design a foggy vision website design.

You land on a website and are unsure of what it is the website owner wants you to do.

You land on a website and are overwhelmed with too many options.

You’ve read the content four times and are still unsure as to rather they are selling the product or servicing the product.

The scrolling text is preventing you from reading the content.

There are pictures of what appears to be Hawaii in the header but the text appears to be from a 24 hour plumbing service.

If any of the above describes your website then you may want to jump on one of the major search engines and start looking for a web design company. Everybody’s got a different taste so is important you find a website design company this Websites either in their portfolio or their personal website that you like. You will find someone that has the same taste that you’re looking for for your business. Someone had built a website for your nightclub might not be the best person to get someone when looking for someone

What sells better?

• A website that is only selling one product or service?

Or

• A website that sells everything?

In the real world, if I am going shopping I’ll head to The Mall or Wal-Mart. I know by going to either of those stores I’ll be able to take care of several shopping needs at once. Manuela needs some shoes. Frankie needs clothes. The family needs milk. It makes since to go to a store that carries everything.

Due to time it’s best to go to a store that has a little bit of everything. But what happens if the travel time is non-existent? Let’s say you are standing in Home Depot and there is a line of experts waiting to help you.

You are about to build a fence and want to know how deep you should burry your post. You can ask anyone expert standing in front of you the question. Now imagine as you stand there each expert has a sign above his head. This sign tells you what he’s an expert in. The first one is an expert fence builder. The second is an expert plumber. The third is an expert deck builder and the fourth is an expert in plumbing, deck building, gutters, fences, web designs and if he’s not busy he’ll even shovel snow off your drive way.

Who are you going to trust with the single most important part of the whole project?

You see, a lot of website owners confuse the Internet with the off-line world. They try and build a website that is tailored to everyone and in return it’s built for no one. When you try and become the Wal-Mart of your industry you end up being seen as a company that is not an expert in anything. Wal-Mart is tailored to a person that is not sitting at home watching their favorite TV show while looking for a baby bed for their sister-in-laws baby shower. Wal-Mart is built for someone, who is in a hurry, trying to save money, doesn’t have the ability to push the back button and search 5 million stories that compete with them in a blink of an eye.

With that being said it appears trying to be everything to everyone has worked for Amazon. People buy from people they like. People like people who are like themselves. The reason you buy from Wal-Mart is because it’s convenient. Wal-Mart saves you time and money. When you are online you become the time travel. You are able to travel in time to any shop you want anywhere in the world you want to go. You are no longer looking for a store that has everything. You are looking for an online expert that you like. The way you know you like him or her is because their website was built just for you. It grabs you by the shirt, looks you in the eyes and says, “I am the one, click me now!” Yes it’s that obvious when a website hits its targeted audience.

If it’s raining and your roofs leaking, you need a roofing expert. You need someone close by that does emergency repairs on roofs. You go to Google and do a search for your city and state along with the text “emergency roofing repair”. You click on the first website that comes up and it has a flashing banner that says, “24 hour roofing repairs” and says click this button and we can be there in 5 minutes. Was this website not built and tailored just for you?

What’s Better a Website that sells everything or one that Specializes in Only One Thing?

Let’s go back to the roofer. He does nothing but roofing repair. He lives in a small town and there are three other roofing companies. He’s recently learned that there are only two gutter companies in the town. So he wants to offer gutters along with the roofing repair service.  So…the question is do you build a totally new website for the gutter service or do you add gutters into the roofing repair company. After all it does make sense that a roofing repair company also offers gutter repair.

Let’s look at it from the consumer’s side as you make your emergency phone call;

Negative:

• When you land on the site you now have to choose gutter repair or roofing repair.
• It’s kind of what’s behind door number 1! When you click roofing repair will you be asked more questions or get the answer you seek?
• Now you have to make a decision as to rather you want to start clicking buttons or hit the back button and find another website?

Positives:

• If you have a gutter problem it’s good to know this company can repair it.
• Knowing they do both roofing and gutters makes you think it’s a bigger company and adds some credibility.

It’s not a question of how many services should you offer your clients but how many services should you offer on one website?

Amazon started out as a bookstore but continued to add new products until they’ve become the Wal-Mart of the internet.

Too many options overwhelm us and we do nothing at all.

That’s what a group of researchers said. Researchers put a table of 6 different flavors of jam in front of a store. They then swapped it out with a table of 30 different flavors. They did this throughout the day and studied how people reacted to the 30 choices compared to the 6.

• Both groups tasted about the same number of flavors.
• The table with 30 flavors drew a larger crowd.
• However, thirty percent of the people that visited the table with six choices purchased jam, while only three percent made a purchase from the table that offered 30 options.

So if less is more then why do sites like Amazon continue to grow in size? Could it be the affiliates with the single topic sites that are running the sales up for Amazon?

Does this mean that I would be better off having an attorney web design business in Atlanta Georgia rather than a web design business in Atlanta Georgia? Is a world wide web design business okay, or does that include to many topics? I realize the only way to answer these questions is with split testing and sadly enough I am just starting to get my feet wet with split testing. So…I was wondering if anyone was willing to share what they’ve tested as well as the results from those tests? Oh…and I realize that no two sites or business are the same, so no two results would be the same but just wondering what others have been able to learn from split testing?

Creating a website that will make money online is exciting and fun while at the same time daunting and scary.

Websites are powerful incredible story tellers and it’s your job to use this new technology to create an incredible combination of multiple media words, pictures, photos, illustrations, graphics, animation, video, and sound to tell a story like has never been told before. Your story can include polls, surveys, places to comment, and links to get more information. The possibilities are endless.

There are so many things to consider. What will you sale? What do you want your website visitor to remember about your website? What action do you want your website visitor to take while they are on your website? Who do you want to sell to? How will you make sure the right parts of your website get noticed? What types of media will you use on your website? How will you draw your web visitor into your website? You would be overwhelmed at all the possibilities!

There are a couple things to remember when building a website.

• Keep your users attention.
  
• Don’t confuse them.
  
• Don’t bore them.
  
• Don’t allow them to lose interest in your product or service.
  

Have you ever noticed all the signs around you?

Stop, Slow Down, Don’t Run, No Parking, Walk, Be a Good Neighbor, Wash your Hands, No Spitting. Have you ever wondered what makes you accept one and reject the others?

The reason I ask is because we get hit with them every day on the internet.

• Read me!
  
• Buy me!
  
• Click me!
  
• Sign up for me!
  

Of course, you are not forced to follow any of those instructions. You decide what appeals to you and what does not appeal to you. You are in control. You can hit the back button at any moment. But have you ever wondered what causes you to hit the back button on one website and the contact us on another?

The Internet is a giant spider web filled with websites that are

• Fascinating
  
• Boring
  
• Eye-opening
  
• Scary
  
• Beautiful
  
• Ugly
  
• Superficial
  
• Complicated
  
• Hideous
  
• Brilliant
  
• Stupid
  
• Distasteful
  
• Unintelligible
  
• Confusing
  
• and more
  

At every moment in time, more and more ugly , shocking, gruesome, dull, exotic, and wonderful websites are being added to the internet.

Web visitors find these websites in many different ways. One way would be by way of the search engines and when they find one that doesn’t create a desire in them they threw it back. We are a have to have it now world and if your website does not create the desire in the web visitor to have it now they’ve thrown it back and moved on to the next website.

Now think back on the last time you were looking to purchase something online or even for information. What were you looking for? How did you search for that information? What made you pay attention? What made you move to the next website? What made you take action? What made you look more? What excited you? What made you tell a friend? What made you purchase a product?

As a Web visitor, it can be difficult to know why you choose one website over another. It’s a subconscious feeling and you actually have no idea why you purchase one product over another. You also have no idea why you can change at any point in time. What you want now is not what you wanted 10 years ago. What you want today at this moment can be totally different then what you want tomorrow.

It’s for this reason that you have to know who you are building your website for. You want to make sure that every piece of your website from the photos to the content and colors have been created to reach the needs, wants, and desires of your intended audience and make them take notice. You have to build a website that will not only stand out from the crowd but one that will excite and interest your web visitors.

Your website has to have clarity, spark and meaning. The design needs to be clear and the action you want your web visitor to take should be obvious. If your web visitor becomes confused or if your website is complicated, or unintelligible, you’ll lose your visitor’s attention.

What’s the purpose of your website? If you don ‘t know, your website probably isn’t clear. Who is your website designed for? If you don’t know then your website probably isn’t clear.

Does your website wind and weave with no clear direction or focus? You can fix that problem by writing down your websites key objectives. You should be able to tell your website visitor what your websites is about and what you want them to do in under 3 seconds.

Have you ever noticed that when you buy a new gadget you are so excited about opening it up that you rip open the package, ignore the manual and immediately start pressing buttons.

The last thing you want to do is take the time to read the instructions.

Yet I run across websites daily where website owners feel that by having something different they are able to stand out from the crowd. I don’t want to have to read the manual to figure out how to use your website.

Please don’t make me read a how to manual to use your website!

Respect my time and be happy that I am spending time on your website.

And most of all make your website like the package with the little toy in it. Everything on that package, every photo, every word of content is there for one reason and only one reason to get me to purchase that product.

If I buy a new product and it is so complicated that I have to stop what I’m doing and take time to read the manual, I’ll assume the designer of the product wasn’t a very good designer and chances are I will not be happy with the product.

How much worse will it be if I have to stop in the middle of my purchase and figure out how to use your website?

When someone lands on your website there not wanting to read instructions on how to use it, most people don’t have the time or the patience.

Everything on your website should be there for one reason and one reason only. To get the website visitor to take some form of action. Anything that causes the web visitor to stumble is a problem.

If you have a photo on your website it should add something to your websites message. Other words, if you take the photo away it should take away from your message. Everything on your website should be there for a purpose and that purpose should be telling your website visitor why his or her life would be better, more complete, more productive, and happier if they owned what it is you’re selling.

Before, if someone didn’t like your website they left, went back to Google and did another search and bought from your competition. With Google’s new algo changes you may find your competition’s website is not only selling more products then you but is also ranked above yours due to your websites inability to convert website visitors into web customers.

It goes without saying that all content needs to be original, quality and on one specific topic per page. You will need to work your keywords into the content and use as many synonyms related to the keywords as you can without harming your message. You also want to use the exact keyword phrase you are trying to rank for in the first sentence of your main content, as well as variations throughout the content and once again in the last sentence. Also bold the first time the keyword is used in the first paragraph on the first page.

If you have a local business try and fit the business address into the content, if possible.

When I’m setting up a site from scratch I’ll normally start by doing a search on Google for the main keyword and looking at the competitions websites to get an idea for not only the layout but for the content.

Let’s get started!

SEO Watch Dog Site Layout

The site will have 14 top navigation links that will go site wide. All other content will be posted in site blog. Main navigation will link with EXACT keyword phrases specific to each page. URL’s will also have EXACT match URL’s and home page will be called “SEO” instead of Home.

Homepage Content

The homepage content will incorporate EXACT keyword phrases from other pages to be used as anchor text, linking back to each respective page. I’ll populate the home page with snippets of text from other pages to make it easier and quicker to get started.

Heading Tags

The H1 and H2 tags should be used on every page with more than 500 words of text.

Footer, I’ll use the footer for deep linking and the Links and Location of the Footer will remain consistent for all pages.

______________________________

Redundant On-Page Elements

These elements will be added on every page of the website below the main content section.

Deep Link Tag

Add the following paragraph as the last paragraph within the main content section.

Increase your bottom line with SEO Watch Dog: a search engine optimization company specializing in SEO services.

“Words Used By Visitors….” I want to use a people who liked this page also liked these pages tag that would be unique to each individual page.

Location Tag

I am going to move into the US state by state so I will add a locations, cities and counties with zip codes to the footer area.

SEO Watch Dog serves the following States, Cities, Zip Codes and Counties:

Location 1, Location 2, Location 3 (state once, city, zip)

URL: http://www.seowatchdog.org/

Content

All Pages need between 300 to 1,500 words, pages should no look uniformed when it comes to content.

Content Heading (H1 TAG): All content should have H1 tags

Placement Instructions: The H1 tag will be placed directly above the main content.

Content Sub-Heading (H2 TAG): Pages with over 500 words of text should use the h2 tag.

Placement Instructions: The H2 tag will be about 2/3rds of the way through main content.

ALT TAG: Main images on every page should match the page topic.

Placement Instructions: ALT Tag will be placed on the logo image as well as all main page images on the site but text will depend on page content.