"Let Your Little Website Shine" Part 6 (Final in series)

Thanks for joining me this one last time for the sixth and final part in
this series. One final note about the site mentioned last time:
www.websitesthatsuck.com
Not only does this site serve a great purpose for you as a website designer
(or final decision-maker on how your website looks), but it is also an
example of a site you'll not soon forget. It's hilarious in some spots and
useful in others. You don't necessarily have to agree with the authors of
the book about design elements, but you can learn a thing or two. You can
also see some of the worst websites ever by following their links to the
"Daily Sucker". I often feel bad for the author of those websites, but it
does motivate them to improve. It should also motivate you not to make the
same mistakes. It'd be pretty embarrassing to be known as a company that
created one of the worst looking websites on the WWW! I hope it never
happens to either of us!
11. Does not use email addresses obtained from the site to SPAM the people
you got them from.
This is another one of my pet peeves. If you sponsor a contest or
sweepstakes on your site, or you ask visitors to answer a survey, PLEASE
don't see their email address as "fair game" to SPAM them to death with
sales letters! It's one thing to sponsor an email newsletter and have them
sign up for it. In these newsletters, you can put short sales pitches and
links to sales sites. Internet users find this to be acceptable. They figure
that you're providing them with information, so someone has to pay for it,
right? There's nothing more annoying to me than to get a bunch of sales junk
in my email box just because I entered a contest. Allowing visitors to
willingly sign up for ezines* or to click on banners on your site is
acceptable. Sending them sales junk by email just because they visited your
site causes them to lose trust in you.
12. Has some kind of newsletter so that its visitors can keep in touch:
I mentioned this item briefly in Element number 12, but now I will expound
on why the email newsletter, or ezine as it is called, is an effective
method of marketing if it's used creatively. If you would like to start an
email newsletter that you can use to keep in touch with visitors to your
site, you can create one free here:
www.listbot.com
Create a link to your newsletter on your site to allow visitors to sign up
free.
As long as your newsletter has some content, they'll stay subscribed. I
despise email newsletters that are nothing but sales pitches all the way
through, with links to go buy something. I unsubscribe myself pretty quick
from these. Make sure you have clear instructions at the bottom of each
newsletter ezine that lets them unsubscribe if they want to. There's nothing
worse than someone being subscribed to your newsletter long after they want
to be. They tend to get VERY angry! Listbot automatically puts this
information at the bottom of every newsletter you mail.
One of my most successful ezines was a jokelist. (If you also decide to
do a jokelist, make sure you have a disclaimer about it being possibly
offensive and only intended for those over 18 years of age) I usually had 4
or 5 good jokes in it, with a few sales mentions at the top of each issue.
The sales mentions were not hard sell. They merely mentioned that my online
store had a new item or was having a sale. I rarely had anyone unsubscribe
from this newsletter. Another really successful one was a recipe
newsletter. People love recipes.
Try to think of a newsletter you could write that you could be really
creative and interesting with. If you're an expert at something (most
everyone is an expert at one thing, at least!), create a newsletter that
targets people who are interested in that one thing. Keeping in mind who
your target subscribers are and what they are interested in helps keep the
newsletter on track.
13. Has clear navigation: I get the giggles everytime I think of this
subject because of the way it was handled on one of my favorite websites.
I'll get to that in a minute, but let me just mention a few things about
navigation. Just take a look at some of your favorite websites to get an
idea of how simple they make their navigation links. If they're into some
depth in your site and want to know what page they're on, put page number
links in a corner somewhere. Put simple boxes across the top or down the
side with links that tell them how to get back home. Plan your website on
paper first if you like, kind of like a logic flowchart. You can use
Microsoft Frontpage 2000's navigation and hyperlinks icons to do this also.
Then test, test, and more test. Have others go to your website and tell you
if it's confusing. Now, I will let one of my favorite sites explain the
concept of what they call "Mystery Meat Navigation" to you. You'll come out
laughing, but you'll remember the lesson well. Go here to check out their
discussion of this topic:
http://www.websitesthatsuck.com/badnavigation.html
Well, that’s the end of this series, and I thank you all, from the bottom of
my heart for joining me. I wish you great success and fun besides!

About the Author

Lynne Schlumpf is the CEO of Route 66 Cyber Cafe, Inc.,
http://www.r66cci.com, a Web hosting and design company
specializing in promoting websites for new owners, building
affordable e-commerce sites, and providing reliable web hosting
solutions as an affiliate of Virtualis Incorporated.

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