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Okay, so a new visitor is at your site,
they probably got there because they found your site listed with
about 100 other similar websites and they are at your home page
to check you out. Great! Unless that visitor already knows something
about your site and is looking for something specific, you
have about 10 seconds to tell them what you are about and get them
to read more. GET TO THE POINT FAST! This 10 second assumption
is based on two basic assumptions, neither of which is very sound.
Assumption 1. These visitors are educated and can read the descriptions.
Assumption 2. They are willing to give my site enough of their time
to read my introduction. If you are counting on these assumptions,
you are probably dead! In the early 70's, magazines, newspapers
and advertisers were targeting the 5th to 6th grade levels. By the
mid 90s, this target level dropped to the second grade level. The
young adult generation of today has been subjected to more effortless
bombardment of information than any other generation in the history
of mankind. These viewers are quite used to having the information
shown or read to them. Very few are used to, or willing to put forth
the effort to extract it. You better give your new visitors something
they are interested in within about 10 seconds, OR THEY ARE GONE!
If you can get your opening message across with a photo and just
a few words, great! Remember, a picture is worth a 1000 words. If
you can put something in front of that visitor that they will readily
recognize and attract them enough to make them stay longer. then
USE IT!
For new visitors, you have to make the
opening page count! Make sure that
the opening page loads quickly (a good rule of thumb is to limit
a page side to approximately 100K bytes) and has the right information
that a new visitor is looking for. Use "buzz" words your
visitors are looking for and will recognize on that page. If the
home page is for a large company with many subsidiary divisions,
then make sure the visitor can easily figure out where they have
to go to get what they are looking for. If the visitor finds something
in the key items of the opening pages, then they will make a conscious
decision to give your company more of their precious time to go
further. As the visitor gets more targeted on your pages, this is
the time to present those beautiful photos of your products and
the nitty gritty details. If you have what they are looking for,
they will give you the time to download details and examine them
extensively. Don't force large photos and slow loading effects on
a visitor. Making a viewer wait for extended downloads, only for
them to find that it is not what they are looking for will not only
NOT get their business, but will make an enemy of that viewer. The
Internet provides the opportunity to present the equivalent of hundreds
of magazine pages to a viewer like no other media ever in history,
BUT YOU CAN NOT FORCE THE VIEWER TO READ THEM ALL AT ONCE, and they
will not read anything if they do not find a reason to stay in the
first place!
Once they are hooked on the opening
page, your job is not over… it has just begun. Remember, the
other 99 websites listed in the search engine where they found you?
It is incredibly easy to press the BACK button and go on to one
of the other sites listed. You have to make sure that whatever your
visitor is looking for:
A. you have made an understandable way
that they can get to it,
B. they have to put out minimal effort
to find it,
C. they don't accidentally find the
wrong thing and think your site is really messed up or you
 really
don't have what they want,
D. you give them as much of what they
came for as possible, the information that they need
and want.
Sounds
easy, right? Don't answer that question! You should never be the
one answering these questions as you produce your own website. If
this is your company, there is NO WAY for you to separate yourself
sufficiently to make any of these judgements. Ask someone who has
minimal knowledge of your product, and has never seen your website
to test it, and someone else to do more testing on each revision.
A tester should not be told what errors or problems they are looking
for. Just watch as they test your site to make sure that the next
tester does not have the same problems. If you absolutely have to
make assumptions about how well your site works, then make this
one. If the visitor can screw it up, draw the wrong conclusion,
simply get the wrong idea, get mixed up, assume that one statement
is linked to another even though they are on separate pages, get
you mixed up with someone else, or any one of a hundred other really
incredibly hard to believe mistakes, then you can safely assume
that THEY WILL MAKE THEM ALL!!! And maybe a few more that you would
not have thought of in a million years!
© 2001 - Barry
Wroobel - Discovery Data Systems, inc.
(note: Set left and right printer margins
to 0.25" for printing)
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