Thoughts on Effective Website Design

Have you ever wondered if your site is performing as well as is could? Do you know how well it converts, why visitors leave or which pages just don’t work?

All too often you can’t see the problems because you know your site too well. You miss the obvious mistakes and just can’t understand why people fail to see the ‘buy now’ link. What you need is a fresh pair of eyes to give everything the once over.

But it neds to be a constructive review. No point in someone just commenting that they can’t find your contact information or the product descriptions are no good. What makes a good review is the suggestions and recommendations.

So to help you make the most of your website here’s an opportunity to get a website assessment. Ok so I know it’s a shameless plug but if you ask nicely I’ll even give you a discount.

Just click on the image and you will soon find out how to make more money from you site.

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. (Hardly seems worth it).

A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes. (In my next life I want to be a pig) (How’d they figure this out, and why?).

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. (Still can’t get over that pig thing) (Don’t try this at home…maybe at work?).

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (Is that why Flipper was always smiling?) (And pigs get 30-minute orgasms? Doesn’t seem fair).

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. (If you’re ambidextrous do you split the difference?).

The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. (From drinking little bottles of…?).

(Did taxpayers pay for this research??).

Polar bears are left handed. (Who knew….? Who cares? How’d they find out, ask them?).

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What can be so tasty on the bottom of the pond?).

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field. (30 minutes…can you imagine?? And why pigs?).

A cockroach will live nine days without it’s head, before it starves to death. (Creepy) (You’ve got to wonder about the sick sadist who found this out).

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off. (Honey, I’m home. What the….) (Well, at least pigs get a break there…) .

Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (In my next life I still want to be a pig…quality over quantity).

Butterflies taste with their feet. (Oh, geez) (That’s almost as bad as catfish).

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than it’s brain. (I know some people like that).

Starfish don’t have brains. (I know some people like that too)

(After reading all these, all I can say is…….Lucky Pigs).

When the internet was young and innocent, finding things was difficult until advent of the search engine. There were many early models, alta vista, yahoo, lycos and others but Google set the benchmark back in 1998.

From the beginning Google was all about providing the best results for each search. The mantra ‘do no evil’ was the golden rule. Trouble is that rule is now very tarnished. The latest incarnation of Google is flawed in so many ways that finding the right information first time round is becoming very difficult.

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In addition to the SEO link building scam there is the Adwords scam. I have no problem in calling it a scam because that’s what it is. They are taking money on false pretences and delivering a wholly unsuitable product. Adwords is free. If you follow the many tutorials and articles you can set up a successful adwords campaign for nothing and turn a profit on day one.

Unfortunately there a number of companies whose high pressure marketing convince the unwary that they need to spend a lot of money running an adwords campaign. The trouble is it’s a based on a pack of lies.

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Link building isn’t easy. It takes time and effort to research and create the links that will make a difference to your ranking. And it’s not the number of links that matter, it’s the quality of those links. Much better to have one link from a respected site than 1000 inbounds from spammy free-for-all directories.

There are however any number of companies who do sell link building services. Some are very good but most are a waste of time. What’s worse is the way they market their services, fail to deliver and scam you out of a wodge of cash.
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There’s this amazing new restaurant,it’s  local, has  good prices, atmosphere and excellent food. The only problem is the marketing. They advertise in Australia when the business in England . And the cook lives in Peru .

You may snort with derision and say that nobody is that stupid but this is exactly what people do with their websites.
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When you visit a website there’s really only two things you can do: absorb the content or click on links. If you own you own website you really want your visitors to do both. Getting then to absorb your content just needs some good copywriting but getting them to click on your links is another matter.

So how do you do it? How do you get your visitors to click on your links?

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I’ve sort of shyed away from ecommerce, mainly because I haven’t yet found a application I really like and because I’m completely pants at programming.

But a solution has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and I am saved (hallelujah). Secure online payments integrated into any website for the measly sum of £30.00 per year.

Want to know what it is? I’ll bet you do.

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There has been some debate over the length of page titles. The predominant search engine, Google, displays 60 characters but what happens if you go over the limit?

To test the theory I added some made up words to my contact page: www.aerin.co.uk/contact.htm. The words are: skriqgy, korziklr and qasdcvgyuh. Google has indexed the page and if you search for them they will show up in the results page. So far so good, but what does it prove?

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For ages and ages google advised that you should submit your site to DMOZ, yahoo and industry related directories. This guidance has gone from the google webmaster pages. So all of you that spent hours and hours seeking out directories as part of your link building strategy were wasting your time.

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