Web site design -- things to avoid if you join a webring

By "Michael Martinez" 

 

Processing Webring applications is a chore and sometimes I cringe. I

know a lot of thought and love goes into Web sites, especially

personal Web sites, and people who are just creating their first site

understandably are not experts in these matters.

Nonetheless, I encounter a lot of problems with new site

applications. I would say that maybe no more than 25% of all

applications are approved for the Internet Authors Webring. That is

a pretty low ratio. I may need to revise the way we describe the

Webring on its home page, but I have no time for that.

Anyway, if you are designing a site, or have designed one and aren't

sure of how well you have done your job, here is a list of things to

avoid doing. I base these don'ts (and some do's) on several years of

reviewing sites for Webrings and link directories. I have looked at

tens of thousands of sites.

 

1) Don't put any java applets on your main page. Nothing is more

annoying than having to wait for an applet to download before I know

what the page is about and what the applet will do. Give the visitor

a chance to find out what you're doing with your site before you

start doing fancy things for him/her.

 

2) Don't put your favorite song as an automatic download on the main

page. Xena fans are especially bad about this (if I hear that

synthetic rendition of the Xena theme one more time, I'll be sick).

I know people want to give their pages a personal touch, but the

problem is that your browser just stops rendering the page while it

loads the audio file. So your visitor is staring at a (usually)

blank screen while music they may not even appreciate (different

tastes and all) starts up. Also, if it sounds great to you on your 1

gigahertz system with custom speakers, it may sound REALLY bad on

that old Pentium with the cheesy built-in speaker.

I think I read somewhere that if you put the audio load down at the

bottom of your page, people will see your content first before the

music starts.

 

3) Don't expect people to figure out what your site is about.

Cryptic, hype-laden pages filled with pictures that really say

nothing useful are not very inviting. When you're an author trying

to persuade people to buy your books, you want to be as business-like

and matter-of-fact as possible. Surfers decide to leave pages within

the first 30 seconds (often within the first 10 seconds) according to

several studies. Tell them exactly, "This is Michael Martinez' home page. I am a

writer. Here you'll information on my books, some of my favorite

links, pictures of my chihuahua, and an essay on why my ex-girlfriend

is a terrible joke-teller."

 

4) Don't put everything on one page. Just tonight I ran into a page

that hadn't finished downloading after 2 minutes. What's worse, I

couldn't even get a header to display. I had to reject the site and

explain to the Webmistress that she was just expecting people to wait

too long for whatever is on her page to load.

Breaking up content over several pages is important for precisely

this reason. Also, as your Web site grows, it is easier to add a new

page or to update a section of your site, rather than keeping it all

on one page.

 

5) DO NOT SAY, "THIS SITE IS UNDER (CONSTANT) CONSTRUCTION."  
I cannot emphasize that enough. You don't need to be telling people

stuff like that. And it will kill your chances especially if you are

applying for awards or inclusion in exclusive directories. Heck,

even Yahoo! will reject a site which says it is under construction.

People understand the site may change and improve over time. You

give them a reason to come back by providing good content, not by

asking them to come back.

 

6) Try to avoid using free Web page hosts like Homestead. Homestead

users tend to be very new to the Internet, and they know so little

about HTML design they need a service like Homestead. Unfortunately,

Homestead makes it nearly impossible to get Javascript code to work

on your site. Furthermore, they load all your pages into a frame, so

even if you CAN get Javascript to work, Yahoo! cannot verify that you

have the Webring code on your pages. I have finally decided to just

start rejecting all submissions from Homestead.

AOL Hometown looks like it may be doing the same thing as Homestead,

but we have yet to run into a problem with AOL Hometown sites.

In general, it's best to use the free hosting services that run

banner ads or popup windows on your site without adding a

navigational bar to the bottom or top of the window.

 

7) Frames and Yahoo Webring don't work. 
If you know enough HTML to use frames, or if you have someone else

create your site for you, it's important to understand that when you

join a Yahoo! Webring, they are going to look at the page you submit

to the service. If they cannot find the Javascript code because it's

on a framed page, your site MAY be automatically suspended. I use

automanagement for our Webrings because we have so many I cannot

check all the sites on a regular basis. Yahoo! automatically

suspends every site that puts the Webring code on a framed page.

The solution is to submit the exact URL of the page where the

Javascript code will be placed. If this is a framed page, there is a

simple Javascript command you can insert on the page to ensure that

your frame index is loaded by the visitor. Yahoo! will be able to

check your page and your visitors will see your site as you intend

(provided they have Javascript turned on, but most people now leave

that turned on).

The Javascript command is:

if (top.location == self.location) { top.location = "http://..."}

 

7) Do not put huge images on your main page. If the image file is

more than 40 kilobytes large, you should either reduce the number of

colors or grey shades, or find some other way to make it smaller.

Using HEIGHT and WIDTH tags is good for helping the page render more

quickly, but they don't make the picture load any faster. You may

have to create a thumbnail (smaller version) and link that to a

larger version of your picture.

 

8) Please, NO CUSTOM CURSORS. I know some people like the comet

cursors, but they have an annoying popup window that requires

visitors to answer NO every time they visit your page. That is a

good way to tell people NOT to come back and visit again. Also, I

don't know if they are still doing this, but Comet was criticized at

one point for scanning the hard drives of people who downloaded their

cursors. I think they were collecting marketing information. The

practice is deemed to be highly unethical by most people.

If you really want to offer a custom cursor, just provide a standard

hypertext link to the download page so the visitor can make the

decision on their own.

 

9) Don't orphan your Webrings page. It is considered good design to

create a separate page for your Webrings. But be sure to put a

prominent link at the TOP and BOTTOM of your page which says

something like, "You're at Michael's Webrings page. HERE is the main

index for this site. Thanks for surfing the Webrings!"