| LED Digest 2221: Simplest is Hardest |
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Simplest is hardest in Web design... and best. Also in this issue: what
to do with domains that have been excluded from search engines?
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========== NEW ===================================The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................. August 9, 2006 Issue no. 2221 ............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Best Use of 'Trashed' Domains? ==-- ~ Jim White "Is there anything whitehat I can do with these domains..?" --== Membership Perks ==-- ~ Mark Roberts "We are trying to find some 'member only perks' [for] our paid membership..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Usability Factors ==-- ~ Stephen Mareches "Simplest is best. It's also the hardest to design." ~ David Spahr "I read Jakob Nielson's 'top ten mistakes' and could not find a way to disagree with any of them." --== Shopping Carts [was: Re-design...] ==-- ~ Scott Marino "[This] decision is critical to the success of the business..." ~ Bruce Garrett "I've been using Cart Manager for the past few years and am very satisfied." --== Site Re-design from Scratch ==-- ~ Peta Scarbrough "[A CMS] will allow you to access the database and do your own updates..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Lists/Blogs/Forums for Online Advertising ==-- ~ Jennifer E. Siegel --== Site Tracking Tools ==-- ~ Jay Grossman From: Jim White Subject: Best Use of Trashed Domains? A few years ago I thought the way to search engine success was by building a network of directory sites. Well, it did work for a while before the search engines decided to trash them all. Ok. It was deserved. I've been punished. I had the domains on auto-renew so they're still hanging around but this month I'll send them off to their land-of-the-lost and let them expire. I think. Across the board they get hundreds of robot visits every month but no search engine referrals. There's lots of crawling going on but no eyeballs. Is there anything whitehat I can do with these domains that would benefit from the constant robot visits or is it best to just let them bite the dust? I'm thinking any new site I start from scratch, once I get a few legitimate links I'd be crawled just as effectively in no time. So is there any advantage in holding onto these "aged" domains in order to develop some of them at a later time for more legitimate purposes? Thanks. Jim White -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Mark Roberts Subject: Membership Perks I know this is probably not the best venue for this, but I don't know where else to start. Maybe others can tell me the direction I need to go. I am president of a not-for-profit IT organization. We have monthly dinner meetings with guest speakers. Visitors are welcome to these meeting without having to become a member. We are trying to find some "member only perks" that we can offer our paid membership, such as magazine discounts, subscription web site discounts, and whatever else we can come up with to add benefits to our members, so that people have a reason to become a paid member. Where do I start to look for these kind of deals. Obviously, this is all new to me. Any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks. Mark Roberts Roberts Computing Systems http://www.robertscomputing.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Stephen Mareches Subject: Usability > Jakob Nielsen obviously knows a lot about usability, > but it seems to me his concept is taking it to the extreme, > at the expense of any sort of design integrity. - Steve Pronger, LED 2220 Steve, I'm afraid you're heading in the wrong direction if you really wish to take issue with the points Jakob Nielsen made. Each and every one of them are important to observe if we are truly interested in usability. That after all is what cutting edge web site design embraces. Several years ago Amazon.com had spent about $2 million in usability research and they came to pretty much the same conclusions. So beginning by about 2002 our commercial designs were developed to become more simple for users and since just about everything we've done has been commercial sites, that served as a pretty good guideline. Personally I've come up with the motto "Simplest is best. It's also the hardest to design." Graphics for the sake of graphics serve well in print and film media, but to overly indulge in graphic arts in commercial web sites so that other web designers think we're cool was something that should have fallen by the wayside. Right about the time we learned being the loudest guitarist in town isn't really part of playing rock and roll. (Trust me, I learned that one the hard way!) The medium is the message. With a good color scheme supported by CSS and interesting photos, we can develop graphic layouts that communicate the site's content without going nuts on the beauties of what a graphic arts program can do. Flash? If you know it's Flash when you see it, as it is used most often, forget it. It serves no purpose but to bolster the ego of the designer. A bit like singing two bars of "Flight of the Valkyries" at the beginning of a conversation. We have seen some exceptional use of Flash, but I've always been concerned about the people who do not have it installed. Do we really expect somebody to go download something so we can display a full screen of gyrating images that tell the user nothing about what they may actually be seeking? As far as some kind of norm that users expect, there are new users every day online, and to assume that they are up to speed with people who've been banging around since the '90's is simply unrealistic. We have clients who are still trying to figure out how to use a browser, and the fact is they are buyers too. To ignore where people are in their development leaves them out of the picture, literally. I do customer support for one of our sites that has about 1300 users in the high-end home remodeling and construction field. One thing it's taught me is to not assume anything. Even with clear indications of navigation like "Click here to upload your photos", many users are thinking about 10 things at once, so they may miss things. As far as the slam on the page Jakob built to convey these points, I am reminded of the time I went outside and some nice person had smashed the rear windshield of my old 'Benz. The company I bought the replacement from had a plain vanilla all-text web site. They didn't even have a logo. But they did have the information I needed and I needed it quickly. Did I really care about their color scheme? I'm sure this will ruffle a few feathers, but we work for our audience. Too often we may forget what life is like for the user. She's looking for information, not the latest trick we've learned to perform. Stephen Mareches, Web Consultant Sophia Solutions http://www.sophiasolutions.net We're with you every step of the way! -------- new post - same topic -------- From: David Spahr Subject: Good Usability and Dull Sites > As long as your links are consistent the great > majority of users will navigate your site just fine. - Steve Pronger, LED 2220 When people come to my sites, I want all of them to be able to figure out navigation, not a "great majority". Since I deal with antique people, many of whom are Luddites and not very computer savvy, I have always felt that making navigation simple and obvious was the best policy. I get the "I'm not that good with computers" comment all the time. The "great majority" is much smaller in this group. I am not an SEO but a site owner / builder who has read this list since 1998 at least. Maybe my site is as dull as dishwater to some people but I get a lot of feedback that says otherwise and I make a living. I read Jakob Nielson's "top ten mistakes of 2005" and could not find a way to disagree with any of them. I felt extremely validated. I have always followed these principles and often said so on this list. I am not a "follower" of Mr. Nielson. This is the first time I have ever seen this page. Thanks to Steve for pointing it out. His page was not exciting. It didn't need to be. I appreciated his directness and simplicity. If I buy a book, I don't need colored paper or fancy graphics on my pages. I'll soon lose the dust jacket and forget about the graphics that were on the cover, but if the book was good, I'll remember the content. I'm sure many will say my site is dated. It is. I have known that for a long time. I have run it since 1997 and it retains popularity every year with customers and the searches. Since my site shows up No. 1 in all search engines for the search terms that matter most to me ("stereoviews" and "antique photography" and other close relatives) I have resisted the urge to give my site a major face lift. I occasionally make small changes that do not violate Mr. Nielson's aforementioned principles: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html. Please don't say "yea but your site is No. 1 of only 190,000 search results and that is not a big deal" as someone did on this list in the past. I won't take a comment like that seriously. We have read on this list just recently about how face lifted sites suddenly have taken a precipitous drop in the searches. I don't need that. I won't throw out the dishes with the dishwater. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. David Spahr * Stereoviews.com * Antique-Photography.com * Stereoviews.info * -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Scott Marino Subject: Shopping Carts [was: Re-design...] > I have been looking at different shopping > cart programs for over a year now. Most are > in the $800-1000 price range... - R. Neilson, LED 2220 Choosing a shopping cart on the net is like shopping for a store location and all the stuff you need to run a brick and mortar business. The decision is critical to the success of the business and great care needs to be taken to choose the right one. Key factors include: 1) Features - does it do everything you need it to do? 2) Support - does the company support it? Have they been around or are they a new start-up? 3) Integration - can you integrate it into your business? Customize the look and feel? 4) Control - do you have control over upgrades, settings etc.? 5) Cost - can you afford it? Are there hidden costs? Additional fees? To tell a story: When we first started our business in 1999 (laid the groundwork in 1998), there were not that many choices of shopping cart programs. After looking at a few and talking to some people, I settled on a cart that cost almost $350. At the time, this was a steep price for us, considering we were launching a business from nothing and were watching every penny. It was more than we wanted to spend, but did everything I needed it to and the company publishing it looked solid. I had a good feeling about the software and knew it was not an area where we could be cheap. Being a computer programmer / systems designer, I had the advantage of knowing some of the things to look for from the technical perspective. I was happy with the control this product gave me compared to others and with the way it performed Almost 8 years later, we are still with the same shopping cart. We have upgraded to the newest releases and the only additional cost was when they had a major release and had a $249 fee to upgrade. All the minor upgrades / patches are included in the purchase price. I do all the upgrades myself, because they are easy to do and I can handle them, but they have support services (fee based) if the technical stuff is too much. Of all the decisions we have made over the years, this was definitely one of the right ones. My advice to anyone is not choose wisely and don't be too frugal on key items that can make or break your business. If you are curious about which cart it is, the company's site is http://www.pdgsoft.com. Other than being a happy customer, I have no affiliation with them. I know there are other companies out there and many people on this list are likely to be just as happy with them. When people ask me for guidance, this is one direction I point them. I also send them to look at Yahoo!'s shopping cart system and to look at other options as well. Regards, Scott Marino http://www.webundies.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Bruce Garrett Subject: Re-design This is a little off the path of re-design and has more to do with the issue of -- > I have been looking at different shopping > cart programs for over a year now. - R. Neilson, LED 2220 I've been using Cart Manager http://www.cartmanager.com/ for the past few years and am very satisfied. It is easily modified, relatively inexpensive and has a variety of options to upgrade according to your needs. Thanks, Bruce Garrett http://www.archive-cd.com bgarrett, archive-cd.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Peta Scarbrough Subject: Re-design > ... if I provide my "wish list" could you come up with > some recommendations? I think I will need to buy > a HTML editor... but which one? - Nancy Schettler, LED 2219 Nancy; A suggestion maybe would be to have a complete re-design of your site with a built in Content Management System in the backend. This will allow you to access the database and do your own updates of editing, deleting or adding an item all with a click of a button. Very easy and worth the extra cost for future no maintenance fees later. Peta Scarbrough http://www.websightdesign.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Jennifer E. Siegel Subject: Resources for Online Ad Operations I'm looking for some resources for discussion groups, blogs, etc that focus primarily on online advertising operations. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks! Jennifer E. Siegel Register for AdMonsters' Agency Day http://www.admonsters.org September 27th, 2006 in New York City. -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Jay Grossman Subject: Site tracking > What would be a good recommendation for > the next level of web site hit tracking tools...? - Beth M. Durkee, LED 2220 If you have access to your site's log files, then there are lots of quality log analyzers out there. I have been using a free one -- Weblog Expert Lite -- for a few years - download it at http://www.weblogexpert.com . All you have to do is name the report, point to the log, and then run the analyzer and you'll get a nice set of HTML pages with your site's stats in many useful views (including all the things you are asking for). Jay Grossman SportsCollectors.Net - Sports Autograph Resource and Community http://www.sportscollectors.net
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