Getting the Message Across to the Surfer

Steve

A Hooker's Free Porn

New webmasters are coming into this industry day after day. Some come with no clear idea of how they intend to achieve their goals, some have very definite views of what will work for them and still others come with new ideas that are innovative and completely different.

Whatever approach they may come with there are some inescapable basics about this industry that they must learn and perhaps even adapt to whatever business model they choose.

The site under review today comes from a new webmaster who has obviously put a lot of work and effort into the finished product. You will find the site here:

The very first question that needs to be asked when building a site is, "Just what sort of site am I going to build?" because the answer to that question provides logical answers to a number of other questions that will arise during the building process.

I guess you could call the site under review a hub and if that is the case then the matter of traffic sources has to be confronted. It is certainly not a candidate for link lists and in its present form it may not do well for search engine traffic either. However, with just a little extra work each page of the site could do very well in search engine result pages.

At the very least it needs to have a title and it also needs description and keyword meta tags. Some extra text in the body of the pages that repeats some of the keywords would also be a good idea.

Of course, once you get traffic to the hub actually getting them to go on to your sponsors is another thing. The webmaster who built this site has not relied totally on banners to get his surfers to the sponsors. There are text links on many of the pages that go some way to exciting the surfer to move on to the sponsor but not all pages have text links and they should.

Some small thumbs have also been added to some pages to give the surfer a taste of what he might find at the sponsor. The thumbs that I looked at clicked through to the big picture, which would be fine if a site such as this one had to comply with link list or TGP rules. In this case there are no rules so why not link the thumb to a HTML page where the big image is embedded along with some juicy text links that the surfer can read while the big image is loading?

Perhaps even do away with the thumb/big image link all together and just use a couple of unlinked images - around 150 on the longest side - to act as teasers to encourage the surfer. In a site that does not have to comply with someone else's rules you can look at new ways of adapting the basics.

Don't use banners at all or combine small images and your own text into a table so that it looks like a banner. Tell the surfer a story, excite him with text and tell him that he can see it all right here at your sponsors.

The possibilities with sites like this one are almost endless but the basics still do apply. A site like this will just be a waste of time if it does not attract traffic and in this case that really does need to be addressed. Build it and they will come is just a Hollywood fantasy.

Sales techniques need to be worked on. Links should stand out and be plainly seen as links. The surfer should be invited to 'Click Here' so that he is in no doubt as to where he will find what he is looking for.

Finally, whatever sort of site we design our object should be to make sales so be sure that the sales pitch stands out from the page. Use big fonts, bright contrasting colors and get the message into the face of the surfer.

To submit a site for review:

Send an email to Steve and put 'site review' in the subject