An issue that drives me completely mad (and will turn your visitors away faster
than you can say “boo!”), is a site that fails to immediately identify its reason for
being.
You're certain to be familiar with this scenario. You get to a Web site, maybe you
followed a link from another site or from Google, and the site has no clear purpose.
The content doesn't reflect in any easily discernible way what the site is about.
On my personal Web site, I stuck my tongue in my cheek in an effort to make fun
of this problem
But just because I have the liberty to play doesn't mean you will when it comes to
a professional circumstance. Clarifying site purpose is achieved using a number
of techniques, as follows:
Ensure that you have some language on your home page that clearly
defines the purpose of the site.
Ideally, make your site name clear and self-evident, such as “The
Anti-Smoking Site.” If you're working with a company that's more
ambiguous, such as “Rad Industries,” consider including a descriptive
tagline. I might not know what the company name refers to if I see it
alone, but if you include the tagline “electric power for the future,” I m
going to more readily understand the significance of the name, and
therefore, the site itself.
Your headings and navigational elements should be written to reflect the
topics within your site. If you're working on the content of an
anti-smoking site, using words such as “smoking,” “quitting,” and other
language related to smoking helps to further express the primary topic of
the site.
Title your pages effectively. This is something a lot of Web designers
(including myself, I shamed to admit) often overlook. Using effective
titling within the HTML <title> . . . </title> tags on pages helps orient
the site visitor as well as reinforce the sites purpose. Always begin with
the sites name, followed by the location within the site. A simple
example that reflects this idea would be using “The Anti-Smoking Site:
Welcome!” for the home page. By consistently using the term “The
Anti-Smoking Site” in titles, it becomes far easier for site visitors to
remain oriented.
Not identifying your site and its purpose is a dreadful mistake and should be
avoided at all costs. Every site must have some mechanism by which the intent of
that site is clearly expressed.
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