Flash intros or some times referred to as splash pages can be pretty, but have more negative impact rather than positive. Flash intros take a long time to load, are not search engine friendly and mostly they don’t really add any value to your users experience. Most people will either skip the intro or leave your website because they don’t have time to sit through it. Learn more about What is Flash and is it suitable for your business?
After putting time, energy, and money into your small business website, you’re eager to welcome visitors and show them around the place. You know some tips for attracting traffic, but how do you convince visitors to stick around and return often?
Content
Catch the web browser’s eye with content that is interesting and unique. If visitors see something that piques their interest, they’ll stick around and check out what else your small business has to offer.
Make regular updates so people have a reason to return. Provide links to new information from your homepage, or offer email updates–returning visitors will appreciate the ease of seeing what’s new.
Organize your content in a way that makes it easy to browse. Provide your visitors with a natural path through your website, so they continue moving and checking out new pages.
Avoid Flash intros and other design choices that will make your website load slowly. People often have limited patience and will move on without waiting for your page to load.
Interactivity
The Internet is growing increasingly social, and people appreciate websites that provide ways to interact. Comments, ratings, and polls all encourage users to become more invested in your site, and can also help you learn valuable information about their experience.
Include internal links whenever they’re relevant, so visitors keep discovering new parts of your website. Avoid outbound links on your homepage–you don’t want to direct visitors away before they even have a chance to see your site–and have them open in new tabs or windows so your website stays open.
Keep these principles in mind, and you’ll find that your website visitors will stick around longer (a lower bounce rate) and return often, resulting in higher conversion rates and improved visitor response.
Balsamiq, a mock up/wire frame software that makes the job easier for developers, designers, product managers; well pretty much anyone who’s involved in creating software or websites. Balsamiq is a small company with currently just four people, but their software and customer service is outstanding. After seeing the following review, you’ll want to buy your own copy of Balsamiq Mockups at www.balsamiq.com.
Limited time offer Free Video Website Critique of your website, please send an email to review@designleap.net
Working with Balsamiq Mockups lets you focus on the structure/wire frame of the software or website that you’re developing. The great thing about it is that it looks like you’re sketching, but it takes less time and it’s so much easier to “erase” and replace an item. When you present a sketched wire frame, your team takes the focus away from colors and perfection. The sketched look lets everyone focus on the most important aspects of your project. For example, when I use Balsamiq Mockups for website design, it’s easier for my clients to focus on the placement of the navigation buttons and the arrangement of other elements on the page without concentrating on the gradients, colors, or try to choose “better” images at this initial stage.
Overall Pluses
• Sketched look, everyone feels more comfortable giving honest feedback.
• Faster than using pen and paper and your artistic skills aren’t criticized.
• “Sketch It” a feature that turns any image into a sketch, this is really cool and impressive.
• Works with keyboard shortcuts, makes working much easier and faster.
• Over 60 controls to choose from, plus there are plugins and updates added on Tuesdays on the Balsamiq Blog
• Easy-to-use control panel where you can further size, adjust, group and perform other various functions.
Some things to Adjust
• When importing an image perhaps have options on the import for image to “fit to window”, “scale proportionally”… Currently the image gets skewed (auto fit to window).
• Similar auto fit to window issue for the Cover Flow, but I haven’t noticed that there’s a way to adjust after important, so may be this is something to add.
• In the icon pop-up box, it would be great to add a Social Media category to find all the popular social media icons faster. Also, may be have an image import right in here that makes images “icon size” right away.
More website critiques
Limited time offer Free Video Website Critique of your website, please send an email to review@designleap.net
Balsamiq Mockups is a great software and there’s a lot that it can do, so visit www.balsamiq.com try a demo and buy your copy, because it will save you a lot of time when working on your software or website project.
If you’re reading this review and want to add more suggestions, please add your comments below.
I participate in few forums here and there and provide website critiques on numerous of them. There was one website critique request that came from a website designer that wanted some feedback on a recently completed flower shop website. I was very disappointed and a bit angry with the web designer, because the designer took advantage of a small business owner by promising to deliver a site that sells flowers, but the look and functionality of this flower site didn’t even come close. I of course dug a little deeper and found background information on the web designer, which led me to writing an article What to look for in a Web Designer.
What was wrong with that website?
Well, there was nothing about the website that said, “We sell flowers”. I don’t mean literally, but when a visitors arrives to your website, they should almost immediately know what the website is about. On top of that, this website was built all in Flash, meaning there’s no way for search engines to crawl the pages of this website. Not having the website search engine friendly is a huge loss for this small business.
Is cutting corners worth losing your business image?
The design of that flower shop website wasn’t professional, it looked like a job of a student who’s still practicing design skills. Shouldn’t the beautiful flower arrangements that this shop sells be represented in the same professional quality website? Your website reflects your business image, many will see your website without ever meeting you. Many who visit a poor quality website will reflect that what you sell will be poor quality also. Do you want to make a sale or do you want to lose that visitor for good. It’s really important to have a quality website that delivers what your customers are expecting to see. Unless you’ve done business with that person before, you wont win a visitor over with a poor website where it’s hard to navigate and find what they’re looking for.
Before hiring a Web Designer
It’s to your business’s best interest for you to do a little “homework” on what’s involved in a website design. You don’t have to become an expert, but you should understand the basics. Don’t be afraid to ask questions! Any Web Designer that you choose should be able to answer your website design questions or at least find the answer and educate you on your options before proceeding with the design. In the case of the flower shop, the use of all Flash was a poor choice; this is where the Web Designer should have educated the owner not to go this route.
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Design, Quick Tip | Yiana Palacios | 
March 11, 2010 7:05 am | 
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Overall Pluses
What was wrong with that website?
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