Take the 7 Second Website Challenge
At SES London in February, the best advice that summed up the entire 3 days was simply this:
Does that shock you? It would certainly make life a lot easier for the search engines that rank scores pages per day and would put paid to the existence of many a spammer and their spammy websites.
In particular, Shari Thurow from Grantastic Designs tackled the issue of theming your page to capture your target audience.
A good trick for this was to look at your web page for 7 seconds: Take in the headings, pictures, layouts and anything else your eye is drawn to. Then look away and try to guess what the page was about (be honest!).
Because unless you are focused on your market and not just the search engines, you might be in for a bit of a shock. Now might be the time to give some examples.
Note: This was my findings from 19 November 2007. If you are reading this article later than that, it may have changed.
For an example of a website that has got it spot on, I needed to look no further than my local vegetable supplier River Nene My eye is naturally drawn to the Title of the page that specified both "Home delivery" and "organic vegetables" as does the logo and the visual of the van of the van driving away from trees.
If that couldn't be anymore obvious, the images of the farmer harvesting parsnips, and the wine, clementines and swede confirm the theme.
My Guess: Home delivery of local organic produce.
Correct
My next stop is Tesco, as we all know is a vast empire dominating many business to consumer channels so their logo and slogan alone could sum up their entire site. But they take the trouble to display their main areas high up on the page, above the fold (the first part of a web page where scrolling is not needed).
Their "Whats on" in store, "store locator" and "price check" buttons could be listed nearer the top of the page, but the page is laid out in easy to scan sections, resulting in being able to pick out key information quickly.
My Guess: Budget supermarket, also selling business to consumer products and services.
Correct
Looking at my business solicitors website Birkett Long the first thing that draws my attention is the banner at the top running on a mountain. I then see the run4fun icon further down the page. Is this a website about running?
So look at the headlines: Is there any clue there? Welcome to our company, an announcement about the expansion of the company's tax, trusts and probate team. Annual law conference and seminar update. Training? Accountancy? Solicitors? Maybe the running pictures stating Training are being used as a pun. It is quite a hard topic to tackle in imagery.
The clue is eventually solved by the page title and the very small Solicitors stated in the logo, but too late to spot in 7 seconds.
My guess: Business Training Services.
Wrong
Finally looking at International estate agents Rem-Max. My eye is drawn to the top of the screen where I see the branded balloon so I am guessing by that, the Re-Max Scotland logo and the map that this is a big corporation exclusive only to Scotland. I then see the image of what I assume to be the ruins of a Scottish castle which gives me the impression that this something to do with sightseeing and holidays.
The slogan below "Reward yourself" confirms this. The image under the featured properties section looks like a villa so I am assuming this is a holiday property site.
The rest of the page (worldwide, marketing etc) confirms this is a large scale company.
My guess: Holiday property to buy and rent in Scotland.
Wrong
These are just a few examples of how to do it and what to watch for. It is very easy to get confused on the internet. Visitors expect more and if your site tells them absolutely nothing about your company, they'll just hit the back button and look for a page that can help. Hey perhaps your competitor?
So how can you theme your pages:
"Design your website (or have it designed) with your target audience in mind first and the search engines afterwards."
Does that shock you? It would certainly make life a lot easier for the search engines that rank scores pages per day and would put paid to the existence of many a spammer and their spammy websites.
In particular, Shari Thurow from Grantastic Designs tackled the issue of theming your page to capture your target audience.
A good trick for this was to look at your web page for 7 seconds: Take in the headings, pictures, layouts and anything else your eye is drawn to. Then look away and try to guess what the page was about (be honest!).
Because unless you are focused on your market and not just the search engines, you might be in for a bit of a shock. Now might be the time to give some examples.
Note: This was my findings from 19 November 2007. If you are reading this article later than that, it may have changed.
The Sites That are Spot On
For an example of a website that has got it spot on, I needed to look no further than my local vegetable supplier River Nene My eye is naturally drawn to the Title of the page that specified both "Home delivery" and "organic vegetables" as does the logo and the visual of the van of the van driving away from trees.
If that couldn't be anymore obvious, the images of the farmer harvesting parsnips, and the wine, clementines and swede confirm the theme.
My Guess: Home delivery of local organic produce.
Correct
My next stop is Tesco, as we all know is a vast empire dominating many business to consumer channels so their logo and slogan alone could sum up their entire site. But they take the trouble to display their main areas high up on the page, above the fold (the first part of a web page where scrolling is not needed).
Their "Whats on" in store, "store locator" and "price check" buttons could be listed nearer the top of the page, but the page is laid out in easy to scan sections, resulting in being able to pick out key information quickly.
My Guess: Budget supermarket, also selling business to consumer products and services.
Correct
Some that need to tweak their page a bit
Looking at my business solicitors website Birkett Long the first thing that draws my attention is the banner at the top running on a mountain. I then see the run4fun icon further down the page. Is this a website about running?
So look at the headlines: Is there any clue there? Welcome to our company, an announcement about the expansion of the company's tax, trusts and probate team. Annual law conference and seminar update. Training? Accountancy? Solicitors? Maybe the running pictures stating Training are being used as a pun. It is quite a hard topic to tackle in imagery.
The clue is eventually solved by the page title and the very small Solicitors stated in the logo, but too late to spot in 7 seconds.
My guess: Business Training Services.
Wrong
Finally looking at International estate agents Rem-Max. My eye is drawn to the top of the screen where I see the branded balloon so I am guessing by that, the Re-Max Scotland logo and the map that this is a big corporation exclusive only to Scotland. I then see the image of what I assume to be the ruins of a Scottish castle which gives me the impression that this something to do with sightseeing and holidays.
The slogan below "Reward yourself" confirms this. The image under the featured properties section looks like a villa so I am assuming this is a holiday property site.
The rest of the page (worldwide, marketing etc) confirms this is a large scale company.
My guess: Holiday property to buy and rent in Scotland.
Wrong
These are just a few examples of how to do it and what to watch for. It is very easy to get confused on the internet. Visitors expect more and if your site tells them absolutely nothing about your company, they'll just hit the back button and look for a page that can help. Hey perhaps your competitor?
So how can you theme your pages:
- Clear titles and headings What do you do is the best thing to start with at the top. State it clearly in the page title (the wording at the top of the window) and any visible headings on your page.
- Themed images If you’re making a page for a mobile phone site, it makes sense to add some images of your mobile phones. If you are creating an ironing service website, your picture should be along the lines of a happy looking person pressing some smalls.
On the other hand, even I know it isn't always that simple: Last year, I had to theme a page for a hypnotherapist specialising in Trauma resolution. An image of the aftermath of an accident would both have been in bad taste and defeated the overall calming influence the website was designed to create. The final image we agreed on was of a hot air balloon above water symbolising peace. The bottom line is theme a page where you can but get creative when you cannot.
There is an abudance of royalty-free images on the web. Check www.sxc.hu first if you feel you really don't want to pay out for an image (note: read the smallprint first as some image owners request both notification and accreditation for use of their images). For an easier option, check out iStockphoto.comwho charge as little as 50p for an image. - Clear blocks for easy reading: Eyes scan from top-left to bottom right so anything on the right-hand side needs emphasis.
Having said that, it pays to keep all of your page elements clear and easy to identify. Display the most important blocks at the top of the page (also known as above the fold), but don’t cram everything into one space. Blank space on a website is not the enemy: If anything, it is good to allow space as this gives eyes a rest in between looking at each section. - Little to no adverts: One of the examples I was going to use was a code resource website with about 3 banner adverts for various screensavers. Too many banner adverts on your pages can trash all your hard effort. Keep adverts to a minimum or even better, don’t use them at all.
Posted: 19 November 2007
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