Designing
Web
Usability
Written by
the best-known guru
of usability.

Secrets of
Successful
Web Sites
Siegel gives
a perfect blueprint of ways to
plan, develop and design websites
that work.

Creating
Killer
Web Sites
Another enlightening book by
Siegel, which (in my opinion) counts as the "creme de la creme" of website development books.

Don't Make
Me Think
If you read
this book
along with Nielsen's books, and follow their advice,
visitors will
love visiting your
websites.

• The words must be chosen wisely. What do I mean by this? You have probably heard about "keywords." Back in the early days of designing, these important words (those that people will search for) were placed in the meta tag - and still should be - but for search engines today, these keywords must be placed in your content, early and often. Each page will have important keywords that give that page focus and high search worthiness.
• Pick your page titles with care. It is amazing to me that so many websites don't include titles on any or all pages. The title appears at the top of your browser in the blue area. This is another content area that the search engines check out, along with your visitors. Make them snappy and descriptive of the content that appears on that particular page.
• Write copy that grabs the attention of the visitor. There was a time when we all said, "Welcome to our site. We hope you enjoy your visit and come back soon. Blah, blah, blah." Most of us who surf the Internet figure we are welcome and don't need to read a lot of useless words. Tell them immediately who the site is for and what it's purpose is.
• Create copy that is helpful and truly informative. I always try to include copy that is worth keeping, so that visitors will want to print it out and/or bookmark my information pages so they can return easily. If you have a reason for developing a website, you have enough expertise to write material that others want to read and keep.
• Keep your content short and to the point, along with being easy to read. Always keep in mind that visitors will be reading a lot of your content on a monitor, and not all monitors are created equal. If they don't print up what you have written, they will lose interest quickly if you overload them with extra wordiness. As you can see in this newsletter, you will find making use of bold type and bullets can facilitate organized and easy reading.
• Be careful with your use of graphics. In the next issue, I will elaborate on the dos and don'ts of using graphics and how to prepare them, but at this time the main caution I want to mention is don't overdo them, choose them with care and make sure that they are not so big in size and resolution that they take too long for your visitors to download.
• Most of all, be sure to have fun preparing your content. Show your enthusiasm for your website's topics. You don't have to be an experienced writer to make your site a place others enjoy. I also suggest having others you trust read it over and tell you what they like best about what you have created.