Make Your Site Appealing, But Don’t Over-Emphasize On The Flashy Stuff!
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But some folks seems to put to much emphasis on flashy graphics, annoying ads and animated stuff, like overwhelming animated gifs, floating ads, pop-ups, or interstitials, and the likes. It can get pretty annoying, and actually make people click away from your page (in my opinion), which is something you don’t want! You want them to stay on there, read more, participate, and potentially buy (provided you actually have something to sell)!
Here’s my “not” to-do list:
I wonder if that works well, i never tried it, but i hate those! I have a pop-up blocker enabled, so that probably means i don’t want any pop-up! So why is it that i’m annoyed by floating stuff that is displayed on the page itself instead of another window then? Even if it’s to inform me of a super special offer, i don’t want to know about it, i just don’t ! With floating ads you can have a pop-up thing that’s not actually a pop-up but more like a little (or big!) advertisement window or “subscribe to my mailing list” form, that pops-up right on the actual page, instead of opening a new browser window. Hate those!
We all find them annoying, period. Why is there still people using them? Is there any money to be made from pop-up windows, or pop-unders? Most surfers have a pop-up blocker enabled, so it’s no use, but even if they don’t have that pop-up blocker on, what are the chances they’ll enter their name and e-mail in a form that’s in a pop-up window…umm…
That is fine with me, but make sure you don’t put too much emphasis on the graphics of your site. First it will slow down the loading of your page, and second it’s flashy, and may take the focus away from the actual content of your site! Unless you want them to check out that new flashing banner, or that animated gif, you don’t want to use too much flashy stuff on your site. Unless you just finished a really nice flash animation, that is way fine (and you can be proud!), cause it’s artsy and it looks good.. but forget about the animated gifs! (take a look at myspace and tell me you like to see flashy stuff? I bet you don’t!)
Every thing else is fine by me! Just don’t over do things! If you wanna make your site or blog sticky , forget about the flashy stuff!:)
Even if you’re writing and designing a sales page, you don’t need any of those anyway! If you’re paying for your traffic you certainly don’t want people to click away from your page, you want them to read the whole thing, and buy!
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11 Responses to “Make Your Site Appealing, But Don’t Over-Emphasize On The Flashy Stuff!”
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Hi Jon, Good post. Thanks for sharing, How is your contest for a new header going? I hope you’re doing great. See you later.
Hey George, Thanx a lot!
The header contest is going good, got 3 submissions so far, and probably a couple more will come, i just put that “header art contest” button in my sidebar (hehe i thought i could make it super flashy, but after re-reading my last post i said to myself.. mmm, maybe not! lol), so hopefully it’ll help to get more people to read the post :)
Congratulations on your review from Critique My Blog. I will definitely be back to read more. Stop by and say hi sometime.
~Sandy G.
You can’t realy over emphasize the importance of not over emphasizing… heehe.
For one thing, one certainly doesn’t want one’s website or blog to look like a market place rather than a place with content.
‘Content is King.’ Has always been, and always will be. People don’t visit a website or a blog to look at the ads or the flashy stuff.
The real art of advertising on your site is in creating a need for a product through appropriate content and providing non-intrusive ads and links where they’re most likely to make an impact.
Adsense will do that for you to some extent, but I’m started to worry about its effectiveness lately. Goooooogle Ads have become such a ‘taken-for-granted’ part of websites that they can easily go un-noticed. The same format, same styling, the same ‘Ads by Goooogle,’ etc., etc. In short, its becoming that area of a web page that can be safely skipped.
Your visitors’ mind will tell them, “Oh, I can skip this, lemme look at something else.” Maybe they won’t even realize the ads are there.
A lot of big sites are using floating ads these days, so I would imagine they’re effective.
But 99 times out of … 99 times, I find them completely annoying.
Hello Sandy! thank you very much, i’m checking out your blog also, you live in Alaska?
By the way you’re always welcome on here, feel free to comment and reply! :)
Hey RK! I totally agree with you, for instance the adsense ads i have on my blog, they’re performing well, and for sure adsense can make you a load of money, but to a certain extent, i prefer to focus on the content, what i do is usually put this small link unit at the bottom of the posts, and later if i see a post is getting SE traffic i’ll put a links block in the post. But i make more money from affiliate programs than adsense, people tend to just skip the ads by google.
Hi Shane!! yeah I noticed that many big sites are using floating ads, but i still can’t see why.. they must perform well (i hope for them), and the ads be really targetted.. for me it’s like “why would i want to enter my e-mail in that floating window to subscribe to that mailing list.. ? will i recieve more and more flashy stuff in my e-mail? i already get around 450 e-mails every single day, and 3/4 of them are junkmails…” i agree 99 out of 99 times i find them annoying too hehe
[…] Drive-Bys for 2007-03-31 Jonathan-C. Phillips at SmartWealthyRich wrote about making your site appealing without over-emphasizing the flashy […]
I hate pop up’s to but used in the right manner they can be very effective. For example if you are shopping for something online and you want more information on an item, a pop up is a great way to fill that need.
And oddly enough a recent study showed that 64% of people wish their were more pop ups, this people must be sick or something, cause I hate them too. But I guess they are like floating ads, the general unthinking populous like what they are used to, pop ups and floating ads.
Hi James!
Wait! What? 64% would like more pop-ups? I definatly don’t fit into those 64% lol
Well pop-ups are ok, i mean you just need a pop-up blocker and you’re fine, but those floating ads, there’s like no way of disabling them…
[…] This post is a follow-up on another post i wrote titled: Make Your Site Appealing, But Don’t Over-Emphasize On The Flashy Stuff! […]
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks. Yes, I live in Alaska. I was born here and have lived here most of my life. One of these days I’m going to do a post on Alaska.
~Sandy G.