# The BEST website in the world & HOW to build it!!



## CUSTOM UK (Jun 28, 2008)

*They say a good tag line draws in the customers.*  

*Hi. A lot of folks building their own web sites are confronted with a massive amount of confusing choices. What programming language to use, what type of graphics, which cart, hosting packages, payment gateways. The list is literally endless.*

*So what makes a good site, what qualities can help make a site more successful than the rest? We all have our own ideas on the subject, so I'm going to suggest a few thoughts of my own.*

*To me, a site has to load up quickly. We automatically assume everyone now uses a high speed connection, but that alienates our potential customers that do not. A slow loading site is a pain - period.*

*Flash (or splash) screen intros. Why do designers do them? I always compare these with attempting to go into a real life shop, whose doorway is blocked by an irritating and annoying street entertainer. "Get out of the way buddy, I want to go in the shop".*

*The home page of a site should tell me where I am. Have I walked into the right shop? Can I look around and see the things I want? Are there signs telling me where the different items are located. Compare your home page to the reception area of an hotel. If people don't like it, they'll walk straight back out.*

*Colour schemes are a matter of personal choice. Some people like yellow writing on a lime green background. Trouble is, most folks monitors are calibrated differently, so what may seem clear on one persons monitor, may be virtually unreadable on someone elses. A site needs to have enough contrast in its colour scheme, to make allowances for that.*

*My final thought is on payment. We've all been to 'realworld' shops where nobody is at the payment area, we wait a couple of minutes, then reluctantly put down our items and walk out. Online shops shouldn't suffer from that problem. It's amazing how many sites have payment buttons that don't work, bring up the wrong item, or refuse to deposit things in the basket.*

*So there you have my few opening thoughts on the subject. Sure that others will want to add their 'two cents' to what I have already said. So tell us all what you think makes a good practical construct for a web site and more importantly what you find irritating in web sites.*

*Hope all this helps someone.  *


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## wizz (Jul 9, 2008)

Man, I'm glad I'm not the only one who HATES those stupid flash intros! You are SO right - all they do is get in the way!

Sure, they can be pretty, and I'm sure they show off your design talent well, but seriously... if there's a "Click to Skip Intro" button anywhere on that page, I'm gonna find it and do it!

Great post!


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## Progeny (Jul 28, 2007)

Good post Will. I find intros and as above i always skip them. The other thing is having to click too many times to pay for the stuff. You don't go into a shop and have to go to 3,4 even 5 different places before you can pay and get out! I usually give up unless i REALLY want the goods.

Lee


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## CUSTOM UK (Jun 28, 2008)

*Thanks for your input and constructive comments, Tammy and Lee.*

*How about the rest of you? What do YOU think makes a web site a real pleasure and what makes one an absolute pain?*

*The answers you give, will hopefully help some of the people building their own sites.*


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## Reckless Tees (Feb 24, 2007)

I think a good site has to be easy to navigate and should answer all the questions a potential customer may have...shipping, shirt details, returns, privacy policy, etc. Also, all or most of your products should be on the front page. Make as few clicks as possible to get a sale.


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## queerrep (Jul 18, 2006)

I agree with you, Will. I'd like to add that poor spelling really turns me off and makes the site seem very unprofessional – even if the design is top notch.


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## PressForProfit (Jun 11, 2008)

DREAMGLASS said:


> *Thanks for your input and constructive comments, Tammy and Lee.*
> 
> *How about the rest of you? What do YOU think makes a web site a real pleasure and what makes one an absolute pain?*
> 
> *The answers you give, will hopefully help some of the people building their own sites.*


I give a big thumbs down for background music. Especially if it begins again each time you click a link.


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## dmob (Oct 1, 2007)

Although it may be difficult to display most of your designs on front page, I expect to see sufficient designs that reflect your style and company. Usually if I don't see images of the designs on the front page I'm out of there.

Also photographs need to be bang on the button. If I see amatuerish photos, I presume the rest will be the same.

I also can't stand sites that open with flash, where's that close button?

David


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

DREAMGLASS said:


> *Thanks for your input and constructive comments, Tammy and Lee.*
> 
> *How about the rest of you? What do YOU think makes a web site a real pleasure and what makes one an absolute pain?*
> 
> *The answers you give, will hopefully help some of the people building their own sites.*


There are a lot of great posts on how to make the best t-shirt websites here: 

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t1849.html (14 pages of great tips )


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## ambitious (Oct 29, 2007)

I also hate looking a websites that have all kinds of advertisements from different companies promoting there products, banners every where,etc..


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## The Mad Designer (Dec 29, 2007)

If I want to contact someone from the website, I like to do it from a contact form. I dont want to find the email address in the status bar, surf over to my webmail, and type in the email address. Id rather just do it right at the site.


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## Daniel Slatkin (Jun 25, 2008)

The primary reason that designers use a flash intro is that it gives the rest of the site time to load and optimize. I would never use one without a click to skip intro button, but they do give a site time to load making the rest of the navigation seamless. I am no pro by any means this is just what I learned in a class. I look forward to hearing what you think makes a great site. Still trying to build one myself I have built a couple bad ones though. Good luck and prosperity to you all.


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## CUSTOM UK (Jun 28, 2008)

*If a site doesn't load up and optimise within ten seconds, without the flash screen, then to me its very badly designed and can ultimately cost you lots of sales.*

*With any site you only have a few seconds to grab your customers attention, before they quickly move onto the next site. Not everyone has high speed broadband connections and that slow loading site could take a couple of minutes to come up with regular dial up connection.*

*One of my big annoyances, is when you wait for what seems an eternity for someone's homepage to load, only to be presented with a giant image of their industrial unit and a contact phone number. Why have a web site when you don't have details up there, or even an email link? Is it me, or do some businesses seem to be missing the plot when it comes to the Internet?  *

*Do keep your thoughts rolling in about what you dislike most about web sites. This thread is to help out folks planning to build their own sites. This is a completely open thread and everyone is welcome to post their own annoyances.  *


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## pshawny (Feb 27, 2008)

I recently came across a website that was using silly animated gifs. That just looked dumb. Animated gifs were so last year, lol.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Daniel Slatkin said:


> The primary reason that designers use a flash intro is that it gives the rest of the site time to load and optimize.


That only makes sense if the rest of the site is flash too... which it shouldn't be


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## aoshi1 (Jul 10, 2008)

I find that most of the time, the intros and such are there to stroke the website creators ego, and usually they just appeal to other folks in the design field, rather than the target demographic. I always wondered about that...myself, if I am at a site to buy, I am there to look around at product and reviews, and I hit the skip button on every one of those flash intros, lol.


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

You guys should also check out this thread:

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t9138.html


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## spankthafunk (Apr 9, 2007)

Flash intros do serve the purpose of letting content load as stated before, and to somewhat "stroke the ego". Most flash intros are built in mind of grabbing the attention of the viewer like a quick commercial. Though this may be cool looking to some, it could drive away target markets where the people who would have purchased something from you before might be turned down by the time of graphics you are using. I also very strongly agree with the comment that you have come to the store to shop, and you don't need some pesky advertisement getting in your way of entering the store.

As this animation is playing, it's loading up (usually) highend features for the site. Anytime that you are using one of those spiffy t-shirt creators, where you drag and drop images and text onto a shirt on the website, that is ususally a flash program. These programs take time to load and instead of people letting their users sit and wait for it to load, they assume a better alternative is to let them watch a quick flash advertisement intro while that spiffy program downloads and is ready to be used.

The problem that a lot of people don't realize, is these flash intros can really hurt your internet search engine rankings. Search engines such as Yahoo and Google need content, text, to be able to crawl your site and look for valid keywords, so that your site can be put higher into the rankings (or closer to the top of the list). When you add a bunch of images and flash into your site, you are most likely leaving out good rich content for the search engine to parouse. 

I say if you are going to use a flash site as an intro for your website, K.I.S.S. Don't let the flash movie be over 30 seconds, and make sure that you have other content on the homepage along with the intro so that the search engines can crawl your site.


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## pshawny (Feb 27, 2008)

I heard on G4 that Google is going to be able to crawl flash pages in the near future.


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## spankthafunk (Apr 9, 2007)

pshawny said:


> I heard on G4 that Google is going to be able to crawl flash pages in the near future.


Flash could eventually become more popular if you could crawl the information (which i dont see how if they are flash vector graphics) and as high speed internet becomes more mainstream (the the cd to the cassette, the dvd to the cd).

Until then, I believe that it's unnecassary for a site for selling goods, and better suited for industries pertaining to art, music, movies, etc.


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## NESBOW (Sep 10, 2006)

i totally agree i just hate the intro flashes and they just start things off on the wrong foot. colors can be a great draw that being said i have been at many web sites that are way beyoun a nice splash of color. making it almost imposible to read any text and if it can be made out the frustration soon sets in and i go else where.!!


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## CUSTOM UK (Jun 28, 2008)

The design of a website, should revolve around its functionality, rather than pandering to the whims of a web designer. If you have an ecommerce site, its primary role should be to present your products well and to allow customers to easily purchase your items. If you have an 'art house' site, then the flash graphics might have a place there. 

Every topic I have ever read on promoting websites has mentioned the brief time you have to grab your customers attention. If that time is 20 seconds and your flash intro takes 15 seconds to load........ well you can do the maths!! 

The one good thing about these forums, is you can put your own site up for criticism, good or bad. If you only ever get friends of family to comment on your site, you will never get true feedback and that could ultimately cost you sales.

So what else hacks you off about badly designed sites? Keep your thoughts rolling in.


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## Progeny (Jul 28, 2007)

I also hate it when the links are not obvious or hidden, I don't have time to search around looking for a hidden link. I just looked at someones site and although the home page is very good, but there are no buttons/links, I could not find the links untill I started wiggling my mouse around. The links were on a part of the picture but there was no way of knowing until you moved over it. If that had of been a site i was looking to buy from I would have left because it looked like the site was just being built.

I got some free new software from Serif yesterday to try, from what they say you can choose a site that you like off the internet and tell the program to copy the home page and any other 'layers' you want, you then edit it to suit your own products! I'll probably load it tomorrow, give it a try and let you know.

Lee


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## CUSTOM UK (Jun 28, 2008)

Serif have some great web building products too. Even though I use Dreamweaver, I still use Serif products on a daily basis too.


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## spankthafunk (Apr 9, 2007)

DREAMGLASS said:


> The design of a website, should revolve around its functionality, rather than pandering to the whims of a web designer. If you have an ecommerce site, its primary role should be to present your products well and to allow customers to easily purchase your items. If you have an 'art house' site, then the flash graphics might have a place there.
> 
> Every topic I have ever read on promoting websites has mentioned the brief time you have to grab your customers attention. If that time is 20 seconds and your flash intro takes 15 seconds to load........ well you can do the maths!!
> 
> ...


Pages that have a bunch of text and pictures, centered on the page, that goes down for miles and miles. Customers want to find their information easily, and your content should be in an easy to read format. When all of that text (and usually lots of pictures) are put on the page to where you have to continuously scroll, you lose readers. I dont know about anyone else, but when I see that, I can't read any of it.


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## the funk (Aug 8, 2007)

The Mad Designer said:


> If I want to contact someone from the website, I like to do it from a contact form. I dont want to find the email address in the status bar, surf over to my webmail, and type in the email address. Id rather just do it right at the site.


Contact us/submit form boxes are very easy to hack into.


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## Designated Graph (Feb 7, 2007)

I hate BLINKING Ad Banners, blindingly bright text colors, non-aligned tables, broken links of course and pop-up surveys.

Who wants to be bothered with that junk?

(P.S. - I am starting my own website from scratch in Dreamweaver MX and I know nothing except what I have tought myself. I have read many many tutorials and done a lot of research. Web Design can be easy, but if you want to make it look perfect it can be a real pain in the a&&. After about 25% of my web page is designed I figured out that I need a shopping cart. I can't really figure out how to incorporate one or to find the best one to use that's inexpensive.) 

So much to do, so little time.


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## withindustries (Aug 2, 2007)

it MUST look professional!!! Anything less I will not trust to put my money into... If u can do it ur self that's great... If u can "kinda" make it work then please don't b cheap here!! Strenghten your strengths and leave ur weekness to someone elses strength

That's all 4 now


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## TiD (May 8, 2008)

the funk said:


> Contact us/submit form boxes are very easy to hack into.



Unless they do nothing.


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## True82 (Jun 14, 2008)

Don't forget the thank you message/page/email after a purchase has been made online!


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## jimmi (May 16, 2009)

CUSTOM UK said:


> *Thanks for your input and constructive comments, Tammy and Lee.*
> 
> *How about the rest of you? What do YOU think makes a web site a real pleasure and what makes one an absolute pain?*
> 
> *The answers you give, will hopefully help some of the people building their own sites.*



Hi...I am total new to website design & learning how to make website that draw traffic and generate $...may be some of us have read this article called " Make Your Content Presell" by Ken Evoy the founder of Site Build It! ... I am sure this article will give us valuable info...click Make Your Content PREsell!

Anyone has used Site Build It! ?

All the best...Jimmi


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## JavaJess (Sep 16, 2009)

Thanks for all the great suggestions here! I am actually trying to update my site.

The problem is, I am following almost every suggestion here, but no one likes my website! I've been told it's too "boring", too "plain", "too many clicks", too "bloggy".... 

My website is Java Jess Publishing - Home. I used Weebly.com to design it, because I do not have web design experience. 

At this point, I am looking far and wide at many other options to try to create a more pleasing web experience for my customers, and also to create more web sales. 

I will take any and all suggestions!


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## Guest (Feb 16, 2010)

Never put anything on your website that doesn't need to be there. Do a sort of real estate appraisal to determine that everything has enough exposure depending on importance and need. Even if they are just buttons, if they need to be seen to navigate make sure they are well in view.

Always, make sure that everything works. Test, test and test again.


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## maiasaura (Nov 11, 2009)

Here's my off-the-cuff critique: Two product pictures are not enough. Also real pictures of actual products (maybe with your own logo) would tell me more about what you offer.

Get a copywriter to rewrite your text. Seriously. Writing for the web is a specialty, and very few people do it well. Strangely enough, it's more work to write short and pithy so prepare to may more for what appears to be less. 

Dump the "Welcome to Your-name-here" headline. Don't state the obvious: Your customer already knows where they are and it's a safe bet that they are welcome.

NO UNDERLINING! Even links don't need it. It screams "I don't now what I'm doing"

Please don't use Helvetica, Times Roman, Comic Sans, Arial, etc in your logo. You're selling creativity. Be creative. Again, a web banner designer would be a good idea. 

Consider switching to a 2-colum layout with widget sidebars so your product descriptions can be more condensed (short lines = readability)

Border="0" on the images.

Contact me through my portfolio if you want help. Glad to do it.

Maiasaura


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