site analysis: why most websites don’t make money ayo ijidakinro –

Site Analysis: Why Most Websites Don’t Make Money

Ayo Ijidakinro – www.ayoswebdesign.com

Why Most Websites Don’t Make Money – Ayo Ijidakinro11/24/2007

The typical situation.

Does this describe you?

• You have a good product/service but a frustrating website.

• Your challenge is getting customers who use your website to call you or purchase online.

Why is this problem so common?

The Money Pit

A bad website is a money pit.

You could:

a) Keep spending money on poor designs.b) Spend thousands on Search Engine Optimization.c) Start buying Google ads.

But you will see no results if users see your website and leave right away.

What’s the answer?

Stop spending money on your website until you understand why it isn’t working.

This presentation will help you critique your website and make design changes that will:

1) Keep customers on your site.2) Convince customers to purchase your good or

service.

Who is this presentation for?

This presentation is geared towards:

• Business owners or marketing executives.• Businesses selling products or services through

their website.

This presentation is NOT geared towards:

• Websites that are used for information purposes only with no product or service for sale.

• Website developers looking for technical solutions.

Note: This presentation does not require a technical background.

Research based approach

• All of this information is based on research from over 25 different business and scholarly sources.

• At the end of this presentation, a table of articles for further reading is provided.

Where do most websites go wrong?

The average website fails to generate sales because of a failure in one or more of the following areas:

1. Picture quality: Is your picture quality excellent, average or worse…below average?

2. Typography: Are you using a professional font? Is your text easy to ready?

3. Color scheme: Are your colors professional and do they build confidence?

4. Layout: Is your layout uncluttered and clean or does it project an image of poor quality?

In this presentation we will help you answer these questions for your website.

Presentation format

From here forward, the presentation will be much less wordy.

Instead we will:

• Focus on screenshots from real, live websites.• Analyze website homepages to see what works

and what does not.• Provide you with resources to help solve the

most common problems.

Why watches?

For this presentation we chose to analyze watch websites because:

1. Watches are a generic product, providing lessons that can apply to many other industries.

2. Watches have a wide price range, making the lessons applicable to both inexpensive and expensive products/services.

3. The watch industry is competitive, as your industry probably is.

4. Using a single industry makes it easier to compare each site.

Website ReviewOf Fifteen Websites

OROLUS.comConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

Would this design generate online sales? Why? Why not?

What is good about this design?

What is bad about this design?

OROLUS.com

High quality images of the watches they sale gives the customer a good sense of product quality.

OROLUS.com

Crisp, clean, sans-serif text builds confidence in the company.

OROLUS.com

Image quality. Image quality. Image quality. Don’t forget it. Poor image quality is the #1 reason sites fail to get sales.

OROLUS.com

Good colors. White backgrounds with subtle blues, reds, pinks and grays, gives a professional and modern feel.

OROLUS.com

Promotion is prominent but not tacky. Avoid using exclamation points!!!!!! It looks dishonest.

OROLUS.com

Orolus will generate substantial online revenues.

A bright clean design with high quality pictures is the best website possible.

Lessons:

• High quality pictures communicate professionalism.

• Uncluttered and clean design is enjoyable.

• White backgrounds with subtle colors are the safe colors to use.

Watches Etc.Consider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

Watches Etc.

Good picture quality. The customer can see product quality and look and feel.

Watches Etc.

Great font here. They’re using a sans-serif. This is a good use of all capital letters and good character spacing.

Watches Etc.

Not a bad logo. Nothing really wrong with it.

Watches Etc.

Not a bad logo. Nothing really wrong with it.

Watches Etc.

Watches Etc. will generate little online business although customers will visit their physical location.

A poor quality navigation bar detracts from the entire design and makes the site look amateurish.

Lessons:

• Don’t allow a single part of your homepage to appear unprofessional. Customers will flee.

• Avoid using basic fonts like Times New Roman. They make you look cheap. If you need a serif font, use Georgia instead.

eWatchStore.comConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

eWatchStore.com

They have a good idea with the presentation of the logos. It tells me what they sell and the logos are a crisp and clear high picture quality.

eWatchStore.com

Avoid the need to scroll horizontally if possible. Most users prefer to scroll vertically.

eWatchStore.com

This search box looks strange here. How often do you see search at the bottom of the page?

eWatchStore.com

This block at top looks unprofessional. It would be better to use a solid color font on a white background than to use a white font on a black background.

eWatchStore.com

Do NOT use a generic email domain like @hotmail, @yahoo, @aol, etc. It scares away customers because it looks like you can’t afford your own domain or just don’t care to buy one.

eWatchStore.com

eWatchStore.com sales will be scanty because of a few critical errors.

As soon as you use a generic email address it exposes the fact that your company is an amateur operation.

Lessons:

• Don’t use a generic email address like yourname@yahoo.com or @hotmail.com or @aol.com. It makes you look unprofessional and cheap.

• Avoid the need for horizontal scrolling.

|red |fingerprintConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

|red |fingerprint

This page header looks clean and professional.

|red |fingerprint

This company name uses lowercase which is ok. Modern web design uses a lot of lowercase with sans-serif fonts.

|red |fingerprint

The use of a red background here is ok because the main body background is white. However, it is still a dangerous decision to go with anything but white.

|red |fingerprint

They did a good job of selecting pictures that match their color scheme.

|red |fingerprint

This navigation bar is just one big list. It risks making the whole site look unorganized.

|red |fingerprint

All of this text is tight and a little cluttered, but it doesn’t destroy the site.

|red |fingerprint

However, the quality, prominent pictures on this website dominate and overall give it a good feel.

|red |fingerprint

| red | fingerprint’s website will generate medium-level sales.

Quality pictures and a color scheme that matches their company name save them from questionable decisions on site layout.

Lessons:

• Quality, relevant pictures should dominate your homepage.

• A little color at the edges of your site can communicate sophistication and elegance, if done correctly.

• Choose colors that match your pictures not just colors that you think look pretty.

WatchesPlanetConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

WatchesPlanet

The first thing that leaps out at you is, “whoa this is cluttered.”

WatchesPlanet

They make good use of a white background.

WatchesPlanet

The colors are fine. Reds, oranges, and grays dominate this design. No color is too bright or clashes with the page’s pictures.

WatchesPlanet

Lots of good quality pictures make the customer confident of product quality.

WatchesPlanet

Crowded pages look like one big advertisement which is a bad thing.

WatchesPlanet

WatchesPlanet will generate sales, but not to its full potential.

The crowded homepage will turn away many customers immediately.

Lessons:

• If your homepage is overly crowded it will look like one big false advertisement.

• Colors are not bad if they all match each other, pictures, and brand. Research “color theory” to understand what makes a color scheme good.

About TimeConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

About Time

How many big company websites do you know that use such a dark background like this?

This background is just too dark.

About Time

Can anybody read this text easily? There is way too much text with no organization.

About Time

The quality picture is useless among such cluttered text. It is overshadowed by the text.

About Time

The company name looks professional. This is the only part that will look professional to customers.

About Time

This red font doesn’t fit. This is too much red. A couple of words highlighted in bright colors is ok. But keep most of your text black, dark gray, or another dark color.

About Time

About Time will generate no business from their website.

Research has proven that designs like this fail.

Lessons:

• Have as little text as possible on your home page. Try to stay under 250 words.

• Cluttered text with no real organization makes your site completely unusable.

• Avoid dark backgrounds, they are very difficult to do well. It requires exceptional design experience.

TIMEWAYConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

TIMEWAY

Beautiful picture of their product draws your attention immediately.

TIMEWAY

Gray text on gray background is difficult to read. It also isn’t very visually appealing.

TIMEWAY

Research has shown customers distrust exclamation points!!! Do you believe that this is really the last watch available?

TIMEWAY

Everything about this design is just too dark. The design isn’t horrible, but why don’t Amazon, Yahoo, or Google use dark designs? Because most people don’t like dark designs.

TIMEWAY

TIMEWAY will generate limited sales but most users won’t use it.

Most users do not like dark designs.

Lessons:

• Dark is depressing to many customers.

• Allowing dark colors to dominate your design is incredibly risky. You can expect to lose business unless your site is designed by an up-scale graphics design house.

• Even a nice picture is going to get lost if your entire design is too dark.

theperfectwatch.comConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

theperfectwatch.com

A very professional header. But what happened to the rest of the site?

theperfectwatch.com

The perforated border looks strange and unprofessional. Avoid borders that aren’t solid, unless you’re willing to pay extra to do it right.

theperfectwatch.com

If any pictures on your website don’t load, you’ve lost 50% of your business immediately.What do you think when you see a broken link?

theperfectwatch.com

Too much text. Would you read all of this?

theperfectwatch.com

theperfectwatch.com is not going to get any business.

If your web page has any images that don’t load, you’ve lost your customers.

Lessons:

• Make sure all your images load.

• Make sure you have zero broken links on your website.

CentralWatch.comConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

CentralWatch.com

Colors galore. Be careful about using too many colors. Most people aren’t going to like all these colors.

CentralWatch.com

Web designers say you want no more than 4 different hues (colors) on a website. I count at least seven maybe even ten or more on this site.

CentralWatch.com

There is no logical layout here. It seems like a big mess, especially because of the colors.

CentralWatch.com

Would you enter your credit card information on this website?

CentralWatch.com

CentralWatch.com will get limited business.

A few people will like a website with wild colors, 80% will not.

Lessons:

• Don’t use more than 4 hues on your website. You can use varying levels of saturation per hue.

• Too many colors is an immediate turnoff.

TimexConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

This is a large successful company we are familiar with. Do you see how much white they use?

Remember what we said about using only a few words on your homepage? Use as few words as possible.

Only one quality graphic. You don’t need ten pictures on your homepage. Make the pictures large.

Here the gray background works because the design is so minimal with lots of white to keep it bright.

You see how they only use three hues. Red, white, and gray. Black is a saturation level for any color, it doesn’t count as a hue.

Timex is a familiar brand so we know they will generate business.

Their design probably won’t work for you, but remember the lessons. Use plenty of white space on your site.

Lessons:

• Remember no more than 4 hues (colors). This website uses 3.

• Use as few words as possible. Timex uses roughly 30 words.

• Leave plenty of white space and use bright colors only as highlights.

Aarons WatchConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

Aarons Watch

This is a nice large font.

Aarons Watch

This is a dangerous color. Most people prefer white.

Aarons Watch

These are good, quality pictures.

Aarons Watch

Unformatted text like this is not going to be liked.

Aarons Watch

This Yahoo reference is good as long as they link to the source so that the customer can see they are telling the truth.

Aarons Watch

This navigation bar should be a different color than the rest of the website to give us a break from the green.

Aarons Watch

Very few people will read this tiny text. They should shorten it further and ideally remove it since it detracts from the merchandise.

Aarons Watch

Aarons Watch will generate some business, but not up to its full potential.

A bad color scheme and poorly formatted text consistently lose business.

Lessons:

• Again, to be on the safe side, always try to have lots of white in your website.

• Choosing a different background color than white loses customers.

OPMTradingPostConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

OPMTradingPost

This dark background header loses customers. The whole site feels melancholy.

OPMTradingPost

ALL CAPITAL LETERS fatigues the customer and appears excessively promotional. Don’t use them.

OPMTradingPost

Try to be exciting without using an exclamation point. Exclamation points in promotions make the customer defensive.

OPMTradingPost

Centered text usually looks unprofessional. Use centering sparingly.

OPMTradingPost

Again, when customers see a big blob of centered text it looks amateur.

OPMTradingPost

These pictures are low quality. They don’t give me confidence in their product quality.

OPMTradingPost

OPMTradingPost won’t get online business.

A bad background and color scheme, along with other mistakes, will chase away paying customers.

Lessons:

• Don’t use big blocks of text.

• Don’t use lots of text centering.

• Don’t use ALL CAPITALS.

• Don’t show tiny images.

bacario.comConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

bacario.com

Header uses color, but in an attractive manner.

bacario.com

Tabs look nice. The gray color is ok.

bacario.com

Good amount of white keeps the design looking bright.

bacario.com

This is a nice navigation bar.

bacario.com

The grid looks organized, though it feels too grid-like.

bacario.com

Double lined border is not very popular right now. A single line border would be cleaner.

bacario.com

This is a design flaw. It makes this company lose credibility.

bacario.com

bacario.com will generate healthy sales, but still falls short of its potential.

The design has many professional aspects, but a couple of noticeable flaws hold their revenue back.

Lessons:

• Typically you should use single line borders rather than double line. Single lines look cleaner.

• Blue is an excellent color to base your color scheme on.

• Most websites use blue as the primary hue. You can use different colors as long as they are bright.

Bodying.comConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

Bodying.com

White header feels bright.

Bodying.com

Nice large, bright pictures.

Bodying.com

Rare acceptable use of exclamation point. This sentence would seem strange without the exclamation.

Bodying.com

Single line borders. Superior to double line.

Bodying.com

Rounded corners avoid the grid-like feel.

Bodying.com

Blue is a web favorite.

Bodying.com

Glass buttons are very popular right now.

Bodying.com

This web page is just a little crowded. Otherwise most customers will like it.

Bodying.com

Bodying.com will generate lots of business.

This website makes Bodying.com feel like a large successful company. That’s the power of a good website.

Lessons:

• A good website can make your company look successful no matter how small you are.

• Bright colors are refreshing.

• Quality pictures also must be bright.

WatchZoneConsider Before Proceeding:

In your opinion…

WatchZone

Using a trustworthy company’s logo builds trust.

WatchZone

Zero border on left side looks strange.

WatchZone

Small, poor quality pictures leave the customer doubting product quality.

WatchZone

Pictures like this don’t necessarily help a small company. These promotional pictures work better for big companies.

WatchZone

The login link looks like an afterthought floating here with no formatting.

WatchZone

The whole design looks cluttered.

WatchZone

WatchZone will generate some sales but many customers will leave immediately.

The page is too cluttered. Most customers will quickly leave.

Lessons:

• Clutter kills even the best colors and pictures.

• Remove unneeded elements from your homepage.

End of Website Reviews

And the loser is?

Most of the websites we saw will struggle. Why?

• Low quality images make the site look drab and uninteresting.

• Crazy colors make the site seem outdated, melancholy, and/or unprofessional.

• Layout is cluttered, which makes the website look like amateurs built it.

• Text is too plain, or there is too much of it, which again looks amateurish.

Learn from the best.

What made these two websites so good?

• Use only a few hues (colors).• Timex uses only 3.

• Quality pictures• Orolus has high quality

pictures of their merchandise.

• Font selection• Both sites heavily use

sans-serif fonts.• Both sites avoid overly

common fonts like Times New Roman.

• Layout• Neither site feels

cluttered.• Orolus shows a lot of

information, but it is well organized.

Learn to do your own analysis.

• We’ve reviewed 15 websites to look at what was good and bad about each.

• Take some time, now if possible, to look at five of your competitor’s websites and do a similar analysis.

• Ask others if they agree with your analysis.

What should you do next?

• Review your website immediately to identify areas that have:• Poor quality pictures.• Too many colors.• Cluttered or unorganized layout.• Fonts that look ordinary.

• Make the necessary changes immediately. It will generate more business.

• If you decide against making these changes beware the below quote:

“Unless the first impression is favorable, visitors will be out of your [website] before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors.”(Professor Gitte Lindgaard, 2006 Website Research Study)

Resources for your website• Quality pictures

- http://www.sxc.hu – Thousands of high quality photos at reasonable prices.

• Quality fonts- http://www.1001fonts.com/ - These fonts are good for

logos or text embedded in images. The fonts are not suitable for your website’s HTML based text.

- http://www.dafont.com/• Color scheme generator

- http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html - This tool will help you understand what hues make a good color scheme. Remember, you can use many different saturation levels for each hue.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory - Wikipedia article explaining color theory.

• Layout resources- http://www.useit.com/ - Jakob Nielsen is the premiere

web design guru. Read his articles regularly.- http://webdesign.about.com/od/layout/ig/Web-Design-Des

ign-Gallery/index.htm - This gallery of websites has an expert review for each one. Read the reviews and try submitting your site for review.

site analysis: why most websites don’t make money ayo ijidakinro –

websites dont

money ayo ijidakinro

money ayo ijidakinro

money pit

watch websites

live websites

average website

bad website

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