Quote Originally Posted by Teaser View Post
I was told once in a sales meeting, that your potential sale gives you 30 secs of active brain function before they start shutting out the message and moving on to something else.
On the Internet it's far less than 30 seconds. You have 5-10 seconds at the most before users hit the back button.

Think of how often you've been searching for something on the web. You click in, take one look a the site and see if anything grabs your eye that resembles what you're looking for. Not only are you taking in information regarding what you're looking for, but you're also taking in the credibility of the website itself.

So when someone arrives at your new project, you have five seconds to convince them that your site is:

  • What they're looking for
  • Credible

Design your website with those two intentions in mind. Otherwise you'll end up with a website that looks like this visual abomination. (Scroll down to revel in its awfulness.)

Please please please tell me that the writing there is only a placeholder, and that you're not actually going to design a website with links and text that is so horribly written and presented. You've got...

  • Mass blocks of text
  • "Welcome to ____"
  • Links in all caps
  • "please click on the enter link below"
  • Sentences that form links in which every word is capitalized
  • Multiple prominent links that all go to the same place

I could go on. When designing a website and writing text for the Internet, think "clean and concise."

As an FYI, Next time you're gonna put together a mock-up of a site, I suggest using Lorem Ipsum text. It's the perfect dummy text for website creation.

--Aaron

PS, (I won't even comment on the sleaze factor necessary to peddle the metaphorical snake oil known as "natural male enhancement").