When I set out to plan my website, www.mydepictions.co.uk, one of the first things I did was to have a look at lots of other artist's websites, to see how their sites had been designed. I also read general advice and guidance on setting up a website.
One good article I found is Sinning when you're winning: Top 10 mistakes: What not to do with your website. The article is aimed at small businesses, but even if your website or art work is a hobby, this article has some very good advice.
Below are what I think are three of the most common web design mistakes and annoyances found on artist web sites and why.
Little or No Written Content: I don't think I have ever seen an artist's web site that was all words or lacked images! I have though seen the opposite: nearly all images and very few words. Minimalist sites may look very swish and sophisticated, but the lack of words (less than 300 on a web page) will do very little for your visibility in search engines. This doesn't matter if you don't mind being a needle in a haystack!
Slow-loading Pages: This is usually due to image use. Either there are too many images on one page, the image file size is too large, or an image such as jpeg file format has been reduced on actual the web page (by specifying height and width in the html). Slow-loading pages can look unprofessional and they will definitely loose visitors to your web site, more than a few seconds with my broadband connection, and I am off! Not everyone has high-speed broadband.
Banner Overload: Banners are not all bad, and banner exchanges can bring visitors to your web site. Lots and lots of banners on a web page, though, can make your site look pretty garish , tacky or cheap and slow down page load.
No comments:
Post a Comment