Business Website Design, Items 1 to 50

This section includes articles on general business website design. In our Web Commerce Today E-Commerce Research Room you'll find articles specific to designing web stores to optimize sales. Also consider Ken Evoy's Make Your Site Sell for a carefully researched sales optimization system.

"Business Website Design" includes 983 items
This page contains items 1 to 50

1. Building a Compelling Landing Page: Your Checklist, by Mason Wiley, iMedia Connection, 1-6-2010 The only real way to ensure conversions is to test landing pages with consumers, under real marketplace conditions, Wiley writes. Also, use people photos, big headlines, and lead the eye to the conversion button.
2. 6 Website Redesign SEO Secrets Your Developer May Not Know, by Jill Whalen, Internet Search Engine Database, 12-22-2009 You need to address a number of additional SEO tactics before you get too deep into your redesign, Whalen advises, including coding of navigation menus, difficulties caused by session IDs and allowing for custom HTML elements.
3. Web Tools That Save You Money: Free Web Design, by Andrew Lock, Small Business Computing, 12-22-2009 If you want to create a quick, good looking Web site for free, check out Weebly.com, Lock suggests. Also describes GiveAway of the Day and Action Envelope.
4. 3 Ways to Fight Site Abandonment, by Andrew Edwards, iMedia Connection, 12-14-2009 Abandonment rates can run as high as 80% for a typical landing page, Edwards reports, suggesting that your content may be too rich and slowing download time.
5. The 2009 Inc. 500: The Best of the Websites, by , Inc. Magazine, 12-7-2009 Describes 8 top websites of the 2009 Inc. 500 winners. Sites include SitterCity, Cali Bamboo, Triad Digital Media, CJ Environmental.
6. Avaya, Agency Partners Revamp Web Site, by Dillon White, B to B, 12-1-2009 White describes how business telecommunications company Avaya refreshed its outdated Web site with 2 key objectives in mind: drive revenue and improve customer satisfaction.
7. Five Ways to Improve Web Site Uptime, by John Brandon, Computer World, 11-4-2009 Brandon offers advice on dealing with site congestion and other potential server outage problems using tools and design changes. Sidebar with additional tips.
8. Short-Term Memory and Web Usability, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 12-7-2009 The human brain is not optimized for the abstract thinking and data memorization that websites often demand. Many usability guidelines are dictated by cognitive limitations.
9. Velocity of Media Consumption: TV vs. the Web, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 11-24-2009 The granularity of user decisions is much finer on the Web, which is dominated by the instant gratification of the user's needs in any given instant. Content must cater to this rapid pace.
10. More Reasons Your Site Sucks, by Jack Aaronson, ClickZ, 10-2-2009 Discusses some bad website design practices to avoid: to many elements screaming for attention, disconnected navigation, and inconsistency.
11. Optimizing Your Site for the Holiday Season, by Jack Aaronson, ClickZ, 10-30-2009 Ways to optimize your site for the holidays are to (1) use discount teasers, such as free shipping on orders over a certain amount, (2) sharing a wish list, and (3) getting pictures and videos online.
12. Easy Website Navigation: A Marketer's Map, by Dan Bucko, iMedia Connection, 11-11-2009 Navigating websites is a learned behavior, writes Bucko, so make sure your design is intuitive. Explains that great website navigation starts with organizing content correctly and understanding common layout types.
13. 7 Money-saving Web Design Tips, by Michael Estrin, iMedia Connection, 10-26-2009 Estrin says it pays to watch every penny because keeping prices in line will have a direct impact on the quality of your website. This is because technology keeps changing so there's always more you'll want to do.
14. Simple Fixes for Floundering Websites, by Linda Eskin, iMedia Connection, 10-21-2009 A good user experience is the same as good customer service. It's fundamental to the success of your business, Eskin writes. Discusses several ways to uncover problems that your site visitors encounter, as well as approaches to fixing these issues.
15. Tips for Organizing Your Landing Page, by Tim Ash, Search Engine Watch, 10-14-2009 Accessibility has to do with how information is organized, how much emphasis is assigned to items, and how easy the information is to access, Ash explains.
16. 7 Vital Questions to Ask Your Web Designer, by Michael Estrin, iMedia Connection, 9-30-2009 Even if you have only a superficial knowledge of building a website, it is possible to get quality work on budget and on time. You just have to know how to speak with your vendor, says Estrin. Offers tips on questions to ask, answers to look for.
17. 10 Mind-blowing Microsites, by Fred Brown, iMedia Connection, 9-23-2009 In many ways, microsites can be more impactful and memorable than a brand's main website, Brown writes Describes 6 characteristics that set microsites apart from brands' main websites, reviews 10 microsites.
18. Powers of 10: Time Scales in User Experience, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 10-5-2009 From 0.1 seconds to 10 years or more, user interface design has many different timeframes, and each has its own particular usability issues.
19. Fresh vs. Familiar: How Aggressively to Redesign, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 9-21-2009 Users hate change, so it's usually best to stay with a familiar design and evolve it gradually. In the long run, however, incrementalism eventually destroys cohesiveness, calling for a new UI architecture.
20. Discount Usability: 20 Years, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 9-14-2009 Simple user testing with 5 participants, paper prototyping, and heuristic evaluation offer a cheap, fast, and early focus on usability, as well as many rounds of iterative design.
21. Customization of UIs and Products, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 8-17-2009 Websites that let users customize the UI have the same measured usability as regular sites. Sites for customizing products, however, score substantially worse due to complex workflow.
22. Increase Conversion Rates: Which 4 Tasks Do 80% of Your Site Visitors Hope to Complete?, by Nick Usborne, Excess Voice, 8-24-2009 Usborne contends that a website should prioritize in its design the 3 or 4 main things that you know your site visitors want to accomplish, rather than design for all actions equally.
23. Card Sorting: Pushing Users Beyond Terminology Matches, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 8-24-2009 It's easy to bias study participants, whether in user testing or in card sorting, if they focus on matching stimulus words instead of working on the underlying problem.
24. Old-school Portraits See Resurgence Online, by John D. Sutter, CNN, 8-27-2009 Some avid social-network users are commissioning artists to create small digital images to represent themselves online, Sutter writes. People are using automated computer programs and Web sites to generate posterized likenesses of themselves.
25. How to Drive (and Convert) more Website Traffic, by JJ Bannasch, iMedia Connection, 9-14-2009 Bannasch explains how to maximize the value of your website, define what success means before designing your website and follow site design best practices and focus on the user to maximize conversions.
26. Google Testing Breadcrumb Display in SERPs, by Chris Crum, WebProNews, 8-28-2009 Breadcrumbs the hierarchical display commonly used in site navigation. Crum reports that Google appears to be testing breadcrumbs in some search results, suggests it to be a good reason to clean up your site's architecture, particularly navigation.
27. Cleaning Out the Web Cobwebs, by Anna Wells, IMPO, 8-1-2009 Nobody wants to spend a lot of time navigating your B-to-B site when their very specific purpose is to learn more about your products and services, writes Wells.
28. Simple, Sticky, Successful Sites, by John Gray, iMedia Connection, 9-22-2009 What makes a site "sticky?" Gray explains that a sticky site has 2 distinctive characteristics: an abundance of content and some form of interactivity.
29. Website Design Faux Pas and How to Avoid Them, by Joseph Carrabis, iMedia Connection, 8-26-2009 Web design has moved from an art to a combination of sciences, including neuroscience, behavioral anthropology, cultural psychology, visual attention and cognition theory, situational awareness studies, and others, Carrabis writes.
30. Build Your Own Data-backed Personas, by Matthew Magain, Site Point, 8-19-2009 Magain describes personas, fictitious visitors that represent visitors to your site, and how a site design team can use the persona data to improve design decision-making.
31. Building Respect for Usability Expertise, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 7-6-2009 Enemies of usability claim that because "the experts disagree," they can safely ignore user advocates' expertise and run with whatever design they personally prefer.
32. Stop Password Masking, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 6-23-2009 Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn't even increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures.
33. Guesses vs. Data as Basis for Design Recommendations, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 6-8-2009 Even the tiniest amount of empirical facts (say, observing 2 users) vastly improves the probability of making correct UI design decisions.
34. Top 6 User Testing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, by Jeff Sexton, FutureNow, 5-29-2009 The 6 top don'ts for usability testing: (1) Don't ask: "What do you think about this?" (2) Don't feed the tester with your question. (3) Don't let users be the designers. (4) Don't let the statistics fool you. (5) Don't get discouraged. (6) Don't try to test too much.
35. Google Pitches Faster Web, by Thomas Claburn, Information Week, 6-25-2009 The search giant has launched a developer Web site that offers advice on optimizing CSS, gzip compression, and HTTP caching so that Web pages load faster, Claburn writes.
36. Cameron Adams on Designing Google Wave, by Alex Walker, SitePoint, 7-20-2009 If you’re yet to be up to speed on Google's next big thing, Wave, Walker explains the practicality of why it puts IM inside your email, Twitter inside your IM, maps inside your Twitter, and much more.
37. Down With Verdana!, by Farhad Manjoo, Slate, 7-13-2009 Typography on the Web is basic and dull, Majoo observes, describes how a startup called Typekit will fix it.
38. Optimizing For Natural And Paid Search, After The Click, by Rob Garner, Media Post, 5-27-2009 Garner reports multiple finds of research, including: attending to search and usability issues in the early design and strategy phases of page development will help improve experience and conversions.
39. Investor Relations (IR) on Corporate Websites, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 5-25-2009 Individual investors are intimidated by overly complex IR sites and need simple summaries of financial data. Both individual and professional investors want the company's own story and investment vision.
40. Top 10 Information Architecture Mistakes, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 5-11-2009 Structure and navigation must support each other and integrate with search and across subsites. Complexity, inconsistency, hidden options, and clumsy UI mechanics prevent users from finding what they need.
41. There are refreshingly inexpensive ways to refresh a web site, Fry says, by , Internet Retailer, 5-28-2009 Ways to refresh a website inexpensively: (1) Create templates that can be changed by anyone, even staffers without technical or creative skills. (2) Provide fresh photos, (3) review copy to make sure it presents the distinct voice of the brand.
42. Is Your Web Site Credible?, by Kim Krause Berg, Search Engine Land, 5-22-2009 We bring our judgments with us when viewing websites for the first time and make snap judgments based on a page's stated purpose, a sense of authenticity, and aesthetic value. But in customer service you must prove you're alive.
43. Must-have Features Your Website Is Missing, by Reid Carr, iMedia Connection, 5-11-2009 Some of Carr's observations: provide succinct value propositions and the ability to compare your company with the competition will reel visitors into your site, nable customers to share your content.
44. The Battlefield of Design: Designers vs Clients, by Paul Boag, SitePoint, 6-16-2009 Boag describes the steps of a “design methodology” that includes clients in every step of the process, avoiding the points of contention on what constitutes good design and achieving business objectives.
45. World's Best Headlines: BBC News, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 4-27-2009 Precise communication in a handful of words? The editors at BBC News achieve it every day, offering remarkable headline usability. Headlines must be: short, rich in content scent, front-loaded with the most important keywords, understandable out of context, and predictable.
46. First 2 Words: A Signal for the Scanning Eye, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 4-6-2009 Testing how well people understand a link's first 11 characters shows whether sites write for users, who typically scan rather than read lists of items.
47. Usability Study: Men Need Speed, by , WebSiteOptimization.com, 4-28-2009 In a recent usability survey, researchers from Southern Illinois University found that after ease of use, men prefer fast download speed to easy navigation. Women prefer ease of use, easy navigation, and accessibility. The researchers hypothesize that these different usability criteria are due to differences in how men and women use the Web.
48. Converting an Older Table-Based Email Template to CSS, by Armando Roggio, Practical eCommerce, 4-23-2009 E-mail templates based on HTML tables break more easily than CSS layouts. Explains how an e-mail template was converted form tables to CSS. The article doesn't cover non-support of CSS in e-mail programs, but that is discussed in the comments to the article.
49. First 2 Words: A Signal for the Scanning Eye, by Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox, 4-6-2009 Testing how well people understand a link's first 11 characters shows whether sites write for users, who typically scan rather than read lists of items.
50. Ecommerce Know-How: Selecting a Web Designer or Developer, by Armando Roggio, Practical eCommerce, 3-31-2009 Explains the difference between a designer and a developer. Says to check references; research shopping carts; bring challenges to your person, not solutions; get a statement of work; and note that experience matters more than credentials. Gives some cautions and price range guidelines.