Please read carefully these tips for making your site good
enough to win the Comedy Zone Cool Site award. These tips
also apply to winning almost any award out there so you
should read them all.
The King of all Web sites
Have something interesting to say and people will love
you. Hide behind all the pretty graphics in the world,
but if there's no content in there no-one will come back.
Content really is King.
Keep it simple
The surfing audience has a notoriously short attention
span... Still with us? Good, then make your navigation
simple and intuitive. Keep your text in bite size chunks
and maybe they'll stick around.
The three Click Rule
Try and adhere to this and you'll not go far wrong. Make
any page available within 3 clicks from the homepage.
If you don't think this is possible, think again. The
Comedy Zone, with over 5000 pages, complies with this
rule.
Spell Check, Speel Check, spee chuck
Simple enough to do this one, or is it? There's nothing
more annoying than bad spelling. Every computer in the
world has some kind of spell checking facility. Use it!
Page Sizes
Don't cram your entire site on a single page that scrolls
down into infinity and takes three weeks to load. Spend
a little time planning and offer your visitors smaller
pages that fit together well.
Colours & Contrasts
One of our favourites, the dark blue text on a black background
trick! Make sure the colours you use compliment the message.
Another pitfall to avoid is the busy background that
obscures the text.
Flashing lights
Keep your animations to a minimum. One or two per page
is more than enough for anyone and if you give your visitors
a headache, chances are they aren't going to love you
for it.
You've been Framed!
Frames, not so long ago they were very popular but with
them comes all sorts of horrors in getting the display
right and keep the site together for visitors who came
in through deeper pages. Avoid them unless you're an
expert.
Under construction!
Simple, if it's not ready, don't post it. All sites are,
or at least should be, being constantly built and updated.
Keep your work behind the scenes.
Interaction
Give your visitors things to do. Bulletin boards, surveys,
forms, quizzes, chat rooms, games. There's all sorts
of ways to get your visitors involved in your site.
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