The following are some of our personal criteria that you MUST
\nfollow in order to have proper “curb appeal.” We strongly suggest that
\nyou follow this quality site criteria at your site.<\/p>\n
If you are applying for an award or a site review, before submitting a site<\/strong>, print this page and rank yourself. Fix what needs to be fixed, and come back… we’ll keep the page open!<\/p>\n Before submitting a site<\/strong>, print this page and rank yourself. Fix what needs to be fixed, and come back… we’ll keep the page open!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The following are some of our personal criteria that you MUST follow in order to have proper “curb appeal.” We strongly suggest that you follow this quality site criteria at your site. If you are applying for an award or a site review, before submitting a site, print this page and rank yourself. Fix what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101022,"featured_media":0,"parent":62554,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62678","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nprofessional commercial sites. Coloured text that is difficult to read is
\nout. And text over complex patterned backgrounds is definitely out. The
\npage must be clean, uncluttered, and very easy to read without hurting
\nthe eyes. Black? Never. Have you ever tried to print a page where the
\ntext is white against a black background and get a blank sheet from your
\nprinter? Definitely not a commercial site advantage! White, off-white,
\npale, or an exceptionally light texture is okay as long as it NEVER
\ndetracts from the text and the images have impact.<\/li>\n
\nWhat makes you unique, Why use your products or services, and How you
\ncan help solve a pain or need MUST be there. But it is not going to be
\neffective on the web if all you want is their money. Offer this
\ninformation, but take a backseat to content. Include it as links and
\nsubliminal notes. Content is king, and selling without selling is the
\nway to be commercial. Clarity is important in your content and purpose.<\/li>\n
\ntraffic from Firefox, Chrome, and IE. The rest include spiders and text
\nbrowsers. Make sure that your page works well with all of these browsers
\nbefore submitting. We will look at your page with at least 3 different
\nbrowsers in this review.<\/li>\n
\ncontent that contributes to a visitors pain or need, then their visit is
\nnot worth their time. Offer something they cannot get anywhere else. If
\nyou need to, offer your opinion, but be sure that you are right.<\/li>\n
\nsites where there would otherwise be no credibility, but in content-rich
\nsites, the value of the content is far more important. Give me a great
\nlink program any day. Lose the counter and use server logs for your
\nstatistics.<\/li>\n
\nmethod for contacting the company by completing a form, email, US mail
\n(street address), and telephone\/fax. If there is no street address and
\nphone then it is assumed that you have something to hide. There must be a
\nclear navigation to a contact page.<\/li>\n
\ncalled splash screens). Having us wait while a logo loads so that we can
\nbe impressed enough to click to go to your content is not cool, and is a
\nwaste of our time.<\/li>\n
\nFlashing and twisting used to be cool, but isn’t anymore. Make sure that
\nyour gadgets have purpose, slow them down, and if it does not add to
\nyour message, don’t use them. They have gone from fun to annoying. And
\nthey detract from your content.<\/li>\n
\nvery nice sites where the frames were well done and made sense to the
\ncontent of the page, and others where the frames were in the way. In the
\nevent that your frames do not contribute to the site (navigation or
\notherwise), this is a definite disqualification.<\/li>\n
\nking, but you must have “curb appeal.” Like selling your house, if it is
\nugly from the street, people drive by without going inside. But if it
\nis nice, they will enter and look around. Within this appeal, the
\ngraphics must relate to your content, so they must be context sensitive
\nand appropriate. Compressing a graphic for speed is good, but do not
\ndestroy the curb appeal of a nice graphic just for speed. Animated email
\nicons probably have little contribution to your content, so they
\nprobably are more of a distraction than an advantage. Waiting for an
\nimage to load takes forever sometimes, and many will not wait.<\/li>\n
\nHTML is unless it causes your page to look funny when switching between
\nbrowsers or monitor resolutions. Using site inspection tools is great,
\nand you must adhere to good practice in writing your page code, but if
\nyou don’t see it, we think it is far less important than other items in
\nthis list.<\/li>\n
\ncorporate image, however you define it. It must be appropriate for your
\nindustry, clients, and appeal to your prospects.<\/li>\n
\ncan be effective as a navigation aid (nice to know what button we just
\nrolled over in case we cannot read), but beyond that it had really
\nbetter have purpose. Telling me what our name is or what browser we am
\nusing is not going to help your content.<\/li>\n
\nyou link off of your site), fix it before you submit. We run tools on
\nsubmitted sites to test their links for accuracy before We review them,
\nso don’t disqualify yourself.<\/li>\n
\nshould all match. Visitors should feel comfortable that the look and
\nfeel is similar while transitioning page-to-page, and that navigation is
\nalways located at the same spot on the page. Changing the style within
\nthe site is not recommended.<\/li>\n
\nto have navigation be obvious. Where possible, place key navigation
\nwithin the content and tell why it should be used. We hate to wait for
\nten buttons to load at the top of the screen before we can navigate the
\nsite. Likewise, we would expect every button to have a corresponding
\ntext link at the bottom of the page.<\/li>\n
\npage text tells a visitor what they will get by staying at your site.
\nDon’t make them leave, let them know how you are going to relieve a pain
\nor satisfy a need that they have.<\/li>\n
\nwill soon be a thing of the past. Avoid making them cluttered and
\ndifficult to use. And since portals are to be fast loading, always cut
\nthe graphics.<\/li>\n
\nresolution higher than 1024×768. Before publishing your website to the
\npublic, check your pages at 1024×768 or higher to ensure compatibility.<\/li>\n
\nlinks go. We don’t want the distraction of a scrolling marquee at the
\nbottom of the page. But we like tickers where there is a scrolling text
\nthat actually can be clicked and a link taken.<\/li>\n
\nWe do not. If the text is displayed right away even if the images are
\nstill downloading, and if we can make a decision that we want to stay to
\nread the contents of that page without the images, then the page can be
\nvery long. But if there are links on the page and you have any tables,
\nreturning is tedious. We have large pages without tables, and the return
\nfrom a link is to where you left, not the top of the page.<\/li>\n
\notherwise pack your content with worthless keywords. Having your
\nkeywords appear within your displayed text is important as a promotion
\ntool, but the content is still king and must not be destroyed in the
\nprocess.<\/li>\n
\nand then the images. We hate to wait for a page to load images before
\nwe can see if we want to be there or not.<\/li>\n
\nbe an ocasional [sic] typo, but these can be caught by proofing your
\nwork and with the many word processors available today. Proofing is
\nvital, don’t allow typos where the wrong word happens to be a word that
\nis spelled correctly — such as Sue for Sure (missing r).<\/li>\n
\navoid a cluttered look. Never-ending text looks like too much to read,
\nso visitors won’t. Use some colour that is easy to read, but make sure it
\nis meaningful (we use blue heading level text). Indent text to cut down
\non the length (page width) of each line to help it be easier to read.<\/li>\n
\nto have current information, is ALWAYS under construction. Don’t place
\nany under construction signs on your site. And don’t claim to offer
\ninformation that is not there.<\/li>\n
\nIn general, but it needs saying, NEVER borrow content from anybody else
\nwithout prior permission. Always have unique information, or at the
\nleast be first with your view of that information. Bruce Clay was first
\nin stating how to beat your competition in search engines, and others
\nhave restated our methodology at their sites. That happens. But do not
\ntake an entire section of another site. That is what links are for.<\/li>\n
\ntaken seriously as a commercial site. Having a URL with a complex name
\ndetracts from the visitors ability to reach your site, and makes you
\nlook “poor.” Behave like a professional and demonstrate that you have
\nmade an investment in your site other than just having one. Personal
\nsites, not having your own URL is just fine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n