How Not to Design a Home Page
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How Not to Design a Home Page
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: How Not to Design a Home Page
#2ATBNews is just badly named. They write about more than just Business news so its an injustice to them criticize them for not listing only business news.
Re: How Not to Design a Home Page
#3There is a competitive advantage for startups that embrace this. Hipmunk gets a lot of their user experience love by eliminating the single digit content problem that Stephen describes here vs. Expedia, Travelocity, etc. They even have a slide that illustrates the wasted space on competitor sites with color boxes.
Re: How Not to Design a Home Page
#4Measuring generously, 284×22 are devoted to news. That’s half a percent for content, 99.5% other stuff.
Alas, it's not such a mystery if you read that as "99.5% profit."
Re: How Not to Design a Home Page
#5I'm always shocked when I see screenshots with ads on webpages, with adblock plus, I've basically forgotten that's what the web looks like to a lot of people.
I can't imagine using the web without adblock.
Re: How Not to Design a Home Page
#6Measuring generously, 284×22 are devoted to news. That’s half a percent for content, 99.5% other stuff. Alas, it's not such a mystery if you read that as "99.5% profit."
True, but I would say that it is at the expense of long term value. If visitors recognize that the publication no longer delivers what is expected they'll stop coming, which lowers the value of the ad space.
Re: How Not to Design a Home Page
#7I think there are plenty of examples of poorly designed web pages out there (most are poorly designed). The trick is describing what makes a great home page and why. Even without the color coding I think many of us could see how poorly laid out this page is.
Re: How Not to Design a Home Page
#8I'm always shocked when I see screenshots with ads on webpages, with adblock plus, I've basically forgotten that's what the web looks like to a lot of people. I can't imagine using the web without adblock.
And flashblock.
Re: How Not to Design a Home Page
#9This is a bizjournals.com site - They run 41 of these city specific business journal sites as online companions to a weekly print edition of the journal.
There's nothing special about this - pull up any newspaper or online news site and you'll see the same thing.
Re: How Not to Design a Home Page
#10Measuring generously, 284×22 are devoted to news. That’s half a percent for content, 99.5% other stuff. Alas, it's not such a mystery if you read that as "99.5% profit."
These are not independent variables though. People won't visit your site just to see the ads (milliondollarwebpage notwithstanding). In order for your ads to generate revenue you need content that people want to see. And you need people to revisit your site often.
If you just cram a lot of ads into a page you'll increase revenues for a little while, then your readership goes away and then your cpm rates go way down.
If you ensure your site has engaging content and is a pleasurable experience for your readers then you'll be able to make more revenue off of fewer ads. More so if you go the extra mile and ensure your ads are high quality and relevant to the audience (to the degree to where eventually they almost become endorsements and recommendations). Take a look at penny-arcade.com, for example, I can guarantee they make plenty off of those ads and they wouldn't be doing better if they'd simply crammed the screen 99% full with other ads.
It's just as important to cultivate your own brand (which is ultimately what you are selling by way of 3rd party advertising) as it is to hawk other people's brands.