Website Attacks Eyes!

by Steve Barancik and Lloyd Lofthouse

Lloyd's website, earlier

Author Lloyd Lofthouse wrote me back in response to my comments on his post, in which I offered some constructive criticisms of his website. I thought our resulting dialogue might benefit other authors with websites, so Lloyd graciously granted me permission to post it.

(I had intended to post an image of Lloyd's website as it was when I referenced it, but it seems Lloyd is already hard at work making some changes! So the best I could do was this tiny thumbnail you see at top.)

By the way, this page will make more sense if you read the original comment first.

Lloyd: I went to your newsletter looking for more clarification about your comment regarding my Website being too "busy." I'm always open to improve.

The link at the top of the page for Immigration was a link they offered to boost my page on the Internet so I placed it there. It isn't really important how easy it is to see. A lot of people from other countries visit my site. Maybe that link draws them there.

What do you mean by more text based?

Steve: I'm no visual artist, but I've visited enough websites to know that yours looks a little, shall we say, disheveled! Just the fact that it doesn't fit on my decent-sized screen says a lot. I suspect even if you look at my site - which was only designed by little old me - you'll see that it seems a tad "cleaner" and more navigable.

(A navigability example: I'm on the China & Tibet page and couldn't find my way back to the home page. Finally, in a drop-down with the heading, "Related Topics," I found a link to the home page. I shouldn't have to do that much poking around to find my way around your site from any given page.)

The link at the top of the page strikes me as problematic. The fact that it's nearly illegible tells visitors that there's a design problem and there might be other design problems. I'm more hesitant to buy from a site that looks like it might be "buggy."

The fact that it's at the top of the page tells the search engines that it's the most important thing about the site! That's problematic too. You'll see sites with banner ads atop them, but because it's simply a graphic the search engines pay it no mind. Your link is text, which means the search engines can and do read it. You risk confusing them as to what your site is about!

Furthermore, Google is aware of 196 other sites with that ad text on them, so it's hard to imagine it's the source of your traffic. There are dating sites and lawyer sites with the same text. A big part of Google's job is figuring out what your site is about. The folks you're throwing in with are only serving to confuse Google!

I also checked out your "meta" keywords. This is information aimed at the search engines that isn't visible on the page. I don't know if you designed the site or someone else, but the approach is based on no longer useful wisdom. For instance, the keyword "Pearl S. Buck" is repeated some ten times.

Many, many years ago this was indeed a way to fool the search engines into thinking, "Wow, this site must REALLY be about Pearl S. Buck." Those days are long gone. Now it's a way of telling the search engines, "This site is trying to fool me. Let's steer clear."

As to my comment about more text-based, I should have been more precise. There is in fact a fair amount of text on your site; it's just too often overwhelmed visually by the design!

Text is what attracts the overwhelming majority of search engine traffic, so you can never have too much of it. A site that would attract more traffic might have more generalized information on the Tibet of Hart's era, on Imperial China, or on Concubines. You would attract searchers looking for information on that wider subject and then interest them in your book.

If I might ask, how did this website come into its current form of being?

Lloyd: I took an 'HTML' class last November and spent four months learning the 'hard way' how to build my own Website. The disheveled look you see is probably because of lack of experience on my part. I'm better at programming now but evidently not at design. More to learn. Thanks for the input.

There was no way I could afford the cost of having someone else do my page. If redesigning the drop down menu and placing it down the page is a better idea, I'll start to make the changes. I'll also go back into the 'HTML and get rid of repeated words that are invisible to the eye but visible to search engines. It will take me some time but eventually I'll have it cleaned up.

On the other hand, maybe I'll place the invisible anchors above the drop down menu or use a different type of menu. I haven't placed anchors on all of the pages. I should do that. Some one told me that I could get away with repeating a hidden word up to a hundred times but no more. They must have been wrong with outdated info.

I can see the redesign is something that has to be done.

No one else pointed out these flaws but then again I haven't had much feedback from others visiting the Website. Although I've had thousands visit, many don't hang around long while a few camp out for hours.

I'll work at linking the pages better.

Steve: Lloyd, some quick responses.

I am NOT a believer in web designers. They're notorious for designing sites that look great but never get seen. They tend not to know the first thing about attracting traffic.

Here's my fundamental belief: keep it simple. People get all exercised and daunted by the web because they think it's all about code. What it's really all about is text. People search for pages that have the words that convey the information they're looking for. Google wants to know if your site has that information. Google wouldn't care if your site looked like an elephant wearing high heels.

The redesign we're talking about is all well and good, and your book deserves it. I just don't want you to think I'm saying it's going to make a huge difference in traffic. (If it works though, it'll probably improve your page views.)

I do my sites myself. I get 1500 page views a day on my other site and I'm confident this one will end up exceeding that. I think you'll agree that the site isn't glitzy, but that it looks - for lack of better words - clean and crisp.

I'm going to pass along a link. It's the very long-winded how-to of building a site in the style that I build mine. It might appeal to you, it might not. Just know that it takes care of most of the tech for you and lets you do what you do best: write. If it piques your curiosity, great. If not, that's fine too. And it's a lot cheaper than hiring a web designer.

The Site Build It Action Guide.

Have a great weekend.

Lloyd: Thanks for the link. I added it to my bookmarks and will spend some time looking it over.

Visit Lloyd's site, My Splendid Concubine.