- Can you tell someone how to get to your site without having to spell anything?
- Are the URLs human-readable or are they full of special characters and dynamically-generated gobbledygook?
- Do you have an About page?
- Can visitors tell what your site is about without visiting your About page?
- Is your contact information readily available on every page - or at least from every page?
- If not, what are you hiding from? Your customers?
- Is your home page doing you any favors or is it merely an “Enter Site” gateway?
- Do you have an RSS Feed?
- Did you decorate for the holidays?
- When is the last time you added new content?
- Why has it been so long?
- Is your site ranking highly in search engines for relevant keywords?
- What about for your name? Or your business name?
- What are your relevant keywords, anyway?
- Is anyone linking to you these days?
- If not, what can you do to make this happen?
- Who are you linking to these days?
- How long does it take your site to load at your mother’s house?
- Do you need to download anything on her computer to even see your site?
- What is the single most important thing you want a visitor to do?
- Is that clear from looking at your site?
- Does your site look professional, or does it look like a teenager’s MySpace page?
- Do you link out to your other web presences (social network profiles, Twitter account, YouTube page, Flickr photostream)?
- Is it clear what content is protected by Copyright and what is free to take and re-use?
- What one thing can you do to your site today to increase visitors?
- Are you commenting on blogs and building relationships with other site-owners in your industry or niche?
- How does your site look on a mobile device?
- An iPhone?
- Blackberry?
- Cheapo-plastic-freebie phone?
- Amazon Kindle?
- Is your site usable with images turned off?
- On a computer with no Flash or Javascript?
- In every web browser?
- How many clicks does it take for a visitor to give you money?
- Is your site “fine for the moment” or is it flexible enough to be fine for the next 5 years?
- Are your ads annoying?
- How easy is it for a visitor to leave a comment or write a review?
- Can your site run without you?
- Is the entire site backed up?
- Is the important stuff backed up multiple times in multiple formats in multiple physical locations?
- How long would it take to turn your entire site navy blue with white text?
- Is this time measured in seconds (awesome), minutes (good), or hours (you’re doing things wrong)?
- Is your branding consistent between your site, your printed material, your storefront, and you as a person?
- Do your product descriptions sound like they were written by a person or by a mentally-ill robot programmed with the vocabulary of an out-of-work Madison Avenue ad guy whose last account was for one of those food processors they sell on TV at 2am?
- Do you care about your website?
- Is it important to you?
- Are your readers and customers important to you as people, not just as eyeballs with wallets?
- Would you be sad - actually sad - if your site disappeared tomorrow?
- What would you do if it did?
12 December 2007
50 Critical Questions About Your Website:
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23 comments:
If my site disappeared tomorrow I would most likely try and climb over the suicide railings in Toronto and be the first person to have done so and not get caught. Then I would soon realise that they weren't suicide railings, but fences to the Prison. All of a sudden I wished I had gone in front first.
Great light-hearted list that I could on the most part say yes to.
This is a great list! I'm new to some of these things, and hoping that you are going to post answers to some of the questions you've posed.
Thanks!
Disagreed.
"1. Can you tell someone how to get to your site without having to spell anything?"
Frivolous.. not the easiest word to spell.
Touche, Anon. I guess I let my middle school spelling-bee self get the best of me!
Suzanne and Zura - thanks so much for the comments. Zura, what would you like to hear more about?
I've had a lapse in blogging the last couple months (new job, new apartment, etc...excuses, excuses), but hope to get back in the saddle in a big way soon. Hope you'll check back!
Well worth the read.
To counter the comment on spelling "frivolous" - how about relocating to domain frivmo.com?
Dizzley,
That's the plan, but I'm taking time to build up SEO for Frivmo.com before making the switch and taking a hit in Google. frivolousmotion.com ranks decently well in the search engines, so I don't want to lose the Google Juice just yet.
But a shorter, easier to say, and pretty intuitive to spell domain name is part of why I'm gradually working up to a move to Frivmo...
Nice list. Made me think of several things I could do to improve my own site... However I would never decorate for the holidays. :)
Emma
Nicely put and well written. I was wondering if you would be interested in submitting a design tutorial to my site which is set for launch on June 1, 2008. Would be of benefit for us both.
great list.
Great list! My University educated sell had trouble spelling "Frivolous" - off the cuff anyway. We're a spell-check generation.
Hey, I have a website and...
it's not the best (http://www.campfireghads.org/)
I was surprised that the first one FIRST ONE insulted my site. I always have to spell-out GHADS (pronounced like gads) when I want someone to visit my site...
I learned HTML when I was 10 though, so I'm pretty cool
meh... I learned Java, HTML, C++, PHP AND a decent amount of ASP when I was 7. Beat that.
Seven huh? Pretty cool. When I was seven, there was no such thing as PHP or CSS, I was still forced to work in DOS. I was one of the first to buy Windows when it hit the market. Back in the day, that was the ultimate. Who knew I would be looking back on those days wondering how I ever made a living with a keyboard?
And when I was seven, I was copying code out of Commodore 64 books I got at the local thrift stores, drawing comic book characters, and thinking that I'd someday be a brain surgeon. :)
Times change, eh?
Unity - shoot me an email (kevin@frivlousmotion.com) with details about your soon-to-launch site and what you're thinking I could contribute.
nice list, but practicaly critical to use.
Good list, gave me a few pointers for my own site to think about.
greate list
Great list. I'll definitely be asking these questions.
if my site disappear tomorrow, i will buy another host and publish it again with my backups
...after mourning its loss on your blog, you mean. :)
This is a very thoughtful list. Regarding #35, would that be something like a Paypal donate button?
I thought the first question was ironic in consideration with this sites name.
thank you for the great list
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