Blinks, Frog Tongues and Folding Envelopes

Blinks, Frog Tongues and Folding Envelopes

Someone once wrote, somewhere on the Internet, "I don't like the <blink> </blink> tags. Someone agreed with them and repeated the statement, then another and another, until it is now almost totally unacceptable to use the tag. It was said, "The blinking is distracting." Well, Hoop T Do. Tell me a long tongued frog reaching back and forth across a page to catch a spider, fly or other insect, or an animated envelope folding and unfolding is not distracting. How about a bird pulling the same worm out of the same hole time after time. How about all of those gyrating, blinking banners now seen on almost all pages, especially the search engines. Have mercy, give me back the blinks.

So you know how to put a frog on your page or copy a folding envelope and put it on your page. Again, Hoop T Do. You may not realize it, but if you are seriously wanting to attract visitors into your Web site to do business, or for whatever reason, you can forget it. Get us into your site quickly and we may do business with you. Keep us at the front door waiting and watching as all your fancy little gyrating doo dads slowly load and we're gone. It reminds me of the days of long ago when we had to wait for our televisions to warm up for a minute or so before the picture would appear on the screen. Most of you probably aren't old enough to know about that. :-)

Bottom line, it's your ego Bubba. Get serious about the quality of your Web page and what it has to offer and you may find the Web a great place to get business.

Take away all of the graphics and then take a look at what's left, that's the content of your Web site, and most of the Web sites I see have very little content to offer.

I spend hour after hour on the Web searching for decent construction related Web sites that may qualify for our Construction's Best APPROVED award and believe me even half-way decent sites are few and far between. I search with graphics turned on, because I want to see how long it takes for a site to load. It's nothing to see 50k, 75k and 100k opening pages grind away for several minutes before they are completely loaded. Watching and timing the opening page load is my first step in evaluating a site and most of them fail miserably.

Wake up! Get wise! Show us your talents, not with gyrating, spinning, flopping, jumping graphics, but with how well you can create a fast loading Web page, one worthy of the visitor's time to access it and see what you have to offer. If you are selling something or just promoting your company and what it has to offer, you may find yourself with interested parties wanting to do business with you. However, your slow loading, graphic laden, opening page may be driving away most of those who would enter into the other pages of your site to look around and see what you have to offer.

Look at it this way, how long will you wait for a Web site to load? Do you wait a minute, two or three? Don't expect others to wait any longer than you're willing to wait for a site to load.

Defining Web Site/Page Creations:

Professionally Created Web Sites/Pages
Have fast loading pages, especially the opening page.
Have an overall good appearance
A nice general presentation.
Are easily navigated.
Contain relevant and worthy content.
Non-professionally Created Web Sites/Pages
Are slow loading.
Have lots of graphics on first page.
Are sometimes poorly organized.
Some have unreadable text, because of poor choice in selecting a page background color that is not compatible with the text color of choice.
The screen size is set too wide. I see lots of these showing up lately. Most of them seem to be frames pages that are not properly written and sized. Remember, everyone doesn't have a wide monitor, there are lots of laptops out there too.
Amateur Web Site/Page Creations
Pretty much repeats the mistakes of a non-professional, but usually has more silly little do dads jumping all over the page.
Images tags are not set, images not sized, obvious spelling errors, poor presentation and in general looks very non-professional.
Newbie Web Site/Pages (if you don't know what a "newbie" is, you R one :-).

Newbie Web Sites/Pages are very obvious.
They have all of the characteristics of the non-professional and amateur rolled into one.
Sadly, the creator is usually completely oblivious to the fact and for some unknown reason to me, he/she thinks everyone on the Web should want to exchange links with him/her.

I really get perturbed when one of these approach me for a reciprocal link, especially if they are selling a product or service. I wonder if they really think I'm stupid enough to help them to promote their wares from a directory that gets more than 125,000 visits per month, in exchange for a link on a page that may never see that many visits. Hey, even the guy on the street corner with the sign that reads "I'll work for food" expects to get at least a meal in exchange for his work.

Another mistake usually made by, not just the newbie but many of the professionals, is the obvious failure to read instructions before asking for something. Yep, I get several each day and they get nothing for free. Hey guys, even our sleeping government recently revised the welfare laws to stop the free-loaders. Don't be a Cyberbum.

Contrary to what many users think, the Internet is now a commercial tool and everyone should stop expecting to get something for nothing. But, when you do get something in the way of a favor or request granted, it is very courteous to come back and at least say thanks. It seems to be a forgotten courtesy these days.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article, I hope I've helped you. :-)

I'm tired of long frog tongues and folding envelopes, give me something with content!

Doyle Peeks