The owners of this free forum host were nice enough to let me use their site as an example. In this example they use a bullet list to offer some of their selling points. This is a good example of a list. Duh, you say, you already new what a list was. I say many of you don’t. Too often I find lists like this, but the author has not used a bullet list. Instead, they have used a numerical, or alphabetical list. What’s the difference? Numerical or alphabetical lists indicate value, and level of importance for each item. The first items listed typically indicate the most important item. A bullet list indicates no particular level of importance for any one item, and the most important item could theoretically, be hidden in the middle of the list.

Another good idea when creating lists online is to keep them vertically short if you can. If you have many sub-categories to list items, create a separate page to them, and create hyperlinks to them if possible. Let visitors navigate with their mouse, not the scroll bar.

First know that ImYours dating services is exclusively for United Kingdom and residence of Ireland only. Once you have become a member you can start playing cupid, or read the match making success stories. Members and non-members can both browse profiles at any time using the quick search form seen here on the right. Obviously you would need to be a member to contact someone you are interested in. On the home page, the site also had a random photo where visitors can rate them. Non-members are allowed to particpate in this as well.

As a member you get a few extra choices to manage profiles. You can add other members to your favorites, you can send virtual kisses, and most importantly, you can block other members. Got to be able to block that weird creepy guy that keeps emailing you know.

The joys of single life. Time to go by my wife some flowers, I don’t want to go back!

The Ethical Directory is a directory of ethically produced goods and services. The green directory of the site contains companies that offer  natural, organic, and environment friendly products and services. The site has a pretty comprehensive list of sites in the database that can be sorted by alphabet, Google PR, and number of visitor clicks. Lot’s of merchant sites.

One thing they need to fix, number of sites per category. They had the number of sites in the category reflected with a  negative mark like this “(-300)”. I’m not really sure if it was intentioal or accidental, but  needs to be fixed. My first look at the site, I thought, uh oh, error.

Overall, easy enough site to use. The forum is just a baby, with only a few posts so it may need some work. I’m big on the green though, so maybe I will make a few posts of my own. I have solar for my house myself.

Using this Free Directory site as an example, it’s obvious what a visitor is geared to do. Search for keywords. The search form is front and centered, has a giant magnify glass icon to attract visitors attention, and is in a well defined space that is clear of distractions. Even if you didn’t know that the site was a directory you might fill out the form. It’s that in your face.

Search engines, and directories have pretty much got this down. Almost all of them use this technique because it is what people want. Cater to your visitors needs, and make what they are looking for as easy to find as possible. If you have what they want, your site will be a winner.

I use to run a joke site years ago. The webmasters of the more popular joke sites, I believe,  were leaders in building websites. They were getting tons of traffic, and they were focused on keeping things intuitive and quick. Back then, it wasn’t all about Google ads. They had ads, but kept them limited. Here is a jokes site that knows how to use icons correctly. The icons are obvious, and to make it even more clear, they have text representation. There should be no mistake on where you are going when you click on one of their icons.

Images are not always as intuitive as you might think, and the number of people who understand them is not ten out of ten. Even looking at the screen shot the guy listening may not be the best icon. I think the rest are golden, but if you asked ten people what they thought the guy was doing do you think ten of them would say listening to jokes? I doubt it.

Back in February I wrote another article about using icons. I came across a site that I didn’t dare even mention because its use of icons was so bad. See the Article

FX1 is a web directory for UK business. It is somewhat geared for loan and mortgage companies. Submissions are free, and it is easy enough to do. Just browse to the appropriate category for your site, hit the add url link in he top, and type in your url. Your done. Though it is a UK directory, they said they would review sites that were not in the UK, as long as they were in English. The site also offers a music section, and image search feature. The image search results are similar to Google’s. The one thing I really like about the image search is can specifically tell it to show results for images by type, size, and color scheme. Want pictures of only cats, in black in white, and in jpg format only? No problem. Three simple drop down lists let you easily filter the results. For those of you blog fans, here is a link to blog, FX1 Blog.

It’s not DMOZ, I know, but it is another directory. If you are a webmaster without a good list of your favorite directories, it’s time start making one.

The blogs first post was back in September of 2007. It’s fith post ever was just this June of 2008. Its content? Post’s about different types of web directories. They are more like reviews off different types of directories. Thinking about it, I don’t really think this is a great way to go.

First off, there are thousands of directories, and a directory of directories is probably a good idea. The problem with this directory though, is it is a blog. Posting a review about each directory could work, but it would be extremely difficult for a visitor to find certain types, for example only free directories. A better method would be to use a side by side comparison, or putting the items is a list format. Better yet, put them in a directory, and support the site with a blog with new directories found.

Another issue that kills a site, little content. If I were running a directory, I would make it as easy a possible for people to find, and submit new content. This site said to use the contact form to submit, but I couldn’t find the contact page. Yikes.

Web Directory Lists Blog, good idea, good domain name, kill the blog format.

Looking at this cool car blog you can see a classic example of a blog with advertisments. They have two Google ads, and one eBay ad. Not a lot compared to some blogs. Giving the site a quick quality review I noticed a few issues that could quickly be fixed, don’t justify to name one, but I also saw something they did well. They kept the ads out of the way, and they clearly defined them. If you look at their left column you will see the eBay ad, but if you look on top you will clearly see it defined by the heading “Advertisments”. The Google ads are defined by default so it was clear that they were also ads.

By defining the space with a heading, you improve the visitors understanding of the site. The quicker they get it, the better chance you get them to stay, or come back. By having a heading that says “Advertisement” you might argue saying “but then they won’t click the ad”. It’s a valid argument, but the truth is, descisions to stay on a site is often done in less than ten seconds. When they leave that quickly, it’s not by clicking advertisements. It’s by hitting the back button or “x”. Help your visitors understand your site first. Draw them in, and then if your ads fit the topic, gold.

You can break this rule though, when the text absolutely requires special handling like in a logo. The site Orlando Visiting is a blog about Disney World, and Orlando. Looking at their logo, you will see an obvious good reason to break the rule, and go with the image. Imagine this blog with just “Orlando Visiting” in regular text. Yuck, boring. Another really positive use of this image besides the text message, is that it  clearly indicates to a new visitor that they are on a site about Disney because of the font they chose to use. Now that is how you make an image talk, and make it vital to the site.

I titled this post “Pause at the Top” because it was the first thing I saw on the site, and it happens to be my biggest problem in golf. I’m more of a “Watch out, Rob is swinging” kind of guy. Not so much because the ball slices off to the right, but because I rocket my club back and spring it toward ball kind of guy. I’m almost forced to use irons because their weight somewhat controls my lack of self control. Another good tip when playing eighteen holes is, don’t drink eighteen beers. Your putting tends to go bad then.

Golfer Galaxy has several categories. It has: golf history, rules, jokes, instructions, and equipment. The equipment category is actually off site, and leads to another I did on a review on a while back. It’s an online store to buy golf equipment. The instruction category, had fifty different articles. Obviously I like the one they posted on the home page. If I could just control that spring action I may be able to use that driver again.

For those of you that tell jokes on the course, well here is the source of golf jokes. More than fifty of those, just skip the first one, seriously. One good thing I found, and it can work on any site is polls. Polls are great for the site owner, and for the visitor. They generate visitor interaction, and supply feedback to the visitor on what others think. Both parties value polls.

Pause at the top? Well, maybe pause at their jokes. I like golfing, but it belongs on the green, not the web.