I hate to break it to designers and all the artistic people out there, but if you want to make money online your site is going to be primarily focused on usability and delivering content and answers ASAP. Sure there are a few things where artistic elements may be seen on the web like Flash intros, banners and some images, but the underlying core of information and content structure is a very non-artistic thing.
Rule #1: People go on the net for information (hence information age)
Although technically speaking a Flash intro or creative design is "information" it is more so "entertainment". People don't want to be entertained on your site unless of course your site is an entertainment site (YouTube, Movie, Artist, Web Designer), and even then it's still somewhat negligible.
Don't believe me?
Try this simple test: List the 3 sites you visit the most on a daily basis. You may write something like Google, Yahoo, CNN, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook or some niche blog or forum. Isn't it surprising how they are all INFORMATION based and not artistic or hip or anything else like that. They are simply usable and provide value to your needs - they share information. By their artistic words people think they need artistic sites, but by their actions prove otherwise.
Rule #2: People are extremely impatient - especially on the Internet
If you don't like waiting at a stop light where you have no other options, then you surely will not like waiting at a site where you have thousands of options. People aren't going to wait for your slow artistic piece of crap site if they can get what they want somewhere else. People have goals on the Internet and those goals aren't to spend time going through barriers that are keeping them from their goals.
Conclusion
Every self-sustaining, money making, valuable web site out there is based around information and not art. Still don't believe me? Drop some links to prove otherwise.
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2 Comments
so true what you said
I am quite torn, I cant bare to put out my sites that dont have the design I want, and yet I dont have the skills to put up the design I want, therefore I have launched anything....lol. and time is literally money, every day my sites are not up i am potentially losing the chance to have an income coming in.
I have seen a lot of the artistic, award winning sites and something they are superb and sometime they are tedious.
Ironically, i read this designer who "fixed" this horrible site to a nice,efficient design and sales went down, it turned out that the web store owner with the bad site had an 800 number, so instead of fooling with the site they called the number, the guy is such a fabulous salesman he could sell his products to people who ordinarily not purchased. however with the new site, all their questions got answered and they didnt call, so they didnt purchase. i cannot remember if the owner went back to the old design or not, but its a great story.
by the way, except for the one site which will be an online encyclopia, i have decided I will do everything in drupal, so I will get really good at it.
Drupal... whats that?
Just kidding :). Good form!
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