Usable Words

How do you handle rejection?

If your answer is along the lines of “I curl up into a ball and whimper”, it’s probably just as well you can’t see what happens when people look at your website or see it listed in search engines. Because most of the time they take one look, shrug their shoulders and go “Next!”.

It’s a truism that web users have short attention spans. Perhaps this is exaggerated sometimes. But when it comes to searching for a product or service and “shortlisting” a few possible websites, you really do only have a few seconds to convince someone that they really, really need you.

So what can you do to make sure they make the right decision? read more >

Business owners, I have a question for you.

Does your website feature the word “Welcome” prominently on the front page or in the title bar? (Feel free to run off and check if you need to.)

If you answered “yes”, I want you to imagine you’re a first-time visitor to the site, then answer two more questions:

Would you feel unwelcome if it wasn’t there?

If your answer to both of these is “no”, as I think it might be, perhaps you should start thinking about what you can replace that “Welcome” with. Maybe something that really engages your potential customers and tells them something interesting about what you have to offer. Or something they might type into a search engine (nobody searches for “welcome” unless they want this place).

Don’t feel bad, though; you’re in good company! All of us have a tendency to repeat things we’ve seen on another sites without quite knowing why. But the conventions of web writing are still developing, and “Welcome to my website” has really had its day; it makes your site read like somebody’s GeoCities homepage from 1997, and it takes up room on the page or the title bar that’s too valuable to waste on formalities.