Ryan VanZan's Web Design Articles and Rants

Because if your website sucks, you suck (or at least that's what your potential customers will assume). Your website is the first representation of yourself, your business, or whatever, by which many people will judge you. I know it's harsh, you might be a really nice guy or gal who just happens to have a website that sucks. But the people out in Internet Land don't know that - all they know is that your website sucks, so you must suck too.

I have called upon countless prospects who had horrible websites, expecting them to be so grateful to me for offering to give their internet self a makeover, only to be let down by some nasally, uptight sounding secretary telling me that they "already have someone taking care of that" for them. "Are you kidding me!? Have you seen your website? Do you have any idea who I am?" are just a few of the things that run through my mind, but I haven't said any of them yet. Maybe my sales techniques are off a bit. Maybe I should say those things, well not the last one. I feel sorry for these helplessly ignorant, maybe colorblind (or just blind) people. They must not be aware of what is wrong with their website.

So here is my "Your website sucks if..." list of a few indicators for a bad website:

Your website sucks if...

• An IT guy designed it.
• A print-ad designer designed or coded it.
• It was built with Microsoft's "award winning" tool FrontPage.
• It was built with Microsoft Word (please tell me that wasn't you!)
• You have a visible hit counter (is this still 1992?!)
• You have to scroll sideways to see the rest of the content.
• Your text is actually an image of text.
• It was cheap.

So, let me explain. IT guys, print-ad designers, FrontPage users, and Word users are all examples of people who do not have the background to design an effective website. Sure, IT guys know a lot about network security, but what design background does he have? He spends his days thinking about firewalls and looking at source code. Print-ad designers design print-ads, not websites. Print-ads and websites have different purposes, goals, and design needs. FrontPage was somewhat popular among amateurs and IT guys in the early 90's. So if your website was built that long ago you might as well drive to work on your donkey. Hit counters are also a throw-back of the infancy of the internet. Professional looking websites that aren't ebay listings should NEVER have a hit counter - it makes your website look like a kid built it!

Scrolling sideways to see all of the content on a website is a pain in the ass. If your web designer didn't know that, he was not a good designer. Text should never be trapped in an image. It was invented to be free so we can resize it if our display resolution is too high, or so we can copy and paste it into our book reports, or so blind people can have it automatically read to them (that's not a joke, blind people can and do use the internet). Finally, if your website designer was not skilled enough and didn't have enough expertise to charge a fair amount for his services, you should not have hired him in the first place. Shame on you for cutting corners and making me suffer through looking at your crappy website!

Labels: crappy, donkey, horrible, suck, web design, websites, Your website sucks if

Everyone except me complains about spam. Wanna know why I don't complain? Because, everyone except me gets a lot of spam! It's not because I never give away my email address or because I don't use it. It's because I have multiple email addresses. I have one email address that I actually use to communicate with people. And I have another email address that I use to collect my spam. The way I target my spam to the one account is simple: I only use my spam email address to sign up for things online. I also only post my other email address on my website in a .swf file because the robots don't seem to be picking up email addresses from .swf... yet.

If you magically start getting spam on your non-spam account you can stop a lot of it by simply clicking the "Unsubscribe Me" link in the bottom of the email. I recommend using a free email service with good spam filtering as well. I use Yahoo! Mail and I'm often amazed at how well the spam filter works. If you follow my advice I promise you will reduce your spam!

p.s. NEVER buy anything from a spammer! The reason why we get spam is because it actually works. There are some morons out there who buy from the spammers and ruin it for us. Don't be one of them!

Labels: amazing, eliminate, email, spam, unsubscribe, yahoo

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 a little while ago and it was supposed to be the answer to all of my prayers. I actually prayed to Microsoft many times: "Dear Microsoft, please release an internet browser that conforms to W3C standards. Amen." and "Almighty Microsoft, I know it's kind of a lot to ask. But, could you please make it easy for your users to view Flash content on the web? It's just that I really like building cool websites and I don't think it's fair to your users that they can't see my work. Amen." Well, I have to tell all of you out there in Internet Land that Microsoft did not answer my prayers. I don't even think it listened to them!

IE 7 looks better than IE 6 and there are some major improvements. But, overall I think a lot more should be expected from one of the world's leading software companies. You know that Internet Explorer sucks. And I know you know. And I know you know I know you know. So, why don't you do something about it? You're afraid. That's why. But you don't have to be afraid anymore. Firefox is here (and has been here for a while)!

Firefox is an amazing browser. Websites look great on it. There are so many customization options that it's ridiculous. It's FREE! It won't infect your computer. In fact, many professionals argue that it protects your computer better than Microsoft's own Internet Explorer. I really could go on and on and on about how much better Firefox is than IE, but that would be redundant because there are so many other blogs that are saying the same exact stuff.

Please at least take a look at the Firefox website. I promise that Firefox will be worth your while. It will change your life. You're going to be a star now!

Labels: firefox, free, internet explorer, microsoft, W3C

I've been officially designing websites as a sole proprietor for a little more than a year now, and I have some tips for those of you out there who wish to hire someone to build a website for you. I'll just get right to the list now and explain later.

1. Getting a good website means more work for you.
2. Your ideas and input are absolutely necessary.
3. Having a cool website makes you cool.
4. You absolutely CAN get a #1 ranking on Google.
5. Your website will not look the same on all computers.
   
6. Web designers are NOT computer programmers.

Let's start with number... um... 1. When you hire someone to build a website for you it means that you will have a lot of things to talk about (but only if you want a good website). You might have to do some writing. You'll definitely have to spend some hours meeting with your web geek. Finally, you'll have to spend a lot of time online because you're going to be obsessed with your website.

On to #2. You need to let your designer know what you like and what you hate. You'll have to do research by looking at your competitor's websites and tearing them apart, that part is actually fun!

#3. When your customers go to your website and they think to themselves "Wow! It looks like a 5 year old built this website!" they might think that you're 5. If they check out your website and think "Woweewoowa! This is a cool website!" they're going to think that you're cool too. A good website gives you credibility even if it's simple and small. It's better to have a good and simple website than a big lousy website or no website at all.

#4. Everyone asks me "Can I get a #1 ranking on Google?" The short answer is "Yes!" Anyone can get a #1 ranking on Google, but you have to remember that your ranking is dependent on the keyword(s) searched for. Here is an example: If I type the word "gnorphosis" into this page I will have a #1 ranking when you search for "gnorphosis" on Google. Why? Because I made that word up. My website is the only website in the world with the word "gnorphosis" on it and that's why I'm #1. If you search Google for "designer" my ranking will be so low that you wouldn't be able to find it. Of course, the popularity of a keyword isn't the only factor in your ranking, but it is a major factor.

#5. You website will not look the same on every computer. I mean it! That is the most frustrating thing about my job. The best any web designer can do is to make websites look good on all computers. The reason why is because different browsers on different computers running different operating systems interpret and display the website code differently. Plus, you can customize how a website looks on your computer by changing the font size, color, etc.

I'm not a computer programmer. I use a computer for my work in the same way that an accountant uses his or her computer. I am a website programmer and designer. Websites do live on computers, but so do your emails and Word documents. Most of the code used for programming websites is barely related to computer programming code. So, please don't ask me if I can fix your computer. I'm almost as clueless as you are about that!

Now you know some stuff that I know. I hope it makes your life easier and funner.

gnar·pho·sis [nar-fo-sis] noun, verb
-noun
1. An elephant hair used for tickling the underside of Emu.

-verb
2. Alteration of perceived reality due to the effects of ingesting undercooked pond scum.

Labels: customer, gnarphosis, programmer, tips, web design

You may be wondering why I, a web developer, would chose to have the "Articles" section of my website hosted on Blogger. Maybe you think that I should just build my own blog application from scratch. I am perfectly confident that I could build a blogging application from scratch (in fact I built a small one here), however, I do not have the time or desire (I swear I'm not lazy) to program anything as technical and powerful as Blogger. Besides that, Blogger is already very popular and now my website is part of a linked community. A few other reasons why I chose Blogger are that it is ridiculously easy to set up, it's free, it's completely customizable and it's owned by Google.
Why did I chose Blogger over the other popular blogging programs out there? First of all I wanted something that is customizable and free. That rules out TypePad because it costs money to customize it. Secondly, I wanted something that is effortlessly linked to the Blogging community. That ruled out WordPress and a lot of others. Of course I could have used Xanga or MySpace, but I don't really consider those to be "blogs". They are mostly social communities for younger people. There are countless blogging programs out there, but I only mentioned a few for the sake of non-boringness (Hey, that's a real word?!). Please no comments about how I forgot about this and that blog program. The final thing that sold me on Blogger is that it is owned by Google. By now you have probably noticed my Google fetish. I have many reasons for praising Google, but that is a topic for another post...

Labels: blogger, blogging, google

Hi everyone! Thanks for visiting the "articles" section of my website. Here I will post my thoughts and advice on many (mostly internet related) issues. Check back often for informative and amusing reading.

Labels: introduction