Are These 3
Trends Killing Your Website?
by Jim Daniels
Have you been doing business online for
more than a year? If so, you need to know about a few trends that
are affecting your website. And if you're new to web marketing, this
tip will help you as well.
I recently added statistical tracking to a
few of my web pages and the stats revealed some interesting trends I
was not fully aware of. Today I'd like to show you my stats and
explain why they reveal such an important facet to your web
marketing success (or failure).
It seems that over the past year or so,
technology has brought about a few trends that many webmasters are
not keeping up with. Below is a sampling taken from my last 2000
visitors during February 2003, which will reveal these trends. This
is fresh statistical data so visitors to your site would likely
resemble this sampling as well.
Trend #1: Monitors Are Getting
Sharper.
Is your website ready for this change that
is already in full swing? Do you even know what your site looks like
from different monitors?
This trend is all about screen resolutions.
Here are the stats showing what resolution my website visitors have
their monitors set to...
|
1. 800 x 600 pixels: 52%
2. 1024 x 768 pixels 36%
3. 1280 x 1024 pixels: 4%
4. 640 x 480 pixels: 3%
5. 1152 x 864 pixels: 2%
6. 1600 x 1200 pixels: 1%
7. Other Resolutions: 2% |
Just a few short years ago, 640 x 480 pixel
resolution was leading the pack. But the old 15" crt monitors seem
to have been relegated to the junk pile. Just 3% of my visitors use
them. Even 800 x 600 resolution, leader of the pack just a year ago,
is slowly losing ground to better quality monitors. I suspect the
recent surge of LCD monitor sales, with their sharper resolution is
the reason. (I just got one myself!)
And if you have not seen your site with
high resolution, you may be surprised at what it looks like.
Remember, all your sites need to appear professional from AT LEAST
these two resolutions which some 88% of visitors are using these
days...800 x 600 pixels: 52% 1024 x 768 pixels:
36%
To view your website with different
resolutions, you can try right-clicking on any blank area of your
desktop. Then click properties to bring up your display settings.
Under the settings tab you can adjust the screen area settings. If
your monitor is older, it may not be able to gear UP to the higher
resolutions. But you can certainly give it a try.
Trend #2: What Browser War?
Do you know which browser(s) your site
should be optimized for? Well, it seems the browser wars of the late
1990's are all but over. Sure, there are still plenty of die-hard
Netscape users and a few other browsers such as Opera have gained a
small market share, but my stats tell the true tale. Microsoft's
Internet Explorer browser is the most widely used. In fact, the
margin is not even close. Here are the stats showing which browsers
my visitors are using...
Microsoft: 93%
Netscape: 6%
Other: 1%
Now keep in mind, these are just MY site
stats. But it is a sampling of 2000 or so visitors during February
2003. So what do these stats tell me? Well, for starters, all
my
sites had better look great when viewed from Microsoft's Internet
Explorer browser. If you're designing sites that look great in
Netscape but not so good in IE, you may be shooting yourself in the
foot. I'm not saying forget about the other browsers, but numbers
don't lie. Make sure your sites look
great in IE and more than 90% of your visitors will have a positive
experience.
Trend #3: Popup Blockers Are Here
One last trend that has been changing,
especially during the last year, affects popups. You know those
sometimes annoying pop windows that appear when you're browsing the
web? They may be going away slowly. While I have no hard stats to
prove this trend, I HAVE noticed a slight decrease in the
effectiveness of popups.
Why? Well it seems that many ISP's are now
offering fr*ee popup blockers which effectively neutralize these
windows. This will necessitate a change in strategies for many
marketers. I myself use a "popunder" at my
http://www.make-a-living-online.com
and
http://www.bizweb2000.com
sites. And to date they have been a very effective way to grow a
solid list subscribers.
But I expect the advent of these popup
blocker tools to affect this strategy adversely, especially over the
next year. So any marketers relying on popups and popunders had
better shift gears at least gradually during 2003. A good start
would be to offer your fr*ee ebooks and newsletters via a "regular"
signup form that is visible on your web pages.
OK, that's it for today. I hope you've
discovered something revealing about your website marketing
campaign.
Jim
Daniels
This article was
reprinted from Jim Daniels "by request" publication:
BizWeb eGazette (C) 1996 - 2003 JDD Publishing Company,
whose network of websites include...
http://www.bizweb2000.com
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