I Hate My Website!

MicroPodCast – Podcasts for Microsoft Office Accounting Users. Useful bookkeeping, software, and business tips for MS Office Accounting users, consultants, and business owners.

I recently received a wonderful guide from Microsoft called "I Hate My Website". It's a great document full of tips, tricks and links to resources that are great for those of us who have a web presence.

Today, I would like to discuss some Do's and Don’ts excerpted from this guide. In addition, I will put a link to this guide on my blog at blog.quickbooksgal.com.

Microsoft's Do's:

1 - Make your site easy to navigate.
2 - Create a consistent look & feel throughout your site by using similar fonts, colors, & layouts.
3 - Make sure your website works on more than one browser; for example Internet Explorer and Firefox (Mozilla, Netscape).
4 - Put the most important information near the top of the page so users don't have to scroll down to find it.
5 - Use headlines, icons, bullets, boldface words & color to draw attention to important information or content.
6 - Include your phone number on every page.
7 - Use high-quality graphics and photos, including your logo. Make sure the images are crisp and don't take too long to load.

Microsoft Don'ts:

1 - Use text and color combinations that are too busy or include distracting visuals that make the site hard to read.
2 - Let the content, especially the links on your website, become outdated.
3 - Include graphics or other design elements that slow down site performance.
4 - Put too much clutter on any one page.
5 - Put too much personalization on the homepage.
6 - Be too flashy.
7 - Create option overload.
8 - Neglect to fill security gaps.
9 - Include obtrusive advertising.
10 - Use Jargon.
11 - Forget to keep it real.
12 - Chatter too much.

Don't forget, you can listen to our podcasts about Peachtree and QuickBooks....just go to blog.quickbooksgal.com.

I'm Jayne Miller, The QuickBooks Gal and your MicroPodCast host...thanks for listening!

Jayne Miller is the owner of Custom Business Solutions, a firm in Reno Nevada that specializes in bookkeeping, payroll and small business accounting software support. "Got A QuickBooks Mess? Call The QuickBooks Gal!"

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