Kids - Not like adults

1. Kids are not necessarily masters of the technological universe

There’s a general perception that kids can work out any computer problem set before them, in half the speed of Mum or Dad. They do learn fast … but they also lack the tools to research solutions to problems when they run up against them.

2. Kids are not patient

Kids are even less patient than adults. If your site or download is slow, they might try to download something multiple times in an effort to make things go faster. Chaos results.

3. Use sound for pre-readers

Even tiny amounts of text will completely foil pre-readers. Mum or Dad will have to be sitting there with them the whole time … and your site will end up being passed over in favour of an ‘easier’ one. Use sounds upon mouse-over for pre-readers.

4. Use small words for readers

You can have your text assessed according to the Flesch-Kincaid reading ease scale to help determine if it is actually age-appropriate.

5. Use simulated environments

Kids are not really designed for extensive abstraction. Pictures of rooms, towns, maps etc are actually a great ‘navigational’ aid, tacky as it sounds!

6. Kids don’t mind reading instructions

Adults will almost always use the trial and error method first … and if that doesn’t work, will then go back to the instructions. Kids are more pragmatic. They actually like reading instructions – so use them!

7. Kids will click off the site through advertising much more often

It’s in your internet marketing interests not to have too much advertising on your site, because kids can’t distinguish between ads and site content. They often click ads believing that they are just another part of your site. You might make a few cents on an ad-click … but your little visitor may also not know how to get back to your website!

8. Know the gender of your audience

The differences in what girls and boys prefer to see on websites when they are young is much more pronounced than when they are adults. Boys hate to see too much text. Girls hate it when there isn’t enough instruction. If you have a clearly defined gender audience, make sure you design your website for them.

1. Because you can usually get the same company to do both!

A great number of excellent internet marketing firms today have the capability both to do professional, creative, highly functional website designs, and then get the things to rank highly in Google. Dealing with just one company will make it much easier all round for you.

2. Because there are technical ways to ensure you don’t lose your Google ranking when you re-design

Those ways are a little involved (and truthfully, a little boring!) to be going into at the moment. Suffice it to say that Google’s little bots can make some mean assumptions, and SEO firms know how to placate the presumptive beast.

3. Because website design is about more than good looks

Sometimes, website designers have a keen eye for design … but are completely blind to both search-engine friendliness and website usability guidelines. Both of these factors are part of the discipline of SEO, which is why it is valuable to either use the same company, or have your two firms collaborating for your site redesign.

4. Because Flash can be tricky in terms of SEO

Sooooo many website redesigns include Flash elements. That’s because Flash is a wonderful invention and a blessing to the web (despite Jakob Nielsen’s protestations to the contrary!). However, it does need to be handled carefully in an SEO context. It is tempting to have the most important information about your site – headings, taglines etc – within a Flash element, because it is so visible to visitors. However, Flash is invisible to search engines, so you need to be careful what you do with it.

5. Because a redesign is the perfect time to add or change content

And your content is one of the most important on-site aspects of your Google ranking, and because having an internet marketing firm go over it can make a huge difference to your Google positioning!

I know that budget-wise, optimising in conjunction with a redesign can be hard. But there is so much evidence that doing so is best practice for online businesses, that I would always recommend leaving the old site up there a bit longer, and saving up enough cash to do both. Or at least, talk to your internet marketing firm about payment terms!

Cut out the ‘be’s

Okay, you won’t be able to remove all of the ‘be’s from your writing – but odds are, many of them are superfluous. Look at the sentence: “I will be putting these up on the website next week”. You can change that quickly and easily to “I will put these … etc”, and retain the same meaning.

Given the fact that conciseness is of paramount importance on the web, this and the next tip are more useful than you might think!

Cut out ‘is’s

Clunky heading, I know . Keep reading anyway. Often you can cut out ‘is’ from sentences quite easily, and chop out surrounding words along with this little seed of verbosity. You can either:

• Shorten your full ‘is’s to contractions – ‘what is’ to ‘what’s’. Roughly the same characters, but easier for people to grasp.
• Look for instances of ‘there is’, and rearrange the sentence to cut them out completely.
• Look for other ‘is’s, and think about whether you can use other words to shorten the sentence. It’s usually possible.

When it comes to facts, don’t generalise

Here is a handy cheat-sheet of words to help you identify whether you are generalising. If you say:

• Often
• Many
• Approximately
• Can (as opposed to will)
• Virtually

You are telling your audience there’s an exception to whatever you have just written. It’s like a legal loophole for getting out of having your product do what you implied it would. These aren’t forbidden words generally, but you shouldn’t use them when you are talking about facts.

Learn to love full stops

Any sentence that goes on for longer than 15-20 words is usually too long. Full stops are the best way to break up sentences, but not always possible. Use semicolons where you can, or simply cut out a part of the sentence that isn’t really necessary.