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Organization. Legibility. Links. Silent Ads. Specificity.

Let's take those one at a time. Organization. If I can't find my way from Point A to Point B in the website, then I won't come back. If I'm trying to reach a specific portion of your website and I have to go to Google and do an external search, then I won't come back. If I click the page to see an article, or a game, or a video, or whatever the website has and instead of going there, I go somewhere else, then I won't come back. Harsh, but I'm picky.

Legibility. If I can't read your text, then I won't bother with the rest of the website. DO NOT under any circumstances put pink text on pink background. In fact, as a general rule, stick with white on black or black on white.

Links. Personally, I like sites with lots of links, which all work. Very few things in life annoy me as much as thinking that I've finally found the item I was looking for, only to discover that the link is dead, or has been moved.

Silent Ads. This category is actually a bit more complex than just silent. All sites have ads; I know that they have to in order to function. However, if the ads make noise, especially on gaming, video or music sites, then it's incredibly annoying and distracting. The ads which unfurl down and cover most of the screen are a little bit annoying, but the ones that appear at a random point on the screen are infuriating. A final note on ads, I despise pop-ups, so does everyone else in the entire world, as far as I can tell.

Specificity. Don't try to be everything. Don't try to be a gaming site, and a music site, and a video site, and a news site, and a writing site. Try to be everything and you become nothing, or you'll be forced to break one of the previous rules, there's just too much stuff to do otherwise.

Finally, the website should be about something the webmaster cares about. I like to imagine that I can tell the difference between a website done by someone for whom it is only a job and a website done by someone who actually cares about the subject, but maybe I'm just hallucinating that.

Learn more about this author, Evan Carden.
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