The Best and Worst Websites

I often teach marketing courses where we discuss the use of websites to promote products.  In one class, I have students compare two different online malls to see their reaction to them.  Without exception, all students prefer one of the sites over the other.  Here are the two sites:  http://www.1mall.com/ and http://virtuallyshopping.com  Can you guess which one they prefer? 

I use certain sites as examples in my courses to show overly busy pages.  I think Godaddy’s site used to be an example of a difficult to navigate site.  However, they have since made some big improvements.   A company may have a great product, but if the average user can’t navigate easily, they may be losing out on business.

I chose my website developer, PS Web Design Studio, because they listened to what I wanted and developed a clean and easy to navigate site.  To see some of their example websites, click here.    Not everyone wants to spend a ton of money to have a site developed.  Many can save money having their site developed using Joomla or other inexpensive applications.  I consider myself pretty tech savvy, but it can help to have the professional touch to add some extra appeal that you may not have considered.  For more information about Joomla, click here.  I also like WordPress for its ease of use and ability to put together a blog with little technical expertise.

For some examples of well-constructed sites check out these links:

http://www.webpractices.com/samplesites.htm

http://sethgodin.com – I tend to like simple sites and Seth Godin’s does everything it needs to do.

http://www.drdaniellebabb.com/ – Dani’s site has a very clean and easy to manage feel. 

http://drdianehamilton.com – I am impartial . . . but I prefer the simple design.

To see some examples of overly busy or poor websites check out these links:

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/

http://www.siphawaii.com/

http://www.boogersite.com/boogerSites.cfm

In all of the examples of bad web pages, I think the following one may have my vote for the worst:

 

This may very well be the worst web page of all time.