What makes a good website?

So, what's your favourite website? Do you like ones that are strong on graphic design? Ones with your favourite colour? Or just ones that have all the information you need (like Wikipedia, I love Wikipedia). It's great to see the vast variety that's available online, sites of all shapes and sizes. And it doesn't matter if they're built by an Irvine web design company or a teenager coding alone in his bedroom; anyone with the right skills and passion can come up with something compelling that people will visit.

And it's these visitors that help the site grow. Whether it's by providing opportunities to monitise the site, or by providing a vibrant community that attracts more people to the site .. the people who frequent it are the life blood that pumps through it's virtual veins.

So long .. and thanks for all the Sprouts

I received an email today from Sprout, a website which lets you create interactive Flash widgets which you can share with others on the web, place on your website and distribute on any other medium that supports Flash. Here's something I had created a while back:

The email advised me that Sprout had closed off the ability to produce free Sprouts and launched tiered pricing ranging from $140 a year to $3000 a year, depending on the number of projects, storage and support options people require. The Basic service lets you produce up to 3 Sprouts but is only available to current users.

Now, I'll be the first to insist that a company has a pricing strategy which can guarantee growth and sustainability, especially in today's harsh climate. However, it's always worth bearing in mind that free advertising can be valuable, as it taps into hobbyists and people experimenting with the medium. I have a friend who's heavily into sports attire and I'm sure he's geeky enough to try and put together a Sprout about NFL jerseys if he had the time and knew about the service.

I believe Sprout are making a mistake but not allowing a free aspect to their service. Even if it's time-bound, it allows people to play with their technology, evangelise about their services and draw in more paying customers.

What do you think?

An SEO tip

Here’s a cool tool which you can use to help optimise your websites. You know that you need to focus on keywords to try and attract the right visitors to your website. Well, Google have a Keyword Tool that can help you find the right keywords for your website. Let’s say you have something hard like teryx exhaust all you need to do is key in the phrase, fill in the Captcha and the website will come back with ideas for you to try.

It’s a cool idea and a tool you should keep in your toolbox for when you next need it.