Useless Web Pages

It starts with bad doorway pages, but goes much deeper. Useless pages are a waste of the time of the visitor, and a result of poor site structure and insufficient thought and planning.

I have often built a site, created the navigation, laid out the structure, and then started to fill in content. Often, by the time I get to filling it in, I realize that there are pages in there that did not need to be there. This happens with nearly every site, and is a natural occurrence. But some designers fail to recognize when a page is useless.

If a link states that it will take someone to a certain topic in the site, then it should take them there. No one likes to click a link, only to be presented with another page that says, "Click here to go there!". They just DID!

You may think I am exaggerating, but I am not. I have seen this on sites from personal sites, all the way up to major corporate sites. It always surprises me when a corporate site does this, but some do!

Perhaps the most common incident in which this problem is found, is with Ad Supported sites. I think the one that takes the cake for sheer number of useless pages is It Pays to Learn. You take quizzes. When you finish a question, you click the answer and go to a page that says, "Click to continue" (just so they can show you an ad). Then you go to the next question. The rest of the site is similar.

Nobody wants to have to click an extra time, and wait for yet another page to download just so they can see an ad! You'll annoy them, if not outright tick them off. Put your ads in places where they are going to be anyway, don't create an extra page that exists for no other purpose than to show them another.

I also feel very strongly that one long page that includes a single integrated topic is better than three short pages that break the topic in illogical places. It has become popular on news sites, and other sites that are ad supported, to break stories into so many words per page, just so they can show more ads. But frankly, if a person is not interested in clicking on them on the first page, they are unlikely to be interested on the second! Most people click either on something at the top of the page (when they discover the page does not contain what they wanted), or on the bottom of the page (when they finish, and want something else to do).

Don't waste your visitor's time by making them wade through pages that aren't necessary, or by creating pages that have no purpose that the visitor can appreciate. Remember, it is about what THEY want, more than what you want, and wasting their time is never what they want!