[thelist] web companies directory

[Madhu Menon]

Hi.

Ah, it feels good to be back on the list. I've got a new job, and have 
moved out of the "dotcom" stress to a web solutions company.

I need some help. I want to get my company listed on the popular 
directories of web development companies out there. Hopefully, this will 
increase the number of business enquiries we get.

Could someone recommend any popular/useful sites to get listed on?

And since I now send out a user experience tip of the day to my team, 
here's one for the list:

<tip>

While good design can help to make everything easy to find on a Web site, a 
site search is a very important component of a site. But not everyone 
always finds what they're looking for. This could be due to many reasons:

1) The user entered the wrong keywords
2) The user misspelled a word e.g., typing "softwrae" instead of "software"
3) The search returned the results but the user's expected result was on 
the second page.
4) The user was trying to find something that was simply not there on your 
site e.g., searching for "electrical wiring" on a gardening site.

Whatever the scenario, people feel satisfied if a search helps them find 
what they are looking for, and if they don't, they might think that the 
site is not a good one. To minimise user unhapiness, make sure the site 
search results page contains the following:

a) A link to "Search tips" right at the top.
b) A statement like "Didn't find what you were looking for? Try our _Search 
tips_ or _Contact us_ and we'll help you find it." at the bottom.
c) Alternatives to a search if the search returns ZERO results like i) A 
link to the site map, ii) a link to the "Contact us" page, iii) a link to 
the "Search tips" page, and iv) a link to "Advanced search" (if you have one)

</tip>

TIA,

Madhu


<<<   *   >>>
Madhu Menon
Manager - User Experience
Trisoft Systems Pvt. Ltd.

Work: http://www.trisoft.net
Personal: http://madman.weblogs.com