The goal of this book is to serve as a design/idea book. Our mantra is that simplicity leads to great results. Small Web Sites, Great Results will show readers basic strategy and introduce them to the philosophy of doing more with less. The book features design guidelines to make sites look professional even on a small scale, techniques to get the hits from search engines, and more. Users will learn to construct a holistic Web presence that garners real results. An added benefit of this concept is that along with the book there is a simple Web site system, a series of pages, and scripts which will accommodate the principles presented in the book. Users may go to the site, download the frameworks, and instantly post them for their own use.

Helped me create a successful site. LESS IS MORE
The book is a quick and enjoyable read. It motivates its advice well and supports it with numerous website examples. I read the book and studied these example websites before setting to design and implement a website for a clinical psychology practice. The website I created follows the book to a T. It’s been very successful and many clients and collegues mentioned themselves how much they like the website. [...]

This is NOT a "how-to" book.
I purchased this book after reading the feedback and other information. Overall, it could prove to be helpful as my website matures and business grows, however, as a novice I needed something more hands-on and how-to. The information contained in the book is valuable, but not helpful to me at the moment. I found myself saying "that’s great, but how do I do that." Now, if I were planning to pay a website developer, this would surpass my expectations.

Good book, missing a strong focus
I like this book. It contains a strong summary of basic website design concepts in chapters 1-5. These are ideas that can be found elsewhere, but this book has them combined in a succinct, easy to comprehend format. For me, the book started to lose it in Chapter 6 where the author goes into a discussion of marketing. I felt that the topics here were very superficially covered, and he had too broad a focus. He tried to cover web marketing from a traditional marketing standpoint, and there are much better books that cover general marketing. He also touched on website placement. His comments were so minimal though, that I didn’t feel they gave enough knowledge to the reader to really make a big difference. It would be better to find a good book on search engine optimization and skip that portion of this book.

Chapter 8 presents some good ideas on how to utilize a professional web designer, and chapters 9 and 10 cover site maintenance well. Chapters 11-15 have some good examples.

The other comment I have about the book is that the author seems to artificially apply everything to small sites. Much of the design advice he gives applies to large sites as well, yet he always states that they are small site design concepts.

Exactly what you need to get a successful site up and running
There may be no shortage of websites these days but there sure is a shortage of ones that are well designed and easy to navigate. Unfortunately, even most of the large websites are overly crowded, hard to figure out how to do things, and absolutely awful in terms of user friendliness. Author Doug Addison does an excellent job of discussing problems with websites and how to design ones that are user friendly and a joy to use. With an obvious flair for the artistic this book really shows some excellently designed web sites. This book is the answer to the plethora of websites that tend more to be an exercise in frustration than anything else. The focus is on creating a user experience that is positive and encourages the user to visit again. For a truly great website that produces the results you want you have to have the right focus for your website, the right design, and the right navigation format to produce a positive customer experience. Doug Addison not only helps you do this but also includes many tips and techniques for content and functionality that users love and as a result turn your visitors into customers. Personally, I’ve been to sites where I could not figure out how to complete a purchase so I went to a competitor. You don’t want this happening to your website. This is one of the best books on website design I’ve read and the advice really hits the spot for frustrations and problems I have experienced. Bravo, Doug Addison, now if we could just get those technical people and website designers to read Small Websites, Great Results then we would all be happier.

A "Must-Have" Book for Anyone with a Website
This book will help anyone at any stage of the website endeavor; it demystefies the process of setting up a effective site, and it offers suggestions for making existing sites more user-friendly. As a professional person in a non-technical field, I found this book to be very helpful in making decisions about how to structure my website. This book convinced me that "less is more" and taught me how to make key design decisions to increase traffic. "Great Results" - indeed!

A great book for the aspiring website owner and web master
I design simple websites for small businesses and I have been pleased to recommend this book to my clients. They find it helpful to learn about the process of website design as well as what to expect from their web master. It is informative and in detail, while still completely excessible to a web newbie. Reading it myself, I found useful advice which I have applied in my own practice.

Thanks!

Information that pertains to *all* web development...
I recently got a review copy of a book that proves a website doesn’t have to be big to be effective... Small Websites, Great Results by Doug Addison (Paraglyph). Good information for *all* sites, not just small ones...

Chapter List: Building Small: A New Approach for Successful Websites; What Makes A Great Small Site?; Creating a Focus for Your Site; Use the Right Design and Navigation Format; Tips and Techniques for Content and Functionality That Users Love; Small Site Approach to Web Marketing; Strategies for Turning Visitors into Customers; Getting What You Need from Your Web Designer; Keeping Your Small Site Up-to-Date; What to Do When You’ve Outgrown a Small Site; Small Sites for Professional Services; Small Sites for Trade Services; Small Sites for Specialty Products; Small Sites for Artists, Writers, and Performers; Small Sites for Restaurants; Index

There really is no barrier to entry for the Web any more. For virtually nothing (and in many cases it *is* nothing), you can have a web site to advertise your company, service, or product. But just because you *can* create a site doesn’t mean you should be doing it yourself. There’s an art and a science to it, and just doing what you think looks good may be worse than doing nothing at all. Addison makes the case that not every website has to have hundreds of pages and use every bleeding edge technology known to web developers. The goal is to remember your audience and serve them with your site, not yourself. And in most cases, that means keeping the site small, clean, and focused.

While much of the author’s focus is towards small entities keeping the website under control, the overall advice pertains to all websites. Using gratuitous features like flash splash pages turns off potential customers and everyday employees alike. Having to decipher navigation icons is an irritant to any web user. Making sure all your visual cues are consistent is just good common sense for all sites. As a result, this isn’t just a book that you should get if you’re a freelance designer. It’s one that will come in handy in your job at Megacorp as you try and design functional pages that are useful and elegant without being obnoxious.

Good common sense, and plenty of material that’s applicable to all sites. A recommended read...

An outstanding book for small site operators
From locating free search tools for enabling a searachable web site to splitting a growing site into two smaller sites, increasing a site’s functionality, and turning casual visitors into customers, Small Websites, Great Results is packed with refinement techniques which assumes a basic site has been set up and is ready for customizing and tweaking. An outstanding book for small site operators, simply packed with important resources and tips.

Great contrarian advice
I liked just about everything in this book, but particularly the contrarian advice. I’ve been telling clients for years that bigger isn’t better, that you really should stage out projects instead of going for moonshoots, that they really should avoid the long death marches that wear everyone out and waste money. Now all I have to do is give them Doug’s book.

Great book, great advice and direction
I’m not a graphic designer nor an artist - I’m just a guy who wants to build a nice-looking family web site. I am, however, a software developer, and as a developer, I find it tempting to do things "just because I can". This book gives me the well-deserved smack upside the head when I get excited about some cool (and usually pointless or gaudy) new CSS or JavaScript effect.

The book first discusses elements that make a small web site great - i.e. simplicity, context, and organization. It then moves on to explaining how to create the proper focus and discusses proper use of color, images and navigation. There are also sections on marketing, selecting a web designer (if you don’t want to do-it-yourself), and what to do when you need a "big" web site.

The end of the book is devoted to developing web sites for professional services, trade services, specialty services, artists, writers and performers, and restaurants. These provide plenty of variety and suggestions you can take and apply to your own small web site.

Plenty of common sense and direction. If you are looking for a set of guidelines for creating a quality small web site, this book fits the bill.