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The Deadly Dozen - boost your business with these free website hints and tips!
What you should know when having your website designed for your business.
Ignore these at your peril....
- What’s in it for me?
This is the Key question that visitors want answered quickly.
You have a few seconds to hold visitors attention when they arrive at your site.
You need to answer this question in the top part of the page i.e. the first screen without needing to scroll down; it’s a bit like the headlines on the front page of the newspaper. Do they grab your attention?
Yes, so you read on because you are interested, think you might learn something new or were thinking/talking about that very subject earlier, whatever the reason you are now hooked. - Navigation
You must have simple straight forward consistent navigation, horizontally or vertically on each page. This allows your visitors easy access to all areas of your website.
If someone has to think about how to navigate your site, its simple they will not, they will go elsewhere to a site with simple, obvious navigation, not one where they have to play a guessing game to get around. - Loading
The site must load quickly; nobody in today’s busy pressurised society is prepared to wait minutes to find out if this is even what they want or where they thought they wanted to be! - Size
Pages need to be a sensible size to avoid, where possible the need for horizontal scroll bars, there is nothing more frustrating when reading the page to have to keep flicking back and forward, obviously some people with very small screens may need to scroll, but catering for the majority is vitally important. - Colour
Web pages with complicated colour schemes using too many bold bright colours are usually very off putting.
Three or four colours are more than enough; this provides a primary and secondary colour together with one or two highlight colours.
The colours are there to enhance the content of your site; they are not the main reason. - Text & Background Colours
Text colour and background colour combinations are also critical, black, dark blue or similar on a white or light background or the reverse perhaps yellow or white on a black background may provide a better solution for the visually impaired. - Font Styles
Font Styles are another key area to making the site easy to use and comfortable for your visitors.
There are many font choices now available to add to the confusion and decision making process, but the choices are really very simple and few.
Think about newspapers, magazines and books all are of a similar font type very often Times New Roman as this prints well, however it is not the ideal choice for use on websites.
Text is much fuzzier on a web page than on a printed page and Times New Roman is fuzzy on the web, this means it is more difficult for your visitors to read, they read more slowly and get frustrated more quickly, perhaps even leaving.
If you look at Image Connect’s site it is Verdana which is clear and easy to read even when zoomed in and out. - Pop Up Windows
Pop up windows should be used very sparingly, if at all.
Pop up windows do exactly what they say, they pop up and cover the content your visitor has come to see.
This can be very aggravating and we are trying very hard across all areas of your website not to aggravate and thus turn off and lose your valuable visitors and potential customers. - Sound Effects & Music
Sound effects and ‘lift music’ playing on a web site are a real turn off, most of us enjoy listening to some sort of music, but we like to choose the type we like.
We do not want to be subjected to someone else’s choice, as it may be far removed from our own.
We also visited the web site for a specific purpose, to read some information which requires us to concentrate on the task in hand not be distracted by someone else’s noise in our own home or office. - Page Layout
Layout of the pages should be clean and clear, following a similar pattern and style across all your pages.
Do not use too many columns, 2 or 3 max.
Each page should have a focal point for main content.
All this quickly leads to your visitor being comfortable and feeling at home on your site.
The quicker this happens the longer someone will stay, if however they have to keep looking on the page to find the key information they want, they will soon get frustrated and leave. - Flash Animation
Flash animation can be great, when used sparingly and correctly, if you want a flash intro, then it must be quick and also convey some information.
Navigation must also be on this page to enable people to move on if they wish, don’t just have a splash screen with an enter site here button, visitors do not know if they are in the right place if you tell them nothing! - Content is King We are now at content and remember ‘Content is King’. There is no point following all the previous tips and then having poor content, badly spelt and unoriginal.
Do not go for content overload for the sake of it; say what you need to say clearly and concisely.
If you need to talk about another topic put it on a new page, don’t cram it in somewhere and lose it.
Conversely do not go to the opposite end of the scale and say too little leaving visitors to guess what you do, they do not want to read between the lines, as in doing so they may get the wrong message and leave.
You can read more tips on this in the future in the ‘Content is King’ article. - Pictures ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ yes, it can be, but only in the right place, to enhance the written word and when correctly sized for quick downloading or it’s worth 8 ‘I can’t be bothered to wait for this’!
Finally
Time is a precious commodity and having a site that loads quickly, is easy to navigate and read, quickly answers the visitors questions in a straightforward manner is more likely to be visited and revisited.
Remember even if you think you are offering the same as someone else, you need to make it different, make it your own, and then you are NOT offering the same as someone else.
Make sure your website clearly explains what you do, what you are offering, what is your USP (unique selling point), make visitors trust you and want to do business with you.
P.S.
Having taken all the 13 top tips into account, remember make the site your own, these are just some of the tips to bear in mind, but you can break the rules and make up your own, but always remember the key question is always ‘will your target audience like it’?
If for example, it’s a site for children, then you can break the colour rules and make it colourful, bold and bright, but a word of caution, be sensible, don’t ignore all the rules and tips at once.
Books are black text on white paper for a reason – they are easy to read and that’s the main aim to enable the reader to enjoy the story, and that’s why the reader purchased the book!
Hope you enjoyed this story, please feel free to comment or ask any questions, I am happy to help.
Are you interested and like what you see and read then call Vanessa on 07932 744204, or email me to get started now.
