With a well designed and developed web site and an effective online marketing strategy, you can drive traffic to your web site and increase your sales!
Paul Allen is president of New Bedford Internet, a leading web site development company, and is co-founder of NewBedford360.com, New Bedford's community web site.
A long time advocate of technology, particularly the internet, Paul is committed to helping individuals and organizations in the Southcoast Massachusetts communities of New Bedford, Dartmouth, Fall River, Westport, Fairhaven, Mattapoisett and beyond, find their voice (and customers) on the internet.
Remember these web design tips! I'm often asked by friends and clients in Greater New Bedford for tips on web design. The following is by no means a complete listing of web design tips, but rather some thoughts that are on my mind today. If you can take it, more will follow in other articles!
When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.
1) Do not use splash pages
Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like "welcome" or "click here to enter". In fact, they are just that -- pretty pages with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the "back" button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.
2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements
Even the least net-savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements, so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valuable content, weave relevant affiliate links into it, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.
3) Have a simple and clear navigation
Provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu, so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash-based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors can't figure out how to navigate your site, they will leave.
4) Provide a clear indication of where the user is
When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don't confuse your visitors because confusion means "abandon ship"!
5) Avoid using audio on your site
If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they're not annoyed by some audio looping again and again on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it -- volume or muting controls would work fine.
