|
|
5 Website Design Tips to Make Your Site More Attractive
The question that I most frequently hear from people is "How can I attract thousands of visitors to my site each month?" Well, driving high traffic to your site is important, but what's even more important, is designing a website that makes them stay.
After all, what's the use of spending all your time and money on creating a unique product that many people want, building a 100-page site, winning top rankings on search engines, and spending $5,000 in advertising if visitors don't stay once they arrive?
In this article, you're going to learn 5 important website design tips to make your site more attractive. So not only your website will attract many visitors, but it will also motivate them to stay for a while, which is your only chance to let them know about your offers and turn them into newsletter subscribers or even paying customers.
#1. Your Site Should Be Fast Loading
One of the biggest problems you see on the Internet is that some websites are slow loading. There are many sites out there that take more than 20 seconds to load -- a lifetime on the Internet. People just don't have time and patience to wait that long.
The best way to make your site fast-loading is to use more text and fewer graphic. Wild graphics and animations are "traffic killers" so don't use them unless you really need to. If it takes more than 10 seconds for your web pages to load, chances are you're losing as much as half of your site's traffic!
Don't assume all visitors have fast connections. Many people still use slow connections like 36.6 kbps or 28.8 kbps, so design your website the way everyone can view it quickly -- not just the few who have high-speed connections.
To make sure your website loads fast, view your site with slow connections. If it doesn't load in 10 seconds, reduce the number and the size of graphics. WebGraphics Optimizer is a great software that helps you reduce graphic size while the quality doesn't really change and it looks almost the same.
#2. Make Your Website Easy to Navigate
People should easily and quickly find what they're looking for. Don't make your visitors click on 10 links, scroll down each page, and click on the "back" button several times to finally find the page they're looking for.
Statistics show that we lose up to 50% of visitors each time we make them click on a link. That's why all the pages of your site shouldn't be more than five clicks away from your home page. Make your visitors enjoy surfing your site. It should be easy for them to find the information that they want.
Also remember not everyone enters your website from the home page, especially if they find your site through search engines. So make sure each page should have a title so they always know where they are at, and a link to the most important pages of your website (e.g. home page, order page, contact page and so on).
Another way to make your site easy-to-navigate is using clear link texts. Visitors must know where each link will take them at a glance. For example, if you want to create a link to your order page, "Sale" is not a good name because it's unclear and confusing. Use "Order" instead because it's common.
The key is making it easy for them to find what they want, so make your site easy to navigate.
#3. Use Suitable Colors
Your copy is the most important part of your website, so it's essential that you make it easy to read, and nothing is easier to read than black text on white background.
The easier it is to read your copy, the more effective it will be. If you use inappropriate colors that make your copy difficult to read, few people will bother reading it, and if no one reads your copy how are you going to make sales?
#4. Don't Overuse Pop-ups
What's a pop-up? It's a window -- usually a small window -- that is opened when you click on a link and open or close a window. Unfortunately many webmasters go overboard with pop-ups which only results in annoying visitors.
They think if a pop-up appears and asks to order each time a visitor closes a window, he's more likely to make a purchase... but they're completely wrong. Not only will they not make any sales, but they'll also lose a potential customer forever.
Don't get me wrong! Using pop-ups can be an effective way to get a higher response to your offer. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't overuse and abuse them. They're good marketing tools if you use them wisely.
Pop-ups are best used to offer something of high value to your site visitors... something that you know they're very interested in. Make an offer that they can't resist!
#5. Remember Your Purpose
Why are you creating your website? Do you want to sell your products and services? What do you expect from your site? Decide on your purpose before you start designing your site. This is extremely important.
Each part of your website should lead to your purpose. All the links, graphics, titles, and the colors you choose should lead to what you want from your site.
Sometimes people are so wrapped up in being a website owner that they forget their site is to sell. Instead of designing a sale-oriented website, all they're trying to do is designing a "thing of beauty". But there's a problem here: beauty won't sell.
It doesn't matter if your visitors are impressed by professional Flash animations and graphics on your site. You should ask yourself: Does your website sell or just impress people? Do people say,"Wow! How beautiful!" and then close the window and go to another site, whithout even noticing your salesletter at the bottom of the page?
Keep your purpose in mind all the time. If you expect your website to sell, then design it the way it makes visitors interested in your offer and motivates them to buy.
About The Author: Ladan Lashkari is a respected Internet marketing expert, and the owner of http://www.FreeNewsletterIdeas.com/ where you'll find free newsletter templates, creative newsletter ideas, honest reviews, and helpful resources to start your own highly profitable email marketing campaign.
Website Design Basic Concepts
So, what's in a website design anyway? And, how do you get a design that is appealing to the broad and varied tastes of all those Internet surfers out there?
Tableless Web Designs: Why I Switched
Since I made the switch 6 months ago to a tableless design on my main site, I've noticed some interesting things: My search engine rankings have dramatically improved My bandwidth usage has dropped about 50-75% I can now make changes to the look and feel of my site easily by just changing the one file, the stylesheet. Let's look at why my search engine rankings improved. Now that I have less un-indexable code on my pages, the search engines can now spider my site quicker. Less code, more content, therefore a better ranking. Makes sense, doesn't it? Bandwidth costs money, and unless you have a really good hosting plan with lots of bandwidth, then your larger files will take up more room on your server, and take a lot longer to load. Tableless designs use up considerably less bandwidth and are more accessible. Every once in a while I may want to alter the look of my site. I like to change font colors, link colors, menu items, etc?Before I started using tableless designs, these changes took me hours to do. Now I just open up my stylesheet, make the changes I want, and in a few minutes I have my site updated with the new look and feel. It's so easy! For a client who wants to make their own changes, tableless designs could literally save them thousands on tech costs. Most of my clients still want sites with tables. I now give them the choice of either style. After all, the customer needs to be happy, right? Some people have the misconception that utilizing tableless designs means having a boring and less graphical site. Nothing could be further from the truth. Take a look at one of my favorite websites: http://www.csszengarden.com/. At that site you can really appreciate what can be accomplished through css-based tableless designs. Beautiful! Make the switch to a more profitable, usable, and accessible website! Copyright 2005 - Karen Blundell
How to save money on a website
Know what you want
How To Set Up A Professional Website On Your Own Using Web Templates
To create professional websites is not an easy task by any means. There are many things that you got to take into consideration like easy navigation, strategic links, clean coding, professional layout, easy downloading, scanability, usability and so on. These are the elements that differentiate a professional website from a mediocre one. So in a way it's not designing the website that counts but how the website is designed.
Web Marketing: Design Mistakes That Drive Customers Away In Droves
They may look cutting edge, but if you want a web site that contributes to your bottom line here are some design ideas you will want to avoid:
6 Reasons Why A Website Is Crucial To Your Business
Since I'm a web designer, I have a tendency to think everyone understands that having a website is important. Every once in a while, I have to remind myself that some people just haven't heard yet!
Its No Good Having A Killer Product If You Dont Have A Killer Website
Read the title of this article over a couple of times in your head so it really starts to sink in.
You Too Can Have Fun With Sepia Images!
If you are one of those who wonder how people come up with the cool looking sepia tone prints that you admire so much. If you are doubling up with jealousy over a sepia tone, here, we will give you tips on how you could achieve this sepia tone, too. Ready up your Photoshop software program, your PC and prepare to have fun with sepia! It's time that they envy you, too.
Understand Your Color
Any design on a web application involves the effective input of color scheme in order to impress web surfers, instill a certain image or identity associated with the kind of web site it represents, and add impact to the web pages. However, very few possess the talent and skill of developing a harmonious color scheme. There are even very talented Web programmers who can develop just about any kind of application, but, for the life of them could not understand anything about color schemes.
Website Design: 10 Web Site Design Pitfalls To Avoid
If you've a website that is not generating a lot of sales, it may be due to some design flaws.
Web Advertising: 10 Little Known Tricks To Help Convert Your Traffics To Buying Customers
You may not believe it, but people still judge things by their appearances.
Tried and Tested Tips to Improve Your Website - Part 1
1. DO NOT use excessive graphics or banner images on a single web page. They tend to slow the loading of your Web page. Impatient surfers might close their browser and move on. If you have many images on a single page, consider deleting few of them or moving them to a new page.
If Content is King who is Queen?
It's been said again and again, when it comes to getting people to visit your site (and stay there for more than 5 seconds), the quality of your content rules supreme. But once you've bowed to interest, saluted relevance and kow-towed to originality, who else must you pay homage to for recognition in the court of website stickiness?
Ten Tips For Your Web Site Home Page
1. Loading time:
Internet Tip of the Week: First Impressions
First impressions are extremely important if you hope to do business on the Web. After you refine your ads, and if you make your pitch to a targeted group, you will start to get visitors to your web site. Here is where many would be entrepreneurs drop the ball.
Great E-Cover Creation in 5 Steps
There are several graphic software packages available to help you create your own e-covers for your product or service. Most provide you with a set of templates to choose from, and have varying degrees to allow you to modify the templates provided. Regardless of which package you're using there are 5 other important steps to consider when design an e-book cover, graphics for a software package or other product graphics.
Is Your Site Too Slow? Why Image Optimization Is Critical
Graphics are fun, but if you put in too many bells and whistles when you create your web site, you may lose a potential audience whose Internet connection can't handle lots of graphics, and that means you'll be losing potential customers.
How to Test Your Web Headlines and Web Site Home Page to Sell More Products and Services
A client asked me, at what point do you change your Web site when not making enough sales? My answer? Within a month because as long as your ad copy is weak, those weak sales numbers will continue.
What Drives Repeat Visitors To Your Site?
There can be zillions of reasons why your visitors return to your web site. One might be very interested in seeing your animated photo on your main page, but kidding aside I've gathered 12 elements that invites your visitors to repeat their visits.
Do You Really Need A Website?
Nope. You certainly don't need a website.