Make your website user friendly!
Always keep your navigation clear and easy to follow: don't
assume your visitors know as much about your site as you do.
You need to show your visitors exactly where to find what they
want; where they are now and where they can go. While naming
your navigation links use short yet descriptive words and
sentences - your visitors should know exactly what to expect
when they click on the link.
If
you want your navigation be effective, keep it consistent:
the links on your navigation bar should be in the same place,
same order, with the same names, text size and color on every
page of your site.
The most common locations for
navigation link bars are on the left or right side of the page
or on the top of the page below the logo. Studies have shown
that people prefer the standard left or right side navigation
over other layouts.
Your navigation
is a big part of your sales success. Keep in mind that you lose
visitors with every extra 'click'. Decrease the number of
'clicks' required to get to your ordering page and make
sure your visitors don't need to return to your homepage to
navigate through the site.
Also remember, that often visitors will access your website
without going to the home page first. That’s why
every page must have your site name or/and logo and an obvious
link back to your homepage.
If you have a big website with much information or products it
may be a good idea to include a search function on your website.
You can get website search feature form
http://www.freefind.com/. The
set up is free and easy.
Never make your visitors search for your contact information -
always have it visible on every page of your web site. If you
have a separate ‘Contact us’ page, always include the link in
your navigation bar. It’s also recommended to place an
additional contact link on the bottom of each page.
Always
provide
"shipping/returns policy", "privacy
policy" and other important information that could help your
visitors to know you better, and gain trust and confidence to buy from you.
Don’t make pages too big
Make
sure that your site is load quickly: one of the most frustrating
things to your visitors is waiting for your site to load.
Check your page loading times for free at
Netmechanic.com. Again, most of your visitors still access
the Internet on a 28.8 K modem. So if it loads in under 20
seconds on a 28.8 modem, you're fine.
A slow loading home page can also be a result of a page that
contains too much information. Your visitors should not have to
scroll down endlessly to view your home page. If your main page
contains too much information, simply break it up into several
pages.
Don't use unnecessary graphics: the
more graphics you have, the longer it takes your
page to load. If your have a lots of graphic images to display
(you have to show your art portfolio, or designer works, for
example), always use thumbnails -
miniature version of the image,
normally linked to a larger version, and
specify the image WIDTH and HEIGHT
- it will help to speed up your web page's loading time.
Forget about frames
Frames are out
of fashion now and they cause too many problems.
Frames sites are either hard or impossible for most search
engines to index. Using the frames basically destroy your chances of getting good
search engine traffic.
Scrolling navigation bars can be very
confusing for your visitors not to mention the problems associated
with bookmarking and printing pages. But most importantly, the
majority of Internet users simply don't like frames.
“You’re visitor number 00000012 since December 1998…”
Do you really want your visitors to see it? So do yourself a
favor and hide that counter! Don’t take me wrong: it is VERY
important to know your traffic, but showing the actual number of
visitors serves no good purpose. If you have very few visitors,
people will see it, think your website is unworthy and leave
immediately. If you have thousands of visitors, people won't
really care about it. So just use a good tracking service
to monitor your traffic and forget about this counter!
