Guidelines for Your Business’s Website
When considering your business website design, extra attention should be paid to every detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its goals. Here are five vitally important rules of thumb to observe to make sure that your website performs well.
1) Don’t even think about using splash pages
Always remember that we attract our site’s visitors for a purpose, and we want nothing to stand in the way of achieving that goal as efficiently as possible. A splash page, which you probably have come across at some time, is a landing page that is no more than decoration. Usually, they are meant to be visually attractive (in other words, “make a splash”). The only meaningful content they have is a phrase such as “click here to enter this site.” Why add the frustration of one additional click between your landing page and the desired outcome on the part of the site visitor?
2) Avoid excessive banners
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 valueable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.
3) Have a simple and clear navigation
Your navigation menu should mimic what your site visitors have used many times before. Make it evident that your links to other pages are just that; they should be like directional sign posts on a highway. If you insist upon an animated, dynamic menu or a multi-level dropdown, also provide a tradition, text-based static menu in one of the traditional menu locations, such as along the left panel of the site. Besides, the static menu will contribute toward your search engine optimization efforts.
4) Provide a clear indication of where the user is
When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will 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 sound looping on and on at your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it — volume or muting controls would work fine.
