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 vases 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 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
You have to 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 don't know how to navigate, they
will leave your site. Using professional Website
Buttons in your website will help increase your repeat visits, sign-ups, conversions
and sales.
4) Have 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 audio looping on and on on your
website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it --
volume or muting controls would work fine.
