The Top Ten DO's and DO NOT's of Effective Web Design

If you are contemplating going into business online, have a website, or are creating a website for your existing business, this informational resource will prove invaluable to you. It provides you with ten very important and easy to implement web design tips to ensure that your website is designed to make you money. You can have the best or most inexpensive product or service of its type, but if you don't follow certain guidelines when designing your website, no one will stay there long enough to know that! And if no one can find your website, it will not matter how wonderful it is! Following these simple but effective tips will increase your chances of being successful on the internet.

• 10. DO have an easy to use navigation system in place on your site. One of the quickest ways to lose visitors and therefore sales, is to have a navigation system that works like the Winchester Mystery House (an attraction in California that has doorways leading to nowhere). If your visitor gets lost and can't find their way around, or if they have to keep clicking a back button to return to your homepage just to visit another page on your site, they will tire of this and just leave, taking their business with them. Make sure that you not only have a navigation bar at the top of each page, but also put a text navigation menu at the bottom of every page, so they don't have to scroll to the top to travel through your site. The easier it is for them to move through your site, the more they'll see, the more comfortable they'll feel and the more likely it is that they will purchase from YOU and not your competitors.



• 9. DO NOT use too many large or active graphics. Graphics can increase your load time and most surfers don't want to wait around to see a large but 'cute' animated graphic of your service - they'd rather be informed about your products or service. So keep your graphics simple and use them sparingly - especially animated graphics. Too much animation will detract them from where their attention should be - on your products or services.



• 8. DO make sure your text is clear, concise and error-free. Keeping your text concise and easy to read is important because if your visitor is confused about what you offer, you will lose them to a competitor. If writing intelligible text is not your forte, hire a professional wordsmith to make sure that your text describes your products or services in an intelligent, yet easy to understand manner. And make sure your site is 100% proofread! Nothing lowers the opinion of a potential customer more than a site filled with typos and errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation or syntax. (Gee, if they can't even spell 'electrical' properly, or don't know the difference between 'their' and 'there', they can't be very intelligent, therefore what would the quality of their service or product be?) And that's another point that must be made here - NEVER rely on a 'spellcheck' program to do your proofreading for you - they have no idea if you mean 'there' or 'their' so therefore you can run a spellcheck until you're blue in the face and you will still have those kinds of errors on your site. And again, if this is not one of your strong points, hire a professional proofreader to check your site.



• 7. DO NOT overuse audio effects on your site. Nothing is more irritating to a visitor than to have some new age music or some strange noise blaring over and over and over during their visit to your site. A brief one-time sound as a special effect on the home page can catch their attention and be beneficial, but don't loop it so it plays on and on. And even when you provide a way to mute a sound effect, they still have to deal with locating the controls and hope they work properly - and they did not come to your site to be an audio technician, they came to your site because they were interested in what you have to offer them. Make your products or services the most interesting items on your site, without repetitive, annoying audio to distract your visitors.



• 6. DO use colors that are complimentary and subtle. There is nothing that will make a visitor leave a site quicker than that day-glo lime green background with fire-engine red graphics! Always make sure that your colors compliment each other and blend well together. If you choose to go with primary colors, then stick with the basics (true red, true blue, etc.) and if you choose to use more dusky colors (teal green, dusty rose, beige, cranberry), then stick with those. Use bright colors sparingly and for accent only - not as the background or for your larger images. And you should have only THREE main colors in your design. And those three colors should always be from a 'web-safe palette' to ensure all your visitors will see the colors you intended. You want your visitors to focus on your products or services, and using the correct colors to showcase them properly will increase your sales.



• 5. DO NOT launch your business site on a 'free server' with ads. A professional website should be just that - professional. For your visitors to really take you seriously, you need to take your business seriously. Either get your own domain name and webspace - your web designer should be able to recommend one to you that is reliable and low cost or you can find one yourself. Nothing is cheesier or more insincere than to have a business site on a free server with ads popping up and under and all over your site. There are millions of 'come and go' businesses that are on the Internet to make a quick profit and then take the money and run. If you want to establish your business as a reliable and trustworthy enterprise, you must present that to your visitors by being willing to invest in an ad-free presence.



• 4. DO make sure your META Tags accurately reflect your business.* One of the main ways to 'advertise' on the internet involves submitting your site to search engines. And most search engines rely heavily on META Tags to properly index your site in their listings. Therefore, if you do not use the proper format for your tags or use keywords that don't describe your products or services concisely, you will not be listed correctly in the search engines. Use two to three word phrases that describe your main products or services, and list them as you would enter them yourself if looking through the search engines for that product or service. In other words, if you have an auto repair business, some of your keywords could be: car tune-ups, automobile transmission repairs, car lube and oil changes, etc., in addition to just automobile repairs. And also, always make sure that your keyword phrases are inserted into the text on your home page. Search engines check the content of your page to make sure that the keywords match your text to ensure that your business is legitimate, so this lends credibility to your site, increasing your chances of a better placement.



• 3. DO NOT pay huge amounts of money for Flash.* Now you may be saying "But Flash is so on the edge - so trendy", but therein lies the problem - it IS just a trend and it will pass, because it takes way too long to load in, and 9 out of 10 of your visitors will hit the 'Skip Intro' button and never see it anyway! Therefore, you will have paid a large sum of money for something that only one out of ten of your visitors will ever even see. Not a good value at all - this is a way for web designers to take more money from you. Now perhaps ten years from now when every person has DSL and there is no such thing as 'dial up connections' anymore - THEN it might be feasible to design sites in Flash - but for now it takes too long to load in and if you are serious about your business being successful, you don't want to lose even ONE customer! So you are much better off hiring someone to design an attractive, well laid out site with some tasteful graphics, that focuses on your services or products, not some flashy pictures. Flash is a waste of your money and your visitors' time. (Think about how often *YOU* have hit that Skip Intro button!)



• 2. DO choose your web designer carefully.* If you decide to hire a web designer, always get a comprehensive estimate from a number of designers before hiring one. Always check out their portfolios to see if they design original sites and do not use templates that are replicated on dozens of others' sites. Make sure you are clear on what you expect of them and if they charge extra for any services or if they are included in the original estimate. Items like copywriting, proofreading, or designing logos, for example, are sometimes in addition to a basic web design estimate. Also, some limit the number of images you may have, or charge extra for simple JavaScripts (such as a navigation bar that changes color or images). Make sure the web designer you hire states clearly if they charge extra for these services and make sure any charges such as these are listed in your original quote. Also check the sites in their portfolios to see if they do use clear, concise text, spell words properly, use uncomplicated navigation systems, have optimal load times and properly reflect the business they are representing. And remember that just because a designer charges more does NOT mean that they are the better choice. Always do your own research to choose the designer that will best serve you.



• 1. DO NOT waste thousands of dollars on ineffective marketing.* Now that you have done everything you can to create a website that is attractive, easy to navigate, rich in quality content and offers excellent products or services, you need to make sure that your customers can FIND it! Because even if you have the most wonderful site on the Internet, if no one knows it is there, all the work you put into it will be for nothing. Gaining visibility for your website is crucial to your online success, but is one of the most difficult aspects of running a successful online business. Think of the Internet as outer space, and websites as the billions of stars out there. Most of those stars go totally unnoticed - unless someone identifies them and puts them on a map for others to find. So that's what you need to do for your website - put it on a 'map' for others to find - which is accomplished by running an effective marketing campaign. But ... the easiest and least expensive form of marketing is exchanging links with other quality on topic websites. This is because when you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to advertise in the more traditional ways - on radio or TV, or in magazines or newspapers - it is exhorbitantly expensive, has a very short lifespan and only reaches a very limited and select audience. Once the run of radio or TV ads you have paid for expire, so does all the visibility you were getting. The same is true for newspapers and magazines - once that issue is replaced with the next one - or the week or two your newspaper ad ran is over - you are left with an empty wallet and nothing to show for it. Even Pay Per Click advertising can be extremely costly - and only serves you as long as you are repeatedly paying out their large fees. But, if you exchange links with other websites, you are creating portals directly to your website that will remain in place indefinitely. And if those websites are on topic with yours, the traffic you receive from them will be targeted to your products or services - increasing the chances that their visit will lead to a sale. The benefits of link exchanging are actually twofold, because many of the top search engines now refine their search results by awarding higher placement to sites that have a large number of links to them from other websites - considering them a 'vote' for your website. And when the site that displays your link is on topic with your own, it lends more importance to their 'vote' - since they are believed to be a better judge of your site. Even more importance is given to their 'vote' if the site that displays your link is a high-quality website with a high PR. You can determine the PR of a website by downloading the Google Toolbar, which displays the PR assigned to every categorized site on the Internet - which is the majority of the quality, established sites on the Internet. So when your site has more 'votes', the search engines will place your site higher in the search results for your keywords, which also increases the visibility of your website and provides the opportunity for more potential customers to visit your website. And most savvy website owners are willing to exchange links with you, since their link on your site gives them a 'vote' for their site and improves their visibility! So you can manage your own link exchange program, providing you with 100% FREE advertising - if you have the time - or hire someone else to do it for you. But, beware of companies that offer to do this for you - most are ripoffs and will charge you too much money for too few links that are not quality and will not do you much good! So it's best if you do it yourself or hire a reputable web designer who will put you on a monthly maintenance program to increase your link exchanges - which should only cost you between $50-$100 month. This amount is obviously much less than the cost of traditional advertising - and will create ongoing and ever increasing visibility for your website - so this method of marketing is clearly less expensive, more effective and lasts indefinitely - making it the very best choice for YOU! So create an additional page on your site just for links, and start exchanging!

Article by Shirley Marshall
Owner, Perfect Sites Web Design
http://www.PerfectSites.com
I can be reached via e-mail at: Shirley Marshall
© 2002-2005 - Shirley Marshall, Perfect Sites Web Design

*May be reprinted or distributed with author information and copyright intact only*