With an ever increasing number of businesses setting up on the Internet, many times companies will put up Web sites that are poorly thought out or poorly designed. But there are some simple design tips businesses can follow to make their Web sites stand out next to their competitors and to encourage sales of their products and services.
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One of the first steps is determining what the Web site's main purpose will be. There are many reasons individuals or businesses look to start Web sites, whether to build up their brands, provide customer service and support, sell products or services over the Internet or to save money by means of online efficiencies.
Once the business has decided on what purpose its Web site will serve and commenced the design phase, it should try to divide its Web site into logical sections to keep the site organized. One thing to keep in mind is that the homepage should provide a statement of exactly what the company or organization does. Preparing a unique selling proposition for the company is a great way to begin and helps to draw in the target audience.
Businesses need to make sure their Web sites are simple to understand and navigate and keep customers clicking towards the checkout page. They should rely on plain HTML text links to all products, services and registration forms rather than fancy graphic buttons. They may look nice, but there’s a cost in download time. And studies show there’s a strong trend that shows that high traffic sites use text menus made with HTML characters, not GIF images. Remember that text is good.
Besides efficient navigation and an organized design, companies should give their Web sites an attractive look and feel. For this, they either need some artistic flair, or should hire a graphic designer. To draw in more traffic, a Web site should have a simple, clean business look using lots of white space. Businesses should try to keep their homepages to 60K maximum, counting the file sizes of all the graphics and HTML, to encourage quick loading. Also, they should invest in a few royalty-free stock photos from a site like Photos.com (photos.com) to spruce up the site and create a sense of energy.
Web pages should entice search engine bots to index the Web site. To do so, the Web site must contain: titles that contain the most important keywords from that Web page and no more than 80 characters; meta tags, which are one or two sentences that describe the content of a particular Web page up to about 250 characters; headlines in HTML parlance that should include the important keywords at least once; body text, which is the first paragraph of the content of a company's Web page article and should contain the main keywords for that page, and hyperlink text and filenames, which are ranked higher in search engines because search engines believe that words contained in hyperlinks are more important. Remember not to emphasize the same keywords on every page and let the actual content dictate what keywords should stand out. A business' goal is not to trick the search engines but to help them recognize and index appropriately the actual content of the Web pages.
Besides the above methods, businesses can also get their Web sites in the top search engine positions by signing up for pay-per-click advertising through organizations like Google (adwords.google.com) and MIVA (miva.com). These methods are a sure-fire way to get traffic flowing to a Web site, depending on your budget.
A final tip to keep in mind is that customers feel more valued and comfortable about buying online if businesses establish a bond. Studies show that the more you're in touch and display a personal tone, the more your customer will trust you. This can be accomplished by creating an "about the company" section where customers can learn about the company or organization and find out more about its history, employees and mission. In addition, communication with customers through ongoing newsletters with products like email marketing software eNewsletter Pro (enewsletterpro.com), can help with enabling the customer to learn more and feel connected to your company. It's also important to keep in mind that Web sites are two-way, interactive communication systems. Some companies today have created blogs or feedback pages where customers can discuss and post their thoughts and feedback, increasing the bond between customer and proprietor. Also be sure to include full contact information, like a name, address phone number and email, in your contact section.
