|
50
Web Design Tips – that increase your sales!
by Mario Sanchez
–
http://www.theinternetdigest.net
Tips to brand your
website
1.
Include your
logo in all pages. Position it at the top left or each page.
2.
Complement
your logo with a tagline or catchy sentence that summarizes your business
purpose. For example "Always low prices" is the tagline for Wal-Mart.
3.
Create a
favicon. A favicon is that small graphic that appears next to the URL in the
address bar.
4.
Have a
consistent look and feel in all your pages. Use a color scheme and layout that
are clearly recognized across your site.
5.
Have an About
Us section that includes all relevant information about you and your business.
6.
Include a
copyright statement at the bottom of each page.
Tips on website
navigation
7.
Design your
pages to load in less than 10 seconds (50Kb maximum size, including pictures).
8.
Group your
navigational options in relevant categories.
9.
Use common
names for your menu options: Home, About Us, Contact Us, Help, Products. Avoid
"clever" or "trendy" alternatives.
10.
If your site
uses Flash, provide also an HTML version for users who prefer a less fancy,
faster site.
11.
Provide simple
text navigation links at the bottom of long pages, so users don’t need to scroll
back up.
12.
Link your logo
to your homepage, except in the homepage itself. Put a link to your homepage on
all your internal pages.
13.
Display a
"breadcrumb trail"; it is basically the path from the homepage to the page where
you are. A breadcrumb trail looks like this: Home > Section > Sub-Section >
Page, and it greatly facilitates navigation.
14.
If your site
is too big, provide Search capabilities. Include a search box in the upper right
corner of your homepage, and a link to a Search page from your interior pages.
15.
Set your
search box to search your site, not to search the web.
16.
Create a
custom error page that displays a simple site map with links to the main
sections of your site. That way, you will not lose visitors that have followed a
bad link to your site or who have misspelled your URL.
Tips on Layout and
Content Presentation
17.
Save the top
of your page for your most important content. Remember: good content must flow
to the top.
18.
Lay out your
page with tables, and set the width in percentage terms instead of a fixed
number of pixels. That way, your page will always fit the screen, without the
need to scroll horizontally.
19.
Optimize your
page to be viewed best at 800x600 (the most popular resolution at the time of
this writing).
20.
Use high
contrast for the body of your page: black text on white background, or white
text on black background work best.
21.
Don’t use too
many different fonts in one page. Also, avoid using small serif fonts (like
Times Roman): they are difficult to read from a computer screen. Verdana is the
most web-friendly font, since it is wide, clean and easy to read.
22.
Avoid long
blocks of text. Use tools that facilitate scanability, like bullets, subtitles,
highlighted keywords, hyperlinks, etc.
23.
Avoid
amateurish features like: numeric page counters, wholesale use of exclamation
points, all caps, center justified blocks of text, excessive animated gifs, busy
backgrounds, etc.
24.
Don’t use
pop-up windows. They distract your visitors and are immediately dismissed as
ads.
25.
Test your site
so that it looks good in different browsers and resolutions.
Tips on Writing for
the Web
26.
Write in
layman’s terms so that everybody can understand your content, unless you’re
running a technical site for technical people.
27.
Reading from a
screen is painful: use 50% less words than you would use on print.
28.
If a page is
too long, break it into several pages and link to them.
29.
Don’t use font
sizes smaller than 10pt. for the body of your page. Specify your fonts in
percentage terms instead of pixels, to let users set their own size preferences
using their browser’s text view options.
30.
Use a spell
checker. Spelling mistakes are embarrassing and hurt credibility.
Tips to Know Your
Customers
31.
Ask for
feedback: include a feedback form in your Contact Us page.
32.
Publish an
ezine and include a subscription form in your homepage. Give your customers
valuable information and encourage them to contact you.
33.
Include polls
and other tools to gather market intelligence.
Tips on Linking
34.
Make your
links descriptive. They should indicate what the user will be linking to, as
opposed to just saying "click here".
35.
Don’t
underline anything that is not a link.
36.
Underline your
links and use a consistent color for them across your site (preferably blue).
37.
Use a
different color for visited links, so that your visitors know where they’ve been
(preferably purple or a more subdued tone of the unvisited links color).
38.
When linking
to a non-HTML file, such as Excel, Word or Acrobat, make it evident, by
including a small icon next to the link.
39.
Don’t link to
"under construction" pages.
40.
Make sure that
your links work and that you don’t have broken links. There are free online
tools that can help you with this.
41.
If you use
graphic links, don’t forget to use the ALT attribute. The ALT attribute should
describe what are you linking to.
Tips on how to use
graphics
42.
Optimize your
graphics. Use only .gif and .jpg formats. Make your image files as small as
possible while maintaining acceptable quality. Use a free online graphics
optimization tool.
43.
Use thumbnails
(miniature versions of a picture) and make them clickable to the actual size
picture.
44.
Avoid graphics
that look like ads. People ignore them.
45.
Use the ALT
attribute on pictures, even the image is not a link. It helps users with
disabilities and people who have turned off graphics.
Tips to optimize your
site for the search engines:
46.
Create short,
descriptive page titles, to entice search engine users to click on your links.
47.
Create a site
map containing all your pages, and link to it directly from your homepage.
Search engine robots will follow the link to your site map and will most likely
add all your pages to the index.
48.
Decide what
the two or three main keywords are for each page (the words you believe search
engine users will type to find your page) and repeat them often in your page
title, description meta tag and page body.
49.
Create a Links
page and call it Resources. In it, place links to those sites that have agreed
to place a reciprocal link to your page. The more inbound links you have from
quality sites with a topic related to your site, the better your site will rank
with the search engines.
50.
Use more text
than graphics, and minimize the use of Flash and JavaScript. Search engines
heavily favor text and will crawl and index your site faster.
___________________________________________
Have you heard of
GreenZap?
They are an online payment site (similar to PayPal) for people to
spend, send and receive money, except much more rewarding.
GreenZap offer its services to
Pakistan, but PayPal doesn't.
Pre-register now
for FREE and you'll get $25! You also get $5 for
everyone you refer and people they refer and so on. This is not a traditional
M*L*M program. It is much different.
Just click here
to pre-register free
+++++++++
Sponsored Ad
CarJunction.com |
CarJunction.net |
CarJunction.org |
CarJunction.biz |
CarJunction.info
Car Junction Ltd. - A Japanese
Vehicle Export Company in Japan that deals in Japanese
new & used vehicles,
Japanese reconditioned vehicles and Japanese new & used vehicle parts.
|
.
+++++++++
Have you heard of
GreenZap?
They are an online payment site (similar to PayPal) for people to
spend, send and receive money, except much more
rewarding.
GreenZap offer its services
to Pakistan, but PayPal doesn't.
Pre-register now for FREE
and you'll get $25! You also get $5 for everyone you
refer and people they refer and so on. This is not a traditional M*L*M
program. It is much different.
Just
click here to pre-register free
+++++++++
Web Hosting
Linux / Windows Based Web Hosting packages
(with FREE .com domains) starts from Rs 42/- per year
Click Here
for details
More Ideas
Get more ideas to start & promote
your business. Read more articles of S. Najam Aziz Ahmed
Click Here
Subscribe for FREE
Our subscribers receive important
articles and tips that help them start their own small or medium-sized
internet business. Existing businesspeople get free tips to maximize your
sales. Click Here to subscribe.
Search Engine Marketing
Drive new customers to your Web
site by listing your URL at TOP position on Top search engines &
directories (like Yahoo, Google, MSN etc).
VMarketU is one of the best ways to
channel qualified traffic to your business.
Pakistan's Email Directory CD
Do you have a product or service
that want to market to a large targeted audience at a minimum cost?
Pakistan's Email Directory CD could be just what you need!
Smart-Boy Email Marketing Solutions
Accept
Payments by Credit Cards
Instant credit card processing
services accounts for merchants with internet businesses. Only $ 49 Set Up
Plus Transaction Costs.
Click Here
to start selling online now!
FREE Domain for 3
Years & FREE Web Hosting for 1 Year!
All existing customers may apply
to get advantage of this GREAT offer!
Click Here
for details...
Smart Email Spider (Email Search Tool)
Quickly and automatically search
and spider Unlimited Email Addresses from search engines (like
Yahoo, MSN, Google etc.), any specified starting web sites to find and
extract Unlimited e-mail addresses. Now available for Rs 2,000/-
(Actual cost US$75).
Click Here
for details.
Register a Domain
Register your .com,
.net & .org domains for FREE
Click Here for details
Register .com.pk
Get FREE web hosting for 4
years with .com.pk
domain registration Click
Here for details
Web Hosting
Linux / Windows Based Web Hosting packages
(with FREE .com domains) starts from Rs 42/- per year
Click Here
for details
+++++++++
Have you heard of
GreenZap?
They are an online payment site (similar to PayPal) for people to
spend, send and receive money, except much more
rewarding.
GreenZap offer its services
to Pakistan, but PayPal doesn't.
Pre-register now for FREE
and you'll get $25! You also get $5 for everyone you
refer and people they refer and so on. This is not a traditional M*L*M
program. It is much different.
Just
click here to pre-register free
+++++++++
+++++++++
Have you heard of
GreenZap?
They are an online payment site (similar to PayPal) for people to
spend, send and receive money, except much more
rewarding.
GreenZap offer its services
to Pakistan, but PayPal doesn't.
Pre-register now for FREE
and you'll get $25! You also get $5 for everyone you
refer and people they refer and so on. This is not a traditional M*L*M
program. It is much different.
Just
click here to pre-register free
+++++++++
|
