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Your Business Website – Plain and Simple

by: Alyce Chiles

A good business website makes money. Plain and simple. That same term should be applied to the description of your site. While bells and whistles might be fun for you, your paying customers don’t want to spend time wading through them. They want to come to your site, easily find what they seek, and pay you. That’s what you want as well.

Front page – The First Impression

As the adage goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression; so make it good. Your customers should know within 10 seconds what your site is about.

Do:

• Let your customers know who you are and what you do. Provide your company name and brief description of services. The front page should be short and concise. Visitors want to see immediately if you offer the product or service they seek. If they don’t see it up front, you’ll probably lose them. Let the sub-pages of your site take care of the details.

Don’t:

• Have a “splash page”. A splash page is all looks, no substance. It annoys busy customer s by forcing on them an extra click to access your site.

Sub-pages and Content

These are where you provide details to your customers – pricing, samples, company information, etc.

Do:

• Create a sub-page for each category – all linked from your menu.
• Carry the design and layout from the front page throughout all sub-pages of your site. Continuity makes for ease of use and professional appearance. The header should be the same on each page, the menu in the same location on each page, and the general layout the same.
• Direct your content to your audience. Whether you sell siding, copy-writing services, or investment advice, make sure your content is specific to people who would buy what you offer. Keep your content up to date.

Don’t:

• Have long, rambling blocks of copy on your sub-pages. While this is the place for providing more detail to your customers, they are still going to be “scanning” for the info they seek. Make your copy explanatory and tight.
• Have typos on your pages! Spelling and grammar are important for a professional and polished impression.

Navigation

Ease of navigation is extremely important. If your customers have trouble getting around your site, they’ll go somewhere else.

Do:

• Have a “home” button as part of your menu so your visitors can easily get back to your front page. It’s amazing how many people forget the simple “home” button, forcing visitors to use the back button several times or retype the main URL.
• Have each main category clearly listed on your menu. Your customers should ideally not have to use the browser’s back button. If they were looking at your prices 3 pages ago, and want to see them again, they should be able to get there in one click from the menu.

Don’t:

• Use mystery navigation. Have you ever seen a menu of pictures where you had to guess what they might mean or mouse-over for the description to appear? Business customers don’t want to play with mouse-overs. They want to see the menu items clearly spelled out – Home – Products – Services – Contact – About Us – Etc.
• Have a mile long menu. If you have a tremendous amount of content, it is fine to have sub-menus on each category’s main page. Just make it logical so visitors will easily find what they seek.

Site Look and Feel

Your site should be pleasing to the eye. Avoid clashing colors and flashing objects. You want your visitors to feel comfortable at your site, not recoil in ocular pain.

Do:

• Use colors that complement each other. Choose just a few that look good together and use them throughout your site.
• Use a few subtle, relevant graphics on your site. They help break up the text and make the page nicer to view.
• Use easy to read, standard fonts such as Arial or Helvetica. If you select a font that is too stylized it will make your site difficult to read. Font size? 10-12 pts is generally safe. Not too big, not too small.

Don’t:

• Use neon green text on a black background or anything remotely similar. This is visually painful and screams amateur.
• Have too many animations on your site. One or two subtle animated gif images are fine to draw your customers’ attention to a particular item. Don’t make them feel they’ve stumbled into a virtual carnival midway. They’ll leave. I promise.
• Use heavy 3D or deeply beveled images. A small drop shadow or tiny bevel is acceptable as long as you don’t put it on everything - use sparingly.
• Use heavily textured or multi-colored backgrounds. A busy background makes text difficult to read and, more often than not, makes the page look amateurish.

Final Polish

• Never have a visible counter on your business website. Did I mention never? A counter is at the top of the list for identifying an amateur website. Use a web stats program or invisible counter to track visits.
• Do not use the terms “under construction” or “coming soon” on your site. These are off-putting and frustrating to site visitors.
• Do not embed music files in your page. These make the page load slowly and annoy the customer.
• Avoid placing too many outside ads on your site. You should have more content than advertisements.
• Test your links! Broken links avert customers.

A subtle, easy to use, professional-looking website breeds trust in your customers. You look dependable and responsible. People will buy if they feel safe. Plain and simple

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