5 important rules in designing your website
When you design your website, be sure you pay extra attention to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose.
Here are 5 important rules to follow in designing your website:
1) Do not use splash or squeeze pages.
Splash or squeeze pages is the first page you see when you arrive at a website. It normally has a very beautiful image with words like “Welcome”, or “Free (Product)”, or “Click here to enter”. In fact they are just pretty place holders with no real purpose except to gather your visitors’ email address when they sign up for the freebie offering. Give your visitors the value of your site up front without the splash page. Don’t give them a reason to click the “back” button.
2. Use banner advertisements wisely
Net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner ads so you are wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, weave relevant affiliate links into your content and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pitched to buy.
3. Navigation should be simplified
A straightforward navigation menu should be provided 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 get lost or confused about where they want to go or where they came from, they will leave your site.
4. Know your user is
Make sure your visitors know which part of your site they are in at that moment. That way, they will browse to the relevant information or navigate to any section of your site easily. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means lost visitors.
5. Use audio and video wisely
If your visitor is going to remain a long time at your site, reading content, make sure that they are 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 work fine. The same goes for auto-play video. If it irritates you when you land on a site with auto-play video, it will irritate others as well.
