So, you are embarking on a new website redesign or perhaps a new webiste atogether. You want the website to look great and to be capable of generating a profit.
There are lots of factors that determine (or not) the success of a website. Not least of which is how difficult a market you are in and how much notice you have taken of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) from the outset.
Regardless of the above, here are four important ideas to take into consideration to make sure your website performs well.
1) Do not use splash pages
A splash page is the first page you see when you arrive at a website. It normally has a attractive image with words like ?welcome? or ?enter here?. In reality they serve absolutely no purpose and give your visitors a reason to click on the "back" button! Do yourself a big favor and give them the value of your site without the splash page.
2) Do not use too many banner advertisements
Even the least sophisticated internet users have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements and so you will be wasting valuable web-site real estate. Instead, provide more content and incorporate relevant affiliate links into your content, to let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy. The exception to the rule is that if you have a very busy page, you can sell the real estate for good money. Don't go over the top though.
3) Have simple and clear navigation
If you provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu, you minimise the chance of a visitor becoming frustrated and leaving your site. Stay away from Flash based menus and multi tiered dropdown menus wherever possible.
4) Give the visitor a clear idea of where they are on your site
When visitors are browsing your website, ensure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site quickly. One way of doing this is by offering ?Breadcrumbs?. Breadcrumbs often appear horizontally across the top of a webpage and usually below any title bars or headers. They provide links back to each previous page that the visitor navigated through in order to get to the current page. eBay is an excellant of ?breadcrumb? use.
For more articles about , please visit my SEO Services website.
