When considering your business website design, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to assure that it performs well to serve its goals. Here are five very important rules of thumb to observe to make sure that your website performs well.
1) Don’t even think about using splash pages
Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. In fact, they are just that — pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the “back” button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.
2) Avoid excessive banners
Eye tracking studies indicate that, while such banners might distract visitors to a website, modern visitors are accomplished at not noticing the content that the banners contain. Unless your business plan is advertising, the last thing you want to do with your visitors’ time on your site is to direct their attention away from your content (and the action that the content is designed to achieve).
3) Have a simple and clear navigation
Your navigation menu should mimic what your site visitors have used many times before. Make it evident that your links to other pages are just that; they should be like directional sign posts on a highway. If you insist upon an animated, dynamic menu or a multi-level dropdown, also provide a tradition, text-based static menu in one of the traditional menu locations, such as along the left panel of the site. Besides, the static menu will contribute toward your search engine optimization efforts.
4) Provide a clear indication of where the user is
If your site is well designed, users will easily flow from one page to another. However, along the way, they may feel like returning to a previously visited page to read it more carefully, to remind themselves of details or to compare one set of features to another. Provide a way for them to retrace their steps or to know how to get from “point g” back to “point c.” Using a breadcrumb trail serves this purpose very nicely.
5) Avoid using audio on your site
If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they’re not annoyed by some audio looping on and on at your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure the visitors have some control — volume or muting controls would work fine.
Your http://www.99sites.us/>online business will benefit from attention to details such as these.