By Sandor Panton, Contributor
EVERY DAY, thousands of individuals and companies all over the world establish their online presence by setting up a website. The following list of suggestions should help you in creating your own successful website.
MAKE IT LOOK AS PROFESSIONAL AS POSSIBLE
If you happened across a website that looked like someone's child created it using crayons, would you view the owners as being "serious about business"? The online image that you create is often the only contact a surfer will have, so it needs to be as powerful and as clear as possible. Once a web surfer leaves your website, the impression you've created remains with them, just like a television commercial or clever radio jingle.
MAKE IT EASY TO USE AND NAVIGATE
It's absolutely important that your visitors be able to jump to the different parts of your website from any page. Eliminate unnecessary steps for the surfer, especially steps that result in "traps" (A "trap" is a dead-end page with no links to other sections of the site, thus forcing the surfer to hit the "BACK" button to go back to the page(s) that have the proper links). Additionally, an effective website has information that is laid out in a logical fashion; it does not make visitors struggle to find what they're looking for.
LOAD TIME IS CRITICAL
The longer a web page takes to be displayed (load time), the greater the likelihood that some visitors will not have the patience to sit around as it takes its time to load. One of the main factors affecting the load time of any web page is the number and size of graphics. Without graphics, web pages look boring. The load time for a web page can become annoyingly slow for the average Surfer however, if too many graphics are used and if the graphics are too heavy. It is therefore important that your site displays a delicate balance of amazing graphics to impress visitors on one hand, and fast loading optimised graphics on the other hand.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
If you want a Surfer to click a button, tell them to! Pretend that they're not too smart, and put the big "CLICK HERE" on that button. Not all Surfers are super-smart, so make things as easy to understand as possible and don't overcomplicate the simplest of tasks.
PUT YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION IN PLAIN SIGHT
So the Surfer's at your site, she likes it, she's interested in what you're saying and now she'd like to contact you to find out more. So she clicks from page to page, reading the fine print, clicking every icon, but she cannot seem to find your e-mail address or a phone number for that matter. Why make it difficult for a potential customer to contact you? Put your e-mail address on every page of your site. The most common place to put it is usually at the bottom of the page or you can add a "Contact Us" page with the link there.
