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10 Tips for Your Web Site
Here is some light-hearted commentary on our suggested do's
and don'ts for the World Wide Web. If you can think of issues
you would like to cover in future top tips, let us know!
Design
1.
'Flash' Intros and splash pages
In a word - avoid.
Web users know that you have a great product / service but
they are not going to be heavily swayed in any final purchasing
decision by seeing the words such as "you - need - this
- product - now!" flying in from various angles on the
screen.
And no, adding a "skip" button does not make it
acceptable - How many times have you gone straight to the
skip button yourself?.
There is also a serious marketing problem with intros as Search
Engines find them almost impossible to follow the links to
the main site. This applies particularly to a technology called
"Flash" which search engines are completely blind
too.
The simple answer is to use the "home" page to explain,
in brief, who you are and what you do.
2. Navigation
There are a few simple rules with navigation and menus, which
should keep you on the straight and narrow.
Firstly, keep the number of items in any one list to a maximum
of 7 (wherever possible). This number isn't plucked out of
thin air, psychologically, we humans can only deal with 7
options at once. Any more than this and we either ignore further
options or, by trying to remember a new one, "lose"
a previous option.
Secondly, keep menu titles to an absolute maximum of 3 words
- they are titles not executive summaries.
Finally, keep your items grouped and ordered in a logical
format - the average web user is easily distracted / confused
- do not make life more difficult for them!
3. Images
DO use original photography if you can, this can save the headache
and cost of copyright laws
DON'T use clip art or copied images from the web unless you
really have to: the quality may not be of the best standard,
you are a professional.
DO compress your photos to JPEGs and your other images (i.e.
non-photos) to GIFs, this reduces the file sizes and minimises
the distortion if saved in the right format.
DON'T convert the text in your page into one large image because
it "looks better", the search engines cannot read
the content of images and it may also take a while to download.
DO keep photos reasonably small - they tell a thousand words
but they don't have to take up the same space!
DON'T be tempted to add bucket loads of animations to every
page - please!
4. Colour
OK, we are not all artists and not every website needs to contend
for a design award but likewise, we all judge on what we see
- including your potential customers. Start your site design
with a palette of colours in mind and try to work within the
range.
Remember that you only need to change colours very slightly
and they can begin to "clash".
Finally, remember that some people are colour blind to red /
green but also (more rarely) blue / yellow.
5. Content
The majority of people have found your website because they
are searching for something, they will scan the content of the
pages very quickly to see if you have what they are looking
for. Therefore make the important key points visible and the
text relevant to your products and services
Break up large amounts of text into bite sized chunks, much
more appetizing!
Think about using a good, professional copywriter if you are
struggling with content.
6. Less = more
If there is one thing that is guaranteed to drive users from
your door, it is requesting high levels of detail about who
they are in order to get a response / brochure / quote or even
to access parts of the site!
The normal outcome of this is to get fewer enquiries and proportionally
more "junk" information.
Try slimming down your requirements to the absolute minimum
in reply forms: Name, e-mail and address (optional).
That way, you should get more valid responses to start your
sales cycle with.
Marketing
7. Be Search engine friendly
DO Title your pages relevantly and make sure the copy on the
page reflects this.
DON'T use frames or flash if being on the search engines is
important to you.
DO give images "Alt" tags (a description of the image
for the browser)
DON'T try to cheat the search engines - even if it works today,
it won't tomorrow - stick to displaying relevant, well presented
information.
DO link to your pages with text links where possible.
DON'T use an image to show text on the page (aside from the
odd title)
DO put meta tags in your source code for your site description
and keywords, this is not necessary for all search engines but
a few use them
DON'T allow your site to become stagnant, keep your site updated
regularly. The search engines re-index on a regular basis and
you need to make sure they have your most up to date information.
8. Be found
Pay for your site to be reviewed by Google and Yahoo. Try wherever
possible to have a link put on other sites to your site and
spend as much time as possible submitting to search engines
(market focussed and geographically relevant) - REGULARLY!
Think about a budget for on-line promotion and monitor the effectiveness
on a monthly basis.
Be realistic, there are millions of websites out there and most
of them would like to come top of the search engine rankings
for their category. Rome was not built in a day, it may take
a few weeks, or even a few months to see your rankings improve,
but providing you follow the points above and continue to do
so it will happen.
DON'T expect people to find your site using specific keywords
if they are not found anywhere within your site.
DO combine important key words and key phrases in your body
text and page titles; try to mention them at least two or three
times within each relevant pages.
9. Contact details
It may seem like a small point but it is important none the
less.
If you want people to contact you, show your contact details
- often.
10. Review your site
Websites aren't "fire and forget" marketing tools,
you need to spend time looking at how the site is used, where
the weaknesses are and what strengths you can build on.
It's all fairly easy to do if you have the right information
to hand - look at the statistics of the web site, where people
are coming from, the words they used to search for you and where
they went in the site.
With this, adjust the phrases that you want to be found on and
where and make changes to the site content to reflect this.
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