Wednesday, September 23, 2009

5 Must-Do Tips For Building a Web Site Focused on Your Visitors

Web sites are constantly evolving. Often we're too busy with the design, adding new features, and writing new content that we overlook the details that make a web site great. These tips will get you back to the basics and thinking about how you can improve your site for your visitors.

1.) Create a Clear Purpose Statement: People coming to your web site should understand what you do in just a couple of seconds. That's all the time you have to grab their attention and keep them interested. Create a clear purpose statement and make it visible to your visitors no matter where they enter your web site.

2.) Easy to Find Contact Information: Make it easy for people to contact you and ask questions. This seems obvious but it's amazing how difficult it can be to find contact information on some web sites.

3.) Write Clearly: Use plain English (insert language of choice). Stay away from industry buzz words and jargon. It's confusing to your visitors and it doesn't help explain your product or service very well. In many industries you will stand out from the crowd if you write clear, concise paragraphs that don't send your visitors looking for a buzz word dictionary.

4.) Make it Clear What Problem(s) You Solve: People are looking for solutions to their problems. Show you understand their problems and describe how you solve them.

5.) Bring the Information to Your Visitors: Don't assume that your visitors will find what they need by clicking around your web site. Make it simple to find information and resources by providing related content areas and make suggestions on where they should go next.

Accomplishing these 5 tips will improve the usability of your site and ensure that you give your target audience the information they need.

Chris Wills has 11 years of experience in Internet marketing. He is the founder of Marketing for Mavens, a company that provides tools for simplifying Internet marketing.

Web Site: http://www.marketingformavens.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/cwills

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Navigation and Design Enhances Website Usability

Usability is a term that is used to explain how easy it is to navigate (get around) a website. There are several factors that affect the usability of a website, accessibility, content quality, readability and design.

Basic tips and methods for website navigation:

1. Do Not Use Links That Are Irrelevant,
Do not use links that are not needed by your visitors, it only confuses and aggravates the viewer.

2. Standardize Your Icons,
A study has found that 39% of visitors leave a site because it is to hard to navigate, improve navigation by standardizing icons that link your web pages. Icons were developed as a means of representing something that is related to it.

Do not use icons at random, and only offer a short explanation of the icon, make it brief and to the point.

3. Provide A Site Map,
Providing a site map will greatly improve site navigation of your website. A site map provides a skeletal structure of the website in a single page. All links and contents are shown on a site map, therefore it makes for easier site navigation.

4. Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumb links provide links to the major pages of a website, these are very useful for visitors because they afford easy access to major pages.

5. Do Not Bury Information,
It should be a simple operation to navigate through a website, pages on a website should be accessible from each other of not more than three clicks away.

Use these basic strategies with fresh and interesting content and you will find the navigation of your website will greatly improve.

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