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Description: The look and feel of your website plays a large part in determining the success of your company.
Have you ever been to one of those sites that just seems to take forever to load? Even with high-speed Internet access, I still come across those sites and it frustrates me to no end as it probably does many of you. I also happen upon sites that are so simple and plain that I just plain get bored and move on. Although some people may think that creating a website is a simple process where the design and feel of the site are secondary to the content make a huge mistake because people will never read that content if they are disgusted with the site itself.
Fifteen seconds—or less!—is all the time you have to capture a surfer’s attention. If your page loads too slow or if the site appears poorly made, there are tons of other sites for that person to look at—and believe me, they will move on! The fact is that people are impatient and there are too many other options out there for them to waste their time on poorly designed websites. Here are some basics of website design that, if followed, will greatly increase your chances of keeping the surfers at your site and maybe, just maybe, buying something!
Clear Navigation Tools
A surfer should always be able to return to your home page from any page on your site. If they get lost in the maze of pages you have on your site then chances are that they will get frustrated and just leave. You also want to have links to the other main sections of your website so that people need not always return to the home page in order to go to another important section on your site. The easier you make it for people to navigate your site, the more chance you have of them staying around long enough to purchase something.
Simple and Consistent Page Layout
If you want people to stay at your site, then don’t ask them to relearn how to use your site every time they link to another page. The links and layout should be consistent and easy to use so that people spend more time looking at what you have on your site and less time searching for ways to get around on it.
Plus, while you do not want a simplistic site that looks unprofessional, you do not want a graphic-intensive site that takes a lot of time to load. One or two pictures per page is fine but you risk losing visitors if they have to wait longer than a few seconds for your site to load. And remember, there are still a lot of dial-up surfers out there so don’t design your site just for people with high-speed access because you are going to lose a lot of business that way. If you are unsure of how the pages will load for people, then try accessing your site from another computer and just see how long it takes—if it goes beyond ten seconds, consider simplifying the pages.
Avoid Pages that Lead to Nowhere
We have all ran across them—pages that just plain lead nowhere. There are no links back to the main page from these irritating dead-ends and that can really frustrate a person. Again, just go through the site yourself when you think it is ready and make sure that all the pages loop back into one another because a dead-end page is likely to cause people to leave your site.
Bandwidth
Although this may not be a concern for someone just starting to establish a web presence, bandwidth will become an issue once the surfers start rolling in. Inadequate bandwidth is another thing that slow things down and cause your visitors to become frustrated. You should not invest too much money on servers in the beginning but just be sure to have a plan in place once the traffic starts picking up—otherwise, it may drop back down again and never return.
Enhancing your web presence through superior website design is a simple but effective process. Basically, you just have to keep navigating your site and working out the bugs while keeping a constant eye on load time. When it starts taking too long, you either need to simplify your pages or add some bandwidth. In most cases, it may take a bit of both.
There are companies out there that can help simplify this process for you and help you with your web design—and in most cases—its definitely worth the money. Remember, if you want surfers to take you and your business seriously, then you have to take your web presence seriously and create a web design that is attractive, easy to navigate, and does not take too much time to load. Poorly designed websites are simply a waste of time and money so take the time to get it right the first time or hire some professionals to do it for you.
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