Business websites should be designed to be inviting for visitors and for search engines. This means a balance of graphics and text. Text is required for search engines to under what your website is about.

Do…

• …create a professional BIG company image. The Internet is a creates a level playing field for businesses of all sizes. Use your company website to present you as a competent quality business.
• …grab someone’s attention in 3 seconds or less. When visitors arrive you have approximately 3 seconds of their attention before they decide to leave or look around. Make it clear what you can do for your visitor.
• ...design a simple and intuitive navigation. Make it easy for visitors to find their way around your website. Follow you natural selling process.
• …have a clear call to action to get results. People will do what you ask. Simply asking them to “Buy Now” can convert an interested prospect into a paying customer.
• …put your contact info on every page. Once you have your visitor’s attention, make it easy for them to reach you.

Don’t…

• …use blinking or scrolling text or auto-loading sound. This annoys people and they will quickly leave your website.
• …use graphic intensive slow loading pages. If a page takes over a few seconds to load, visitors will quickly leave and never see your great looking website.
• …use an Intro or Splash page. The search engines place great importance on the home page and with little or no text you site will never get high search engine rankings.
• …design a website in frames. Frames are cool and easy for designers, but search engines dislike websites built in frames.
• …have pages that are full width. Most monitors today are very wide. Pages that stretch full width are very difficult to read.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 6:28 am and is filed under Website Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.