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No. 13 Pictures‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ yes, it can be, but only in the right place, to enhance the written word and when correctly sized for quick downloading or it’s worth 8 ‘I can’t be bothered to wait for this’!
Finally
Time is a precious commodity and having a site that loads quickly, is easy to navigate and read, quickly answers the visitors questions in a straightforward manner is more likely to be visited and revisited.
Remember even if you think you are offering the same as someone else, you need to make it different, make it your own, and then you are NOT offering the same as someone else.
Make sure your website clearly explains what you do, what you are offering, what your USP (unique selling point) is, make visitors trust you and want to do business with you.
P.S.
Having taken all the 13 top tips into account, remember make the site your own, these are just some of the tips to bear in mind, but you can break the rules and make up your own, but always remember the key question is always ‘will your target audience like it’? If for example, it’s a site for children, then you can break the colour rules and make it colourful, bold and bright, but a word of caution, be sensible, don’t ignore all the rules and tips at once.
Books are black text on white paper for a reason – they are easy to read and that’s the main aim to enable the reader to enjoy the story, and that’s why the reader purchased the book!
Hope you enjoyed this story, please feel free to comment or ask any questions, I am happy to help.
No. 11 Flash Animation
Flash animation can be great, when used sparingly and correctly, if you want a flash intro, then it must be quick and also convey some information.
Navigation must also be on this page to enable people to move on if they wish, don’t just have a splash screen with an enter site here button, visitors do not know if they are in the right place if you tell them nothing!
.....to be continued
No. 10 Page Layout
Layout of the pages should be clean and clear, following a similar pattern and style across all you pages.Do not use too many columns, 2 or 3 max.Each page should have a focal point for main content.All this quickly leads to your visitor being comfortable and feeling at home on your site. The quicker this happens the longer someone will stay, if however they have to keep looking on the page to find the key information they want, they will soon get frustrated and leave. .....to be continued
No. 9 Sounds Effects & MusicSound effects and ‘lift music’ playing on a web site are a real turn off, most of us enjoy listening to some sort of music, but we like to choose the type we like.
We do not want to be subjected to someone else’s choice, as it may be far removed from our own.
We also visited the web site for a specific purpose, to read some information which requires us to concentrate on the task in hand not be distracted by someone else’s noise in our own home or office.
.....to be continued
No. 8 Pop Up WindowsPop up windows should be used very sparingly, if at all.
Pop up windows do exactly what they say, they pop up and cover the content your visitor has come to see.
This can be very aggravating and we are trying very hard across all areas of your website not to aggravate and thus turn off and loose your valuable visitors and potential customers.
.....to be continued
No 5. Colour Web pages with complicated colour schemes using too many bold bright colours are usually very off putting. Three or four colours are more than enough; this provides a primary and secondary colour together with one or two highlight colours. The colours are there to enhance the content of your site; they are not the main reason.
.....to be continued
No 4. Size Pages need to be a sensible size to avoid, where possible the need for horizontal scroll bars, there is nothing more frustrating when reading the page to have to keep flicking back and forward, obviously some people with very small screens may need to scroll, but catering for the majority of your customers and prospects is vitally important......to be continued
No3. Loading
The site must load quickly; nobody in today’s busy pressurised society is prepared to wait minutes to find out if this is even what they want or where they thought they wanted to be!.....to be continued
No2. - Navigation
You must have simple straight forward consistent navigation, horizontally or vertically on each page. This allows your visitors easy access to all areas of your website.If someone has to think about how to navigate your site, its simple they will not, they will go elsewhere to a site with simple, obvious navigation, not one where they have to play a guessing game to get around......to be continued
The Deadly DozenOver the next few weeks I will be looking at various points that must be taken into account on your web site. Ignore these at your peril....No.1 - What’s in it for me?This is the Key question that visitors want answered quickly. You have a few seconds to hold visitors when they arrive at your site.You need to answer this question in the top part of the page i.e. the first screen without needing to scroll down; it’s a bit like the headlines on the front page of the newspaper. Do they grab your attention? Yes, so you read on because you are interested, think you might learn something new or were thinking/talking about that very subject earlier, whatever the reason you are now hooked......to be continued
Welcome to Image Connect’s blog.
Firstly let me introduce myself, I am Vanessa, the author of this blog and owner of Image Connect.
Image Connect design websites and provide marketing support and printing services to a wide range of small businesses. So, in my blog I will be writing about web sites, marketing, PR and anything else I think will be useful to small businesses.
I hope you enjoy reading them, the first series – The Deadly Dozen will be about web sites.
Image Connect connects you with your customers.
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