8 Steps To Creating A Sticky Website
A well designed website is important to attract more and more
prospects coming and being interested in what you have to offer.
Websites with poor designs are still being created and they tend
to clutter the Internet everyday. Nevertheless, not every
website should be filled with fancy designs either.
If you are selling a product, you should use a website which
focuses more on texts - direct sales letter, you need to learn
proper copywriting. As for other category of websites like
galleries, community websites, personal websites etc, well
designed graphics tend to pull more interest. If you want to
have a user-friendly website, here are some guidelines:
1. Keep it simple Nothing's more frustrating than not knowing
where to go on a website. Keep everything straight forward and
understandable, aim for simplicity. You must always remember
that if people are not feeling good navigating on a website they
won't be interested in staying longer.
2. Provide clear navigation Set a template for your website. For
every page provide the navigation links back to the previous
pages. This lets your visitors navigate throughout the website
without hassle and is able to return easily without needing to
click on the back button all the time.
3. Make your links clear One of the ways to keep your website
simple is to make the links clear. For any picture icons or
links, make sure you insert the text title down as well. It may
seem boring but keeping it simple will be the best thing to do.
You can use Photoshop or other graphic design software to embed
the texts in your picture. This way, you save your visitor's
effort in trying to know where to click next.
4. Tell them what to do People are lazy and would not want to
think when they are given the choice to do so. If you tell them
step by step on what to do, they'll thank you for it instead!
Let's say you want them to order a product, sign up for your
e-zine/newsletter or contact you - tell them, and provide an
easy way for them to do it.
5. Fast loading pages You need to make sure that your visitors
will not need to wait for a long time in order for your page to
load. Try to always minimize the time for people around the
world who are still depending on a 56k dial-up Internet
connection.
6. Avoid long forms As mentioned above, people try to avoid
things that need them to use a longer time or more effort on. If
your intentions are getting an opt-in, asking for just your
prospect's first name and primary email will be the best -
standard opt-in form.
7. Color Always remember to keep your website simple. There are
many people who like graphic design very much they put down lots
and lots of fancy eye hurting colors on their web pages - don't!
The most popular discussion boards have only simple designs,
because they suit the adults. Websites with fancy colors and
effects might be favored by young people, but the older ones
will try to avoid them most of the time.
8. Texts Not every font that you can see will be shown on the
other's monitors. Try to keep away from special fonts that
people don't usually use. Nevertheless, there are several
standard ones like Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, San-Serif,
Tahoma and Georgia which you can feel free to use. Try to space
out your contents as reading spaced contents wouldn't stress
your visitors eyes too much, which makes it comfortable for them
to stay longer on your website.