Does your Website Sell or Smell?
Your website does not stand much chance of selling anything if
it pays scant regard to the user.
In other words your Site Visitor's experience, in terms of the
following, is what will make your site sell or smell!
The following 7 guidelines are all equally important and will
determine the success of your website.
1. Functionality
a) Functionality is a double-edged sword in that the site must
fulfill the users' requirements only if they are your targetted
users.
You cannot be everything to everybody so just make your site
easy for the people you want to please - your target market
b) Your site's design is the interpretation of its functional
requirements so unless it's functional it won't win many
customers and will probably go out of fashion tomorrow.
Therefore your site must function in the way the site visitor
expects whilst maintaining a professional look etc.
Functionality also includes automating routine tasks eg
producing online docs, taking orders, triggering e-mails etc
using forms & scripts
2. Content
Content is King and must be meaningful, interesting & viewable
in an acceptable font & color.
Your site's content must also be kept fresh and updated
frequently to maintain interest in the site and repeat visitors.
The use of RSS can help deliver fresh content to your site on a
daily basis.
3. Navigation
Site Navigation must give your site visitors an indication of
where they can go on your website and how they can get there.
The navigation must be;
clear (must look like navigation),
consistent (the same on each page),
predictable (style & location on the page eg lh side bar or top
bar)
and must lead to obvious content (navigation bar descriptions
must be accurate)
4. Load Time
If your site does not load in less than 12 seconds, the chances
are that your site visitor will have given up waiting and closed
the page.
A lot of viewers access the net with dial up connections so you
need to ensure that your pages load within the time frame for a
56.6kbs modem.
Therefore a web page has to be designed in the 'slimmest' way
possible so as to minimize load time.
Clean code also better for search engine spidering & bandwidth
saving, ie the cleaner the html & css the less the load on your
server.
5. Usability
Your site may look great but if it's difficult for your visitors
to figure out how to buy what they are looking for it's
usability is not up to scratch.
Usability refers to the ease with which your site's user
interface can be used by its intended market to achieve its
objectives.
Usability incorporates many factors: design, functionality,
structure, information architecture, and is a combination of
good planning, good content and good design, putting yourself in
your visitors' shoes, anticipating their needs and requirements.
6. Graphic Design
In order to create an aesthetically pleasing look for your
website you will need to use graphics, pictures, images & logos
as a text heavy page is certainly not easy on the eye.
Web safe colors should also be used to add to the overall effect.
Remember to bear in mind that graphics (jpeg or gif) need to be
of an appropriate size and compressed so as not to compromise
the page loading speed.
7. Compatibility
It is vitally important to design your site so that it is
compatible for all browser and screen resolutions as you don't
know what browser and resolution your site visitor will be using.
This is important because pages that look fine in IE often look
totally different in Firefox and pages look great at 1024x768
can be squashed up and overlapped at 800x600
Therefore to maximize your website's potential ensure that the
above guidelines have all been employed.
The following site is a good examples of the above: www.onlinesynergy.za.net
a>