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Do’s and Don’t of a Well-Designed Web Site
DO:
• Keep the domain name and home page simple. Lots of people want to show off their design skills by adding lots of fonts, animations, Flash, audio, and colors to their home page. This does not make a good first impression. A sleek, professional home page looks like it was put together by professionals and customers appreciate a home page that loads fast, too. The same goes for your domain name – if it’s too long or complex, your customers won’t recall it. If your business name is long and complex, choose a very simple domain name that is easy to remember. Keep in mind that some of the world’s best-known brand names are one syllable, unique and simple: Pepsi, Coke, Ford. Apply the same standards to your domain name.
• Keep your navigation structure constant. If the navigation bar is at the top of the homepage, on the bottom of the “about us” page and on the side of the “contact us” page, your viewers will be confused. Keep the navigation bar on the same spot page to page and make sure that it is identical on each page, too. Keep your bar simple, too. Include the most-visited pages and a site map to keep things simple and easy to understand.
• Make your logos and icons simple and easy to remember. Complicated and odd logos look unprofessional. The big Fortune 500 companies stick with simplicity – and you should, too, if you want to achieve success.
DON’T:
• Don’t use stock images, photos, (or worse) clipart. It will make your pages look very amateur. Take your own pictures (you only need a few) or use images from your promotional material or hire a photographer.
• Don’t scrimp on your website. If you use a cheap and ineffective hosting service or a cheap web designer, it will show and customers will assume that you run your entire business by cutting corners. That is not the message you want to send.
• Don’t add bad copy to your website. Some businesses will spend thousands of dollars on a nice web site and then populate that site with copy bought at a $1 per page. This copy is often very poor quality – and your customers will notice. |
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