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Make The Website Fast Loading
Most visitors aren't patient people. Visitors are not good at
waiting. They want information and they want it quickly. If guests
can't get it from one site they may move on to another website
that delivers. Don't overload pages with graphics, animations,
movies, etc. If the page is 100K then it is 3 to 4 times too big.
Guests will only wait a few seconds for the web site to load.
If the site takes too long to load the visitor may hit the Back
button on the browser and go on to a competitor's website which
has a better design. Is this what you want? What's good about
this?
Make The Website Easy to Navigate
Put a navigation bar somewhere at the top of the website where
visitors can see it and easily understand it. Remember you visitors
are in a hurry to get information and get it quickly. Help them
by making it obvious where they need to go next. Design having
this in mind.
Put Search On The Website
If you have many pages on the website (over 100) put a search
box so guests quickly find what they need. There are some free
cgi scripts on the web for all to use or there are some other
services at low or no cost you can use for a search box. Remember
that guests are in a hurry, so anything you do that may help them
get their information quickly will be a bonus for your well-designed
website. Good is as good does.
Spell Check The Website
When writing the text for the site it is advisable to use Microsoft
Word or another program where you're able to easily spell check
and grammar check the verbage. You may have a beautiful, functional
design for you site and ruin it by having a bunch of misspelled
words and grammatical errors.
Contact Information and Copyright Notice
Visitors may wish to contact you directly for many reasons. Even
if you don't wish to be bothered it is still good practice at
the very least to include a snail mail address to a P. O. Box.
Guests on the web usually wish to contact you via email address
so include this on the Contact Us page. If you're worried about
SPAM then set up a free email address with someone with good SPAM
filtering (like Yahoo or Excite). Be sure to put a copyright notice
on every page of the website for your protection. This is just
a standard part of doing business on the web.
Design The Pages for Multiple Browsers
Netscape, Explorer, Opera, Lynx, WebTV, NetPhonic's Web-On-Call,
Mobile Telephones, or Personal Digital Assistants are a few of
the browsers and platforms that visitors will use to access the
website. While you're developing a website it is important that
you test the pages in as many browsers and on as many platforms
as is feasible so that guests coming from any location will have
a good experience with the site. If your web design is solid,
the users with disabilities, such as blind individuals, will be
able access the website and use the text-to-voice or Braille displays
without problem.
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