When it concerns your website, extra care should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are my 5 important guidelines to follow to make sure your website does well.
Don't use splash pages
Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They usually have a very beautiful image with words like "welcome" or "click here to enter". In fact, they're just that, pretty vases with no actual purpose. Don't let your visitors have a reason to click on the "back" button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.
Don't use excessive banner advertisements
Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you'll be wasting valuable website space. Instead, provide more valuable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and allow your visitors to feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.
Have a simple and clear navigation
You have to offer a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from elaborated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they'll leave your site.
Have a clear indication of where the user is
When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you'll want to make sure they know which part of the site they're in at that moment. That way, they'll be able to surf for relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don't confuse your visitors because confusion means "abandon ship"!
Avoid using audio on your site
If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you'll want to make sure they're not bothered by some audio looping on and on, on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they've got some control over it, volume or muting controls would work fine.
