Important Design Considerations for Your Business Site

When thinking about your business website design, careful attention should be paid to every minute detail to assure that it performs well to serve its goals. Here are five vitally important rules of thumb to observe to make sure that your website performs up to that standard.

1) Don’t even think about using splash pages

Always remember that we attract our site’s visitors for a specific purpose (or set of clear purposes), and we want nothing to stand in the way of achieving that goal as efficiently as possible. A splash page, which you probably have come across at some time, is a landing page that is no more than decoration. Usually, splash pages are meant to be visually attractive. The only meaningful content they have is a phrase such as “click here to enter this site.” Why add the frustration of one additional click between your landing page and the desired outcome on the part of the site visitor? Get those visitors through that virtual door immediately.

2) Avoid excessive banners

Eye tracking studies indicate that, while such banners might distract visitors to a website, modern visitors are accomplished at not noticing the content that the banners contain. Unless your business plan is advertising, the last thing you want to do with your visitors’ time on your site is to direct their attention away from your content (and the action that the content is designed to achieve).

3) Make sure your site navigation is intuitive

Your navigation menu should mimic what your site visitors have used many times before. Make it evident that your links to other pages are just that; they should be like directional sign posts on a highway. If you insist upon an animated, dynamic menu or a multi-level dropdown, also provide a tradition, text-based static menu in one of the traditional menu locations, such as along the left panel of the site. Besides, the static menu will contribute toward your search engine optimization efforts.

4) Provide a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means “abandon ship”!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they’re not annoyed by some sound looping on and on at your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control — volume or muting controls would work fine.

Your http://www.99sites.us/>online business will benefit from attention to details such as these.