Business Website Design: Don't Make This Mistake
This blog entry was posted on June 12, 2010.
Design of business websites is not meant to shock and awe an incoming visitor. Don’t get me wrong, business website design should get your attention. But when an arriving visitor comes to your website, they need to be able to immediately understand your offer. They need to intuitively be able to navigate around your site.
If a website is difficult to use, people will just leave. Your website has to have a certain predictability. Your visitor did not arrive looking for a lesson on how to consume your content. Use standard web conventions so visitors can easily evaluate your content and what you offer.
Predictability leads to trust, ease of use and satisfaction. Here is how you make your website predictable and comfortable for visitors.
- Logo: Your logo, branding or name should be located in the upper left area of every page. Clicking on the logo should take you back to the home page.
- Navigation: The main navigation is located near the logo and can be either vertically down the left side or horizontally across the top. These links should map out the primary pages or features of the site. These should all be internal site links.
- Hyperlinks: Usually underlined and / or in a different color to stand out from other text. Only hyperlinks should have underlined text. Visited links should shift to a different color than the other links.
- Buttons: Images that look like buttons should allow visitors to take action like submit, buy or take them to a new page.
- Images: Photos and graphics have describing text (ALT text) or text immediately below the photo (captions). Clicking on small thumbnails will show a larger version of the photo.
- Icons: Use standard visual symbols on your site to signify things like shopping cart, email, rss.
- Security Login: Identity confirmations are done using a username and password system.
- Search: Larger sites should have a search function based on text words used in the content.
- Footer: Include copyright information, privacy policy, contact pages, sitemap and other helpful links at the bottom of the home page.
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- Business Website Design Tips
Filed under: Web Usability,Website Design
This entry was posted on Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at 2:52 am and is filed under Web Usability, Website Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.No Comments
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hey! i love what you did here man! i’ve been looking for a tips like this, simple but effective. I’m a new in this kind of thing, and i’ve been recently hired by a company here in the Philippines. Thx again for your tips! hoping you do more of these things and learn from your expertise again! ^_^
Comment by web design philippines — June 19, 2010 @ 5:06 pm
Just wanted to say thank you for all the information you have provided here. I will be taking all of your tips into account and taking a fresh look at my website.
Comment by Natasha — October 9, 2010 @ 1:12 am