Your home page should indicate clearly
what your web site is about. An informative, easy to navigate
home page is the most important factor in keeping your visitors
interested. From your home page, a visitor will determine if he
or she will stay at your web site and click a few of your links
or leave to find another web site that is more appealing. Make
any special offers or discounts you provide clearly visible on
your home page and include navigational tools that make it easy
for a visitor to switch to another page and make purchases. If
you include a flash intro on your home page, give visitors the
option to skip the intro if he or she desires.
Your navigation structure is critical. Do not experiment with
navigation and keep it the same on all pages. Place the navigation
in a location that is familiar to the average web site visitor.
Consistency is the most important thing in deciding where to
put your navigation. Across the top or on one side or another
is very familiar to most internet surfers and make sure it is
in the same place on all pages within your site.
The font size you choose should be easy to read. If your font
is too small many people will not even bother to read it. The
best font size is twelve-thirteen points. Your line length should
also be easy to read. Sixty to seventy characters is appropriate
for most material.
You will have some text that you want to emphasize. Do this
tastefully and do not emphasize too much of your text. If you
have many words and characters in bold print, your web site
will resemble a battlefield and be hard to read. Include graphics
such as a photo of your product. The photo should be clear and
of a manageable file size. If your file size is too large it
will increase the time it takes your page to fully load and
visitors may lose interest.
Test your web site frequently to make sure all links are working
perfectly. Your potential customers will not take the time to
notify you if your links are broken and they may go to your
competitors if they cannot easily click through the links on
your site. Make sure your text is spell checked and grammatically
correct. Your web site visitors will judge your business by
the impression they get from your web site.
