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How to make your web site more effective! Part 2
Copyright Axandra.com - Web site promotion software tools.
http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/successpro
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PART 2: How to keep Web surfers on your site
Last week, we told you which three critical points your Web
site must pass before Web surfers even consider taking a
look at your Web page. This week, we're telling you what
you can do to keep these visitors on your site.
1. Come straight to the point
Your home page is the most important page on your site.
It's the very first page of your site and the page that
people see first when they come to your site. Therefore,
it's important that your home page is interesting for your
visitors.
Every visitor wants to get a prompt answer to the question
"what's in it for me?". On the first paragraph of your home
page, you should tell your visitors the following:
what you do, why people should stay on your site, what's in
for your visitors. If you don't answer these questions
quickly enough, people will go away.
Of course, every home page owner is convinced that they
have the best product on earth and that everybody should
buy it. Unfortunately, visitors don't know that.
If you don't tell them the major benefits of your product,
no one will take the time to dig into your site. Web
surfers are a very impatient group.
2. Don't annoy your visitors with animations they cannot
see
Some people use Flash animations or big pictures with a
meaningless text such as "Welcome to the world of tomorrow"
as their index page that redirects to their actual first
page. Don't do that if you don't want to lose a big part of
your visitors.
Flash intros take minutes to load on a slow modem
connection so most Web surfers will go away before they
even had a chance to see your actual home page.
In addition, Web pages containing only a Flash animation
cannot be indexed by most search engines. If you use a
Flash intro as your index page, chances are that your site
will never show up on search engines.
3. Respect people's time
Until high-speed Internet access becomes widespread, don't
use large bandwidth-clogging graphics.
As a rule of thumb, no single graphic should be larger than
30 KB to 50 KB, and no single page should have more than
200 KB of graphics.
If you must include a large, detailed image, provide your
visitors a smaller, thumbnail version so they know if
seeing the larger image is worth their time.
4. Test with different Web browsers
Not all Web surfers use Microsoft's Internet Explorer in
version 6. It's important to test your Web site with
different Web browsers.
Try to test your Web site with Internet Explorer version
5.0, Mozilla/Netscape and Opera.
5. Be consistent
Professional Web sites always have their navigational bar
at the same side. They use a consistent style for
headlines, headers and text. Don't use more than three
different fonts in different sizes.
Try to avoid colored or textured backgrounds. They make
text difficult to read. Of course, dancing buttons and
blinking text don't belong to a professional Web site,
either.
Once Web surfers have decided not to go away on their first
impulse, you have to keep them with a good sales copy.
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