articles (guidance and tips and tricks for successful websites)
A website can be considered the ultimate communications and sales tool. At a reasonable cost, you can promote your company 24 hours a day, seven days a week and, more importantly, when your customer wants or needs to reach you. You are able to tell to existing, new and potential customers who you are and what you do.
But more important than having a website is to have a successful website - a website that focuses on what the audience wants, needs and expects from it. Pleasing your users increases your chances of success!
When building a website, many entrepreneurs simply forget the fundamental component of the project, the main reason why they want to be present in the world wide web: the audience. Many entrepreneurs focus on how the website looks and forget that someone will have to use it.
A good start is to think about yourself as an internet user. How many times have you left a website without finding the information you were looking for? How patient are you when your screen displays "please wait; page loading"? Some websites even ask "be patient"!
In the recent years, researchers have increasingly analysed the behaviour of Internet users. And their results should guide both web professionals and their clients:
Users spend, on average, less than a minute on a web page. Use this time to send your message, not to ask the audience to wait for the content to be loaded, or to show an introduction and expect the users to click on "enter".
According to usability guru Jakob Nielsen, introductions "delay users' ability to get what they came for". "Websites that force users to sit through sequences with nothing to do will be boring and pacifying, regardless of how cool they look." Users should always have the power to do what they want – even to leave your website if they have to wait too much to get the information they're after.
If you have animated features on your website, users may need to have the required software installed on their computer.
- If they don't have it, will they download it just to access your website?
- If they don't have it, how will they get your message?
Animations can be surely used, but as a resource to highlight the content, not as the sole way to send your message.
And, as for gratuitous animation, Nielsen asks an interesting question: "Since we can make things move, why not make things move?"
Users can leave your website as soon as they arrive. You already got their attention, so send your message and stick to the basics:
- Don't display your text in a variety of font types and colours throughout the website.
- Never underline your text (underlined text is for links only) and italicise words only if necessary (normal text is easier and less tiring to read than italicised text).
- Most of the text should have dark font and light background (in this format, the text is easier and less tiring to read).
- Always save your photos for web to obtain good quality images that are quickly displayed on the screen.
If it is important to be present on the web these days, it is fundamental that your website can be found via search engines.
Search engines (Google and Yahoo, for example) help users find websites on a given subject. Search engines maintain databases of websites and use programs to collect information, which is then indexed.
Many search engines do not index pages that are animation or image-based, because the text cannot be read/scanned by the robots.
Many search engines don't index websites that have frames (where part of the content, usually the menu, is locked, and the rest of the content can be scrolled).
If your website is not properly indexed by search engines, potential customers may find your competitors first.
And don't forget the particularities of the Australian market
- many users still have a dial-up connection - if your website has large photos and attachments (like PDF files), your user may have trouble to get your message
- many broadband users have a limited download allowance - if your website requires the installation of some software on the users' computer, will they spend their allowance on downloading that software?
We, at Web Team, apply all this knowledge to our projects.
Also read:
Your business on the web about the first (and simple) steps to enter the world wide web ›
