Web design tips
 general guidelines.

The best designs are ones that are not noticed and do not detract from the message of the site. Most successful sites use a white background and black text or a background color that doesn't obscure any text.

Many of the best sites on the internet are content laden - useful information, which is freely distributed. Include information relevant to your audience (i.e. How-to articles, tips and tricks, industry related news, etc.).

Your site should be periodically updated and maintained to retain repeat visitors. Also, reduce the number of outside links to prevent broken links.

Surfers will generally wait no more than 20 seconds for a page to load and usually will only remain for 20 to 60 seconds. Home pages must load quickly.

Know your intended target audience. Studies show that visitors want fast loading pages and useful information. The least important features are "bleeding edge" technologies, flashy animations and non-functional eye-candy (unless that is what you are selling and what your buyers are looking for).

Never play music files the user has no control over; music tastes vary, and most surfers will hit the back button rather than the volume. This may count in your log as a hit but you will have lost the surfer forever.

Flashy animations and eye-candy usually are only interesting once. You must rely on fast loading useful content. Allow visitors to bypass your flash animations and splash screens. Slow loading, flashy eye candy, animations and music are usually not impressive to visitors unless you are selling tools to create these effects. If you must use them, make them optional. This gives visitors the choice of using these options. The surest way to lose visitors is to force them to wait or listen to your musical preferences.

Do not use frames unless you are an expert. Frames cause more problems than they solve. Be careful of using frames to frame other sites pages or content within your site. It can be construed as a copyright violation. Even linking into some sites interior pages has been known to get the linking site in trouble.

Each page of the site must be consistent and intuitive to navigate. More and more web surfers are computer illiterate. Make your site easy for anyone to understand and use. If you are selling something, remove all obstacles to the sales process to make it easy for customers to want to do business with you (prices and order forms must be easy to find and use).

Your most qualified leads will most likely come from non-web advertising and/or highly targeted on-line advertising first, links from related websites second and search engines will be the third source of leads. You must take advantage of all these marketing methods and keep up with trends in the industry.

Website traffic starts slowly at a new site, builds, plateaus and then declines. To get the best results from your website, you must market constantly and update regularly to build traffic and prevent it from declining. Encourage return visitors.

Customer service is imperative to your success. Gather opt-in e-mail contacts with customer permission whenever you can and follow-up.

Your site must be designed with your visitor's needs and capabilities in mind. Pages must be fast loading and content must be useful and relevant. Products must include full disclosure of information and provide a quick, convenient method of purchasing without requiring the visitor to call or mail the company.

Make links in your web site informative. Let your visitors know what to expect and give them a compelling reason to want to follow hyperlinks on the site. List the download time and size of large photographs or other files.

Design the website to allow for future growth without requiring major changes to the navigation systems.

Study and emulate other successful techniques and tactics. Do not copy other people's work, but be unique, stand out and do it better. Study catalog design. Printed catalogs allow easy perusal of multiple product choices, and are invaluable as examples of short ad copy, photographic layouts with bullet points, ways to list prices, special offers, etc. Did you ever notice how catalogs tend to have a special deal or closeout price on almost every page to entice people to order?

Do not add visitor or customer contact information (names, e-mail addresses, etc.) To your contact lists without their express permission. Do not grab visitor's e-mails from their browser since this is commonly considered a violation of privacy.

Non-web advertising using the domain name may be the most important way to market a business. This is usually the client's responsibility. The tips and guidelines given here can be used at the client's discretion. Each site is unique and marketing strategies, which work for one site, may not be suitable for another.

Encourage other sites to link to your website without having to link to theirs when possible. Making graphic and link information available to other sites will encourage and facilitate a partnership. Make it the client's responsibility to cultivate linkage with other sites since this is a time consuming task.

No matter how good a website might be, it must be visible, accessible and readily available. You must get the people there. A site, which only has links in a search engine, will probably fail to generate significant traffic.

Remember that the internet is a new interactive communications medium. Businesses on the internet are still bound by the laws of supply and demand. It still takes marketing strategies to be seen and salesmanship to sell. Concentrate on customer service and personal service. Use the internet as a tool to communicate rather than a tool, which isolates you from your customers.

Use advertorials and endorsements to market affiliate programs for other sites that you personally endorse. Make sure these sites fit within the context of your own website rather than simply trying to cultivate a "banner farm".

Busy web pages are a common problem. Use photos and graphics in moderation, as they may detract from the subject matter of the page.

Eliminate hype and concentrate on useful content and information.

Follow tried and true basic marketing techniques (benefits, features, solving problems, using the right words and images to invoke desired feelings, calls to actions, etc.) Give your audience what they are looking for and information to help them.

Think in terms of end results and simple goals. Guide visitors to the desired goal. Regardless of where a visitor first enters your site, you can still redirect them to pages you want them to view first, such as product information. Then you will be able to lead them through the ordering process while allowing immediate links to other pages. For example, if someone enters the site through your newsletter signup page, will you be able to guide him or her to the main information page, and ordering page? From any of these pages, can they immediately navigate to your contact information page?

A business site should be designed from a customer or audience perspective. Topics should be tailored to them, not to you. For example, a major telecommunications company made the mistake of dividing its major website topics around the divisions of its company, which was not customer oriented. It subsequently was redesigned based on how their customers viewed their business.

Use powerful words in your copy such as: "you, your, money, save, free, now, how-to, quick, new, exciting, love, secret, reveal, discover, improved, guarantee, latest, amazing, offer, important, revolutionary, powerful." read catalogs and study the copy on every-day products. Notice how they use calls to action, buzz words and power words to effectively communicate. Just as animation and red highlights use power words one at a time and sparingly, they loose effectiveness when used excessively.

Avoid using words and phrases with negative connotation such as: "but, try, could have, would have, should have, cannot, not". This puts the reader in the wrong frame of mind. The mind is much better at resolving concepts if there are fewer choices. Give your visitors a mental picture of a clear, reachable and present goal. Speaking in the past tense can sound old and outdated. Speaking in the future tense may evoke feelings that are not yet attainable. Read your copy carefully to ensure it evokes feelings you intended. Over the course of several days or weeks, read through your site multiple times.

Use a common frame of reference to introduce a new concept. It is easier for someone to understand a new idea or concept if it relates to the familiar. For example, when trying to explain generational residual income using an affiliate marketing program, use a familiar parallel. Elvis’s family will always be wealthy because every time one of his songs is played, the family gets paid. With the emergence of each new media, his songs will be reproduced and resold again and again and the estate will continue to amass royalties/residual income. The same holds true if you rent a house, you have nothing to show for it except a stack of receipts. You've built wealth for the owner because he holds all the assets. But if you own the house, you have an appreciable asset that generates income. If you own the business and/or affiliate program, it can increase in value creating residual income for you and future generations.