Past Tense

You can make your website a success and increase your conversion rates using the following methods.

Your first task is to create a navigation system for your website that is easy to understand and consistent.

While sites such as Amazon.com use tabs it is just as effective to use simple underlined text. The important thing is to be able to anticipate exactly what your customer will want from your site and provide this is a straightforward format.

Imagine a webdesign for a business selling printer ink replacements. A customer is only looking for ink for their printer. Your system of navigation should make it simple for the customer to find the brand and model they need.

The navigation system should not be extravagant. Vertical or horizontal formats for basic text links are very effective, as are buttons, or organized tabs.

Your website should be capable of sending a message without reading any text, through its design and feel, though this area is open to interpretation and more of an art than a science.

One thing to keep in mind with creating the feel of your website is successful sites convery their purpose. So CBS.com should convey NEWS and Disney.com should convey FUN. You may triple your conversion rates by creating the correct feel for your website.

In the same manner that many government buildings appear to be cold and institutional because of the function they perform you must be sure that your websites theme can be recognized right away from the design and layout.

There is a saying about the little foxes that spoil the grapes.

What follows are some of the more common webdesign mistakes and how you can avoid them to help your conversion rates increase even more.

a) If you use a site stats counter, do not allow it to be viewable by visitors.

These only serve to show-off how popular your website is and should be kept private. A large number at the bottom of the page showing the number of visitors to your site is going to look pompous and unprofessional.

b) Create a printable version of your site or ensure that your page prints well. Many viewers will print long text to read from paper.

c) Assess whether or not your webdesign is ’scannable.’

Many visitors will not immediately read your site. First they will scan the site to make sure it’s worth reading. You can make your site more ’scannable’ by using bold, colors, underline and headings to emphasize and highlight the main points and subjects of your site.

d) Visitors to your website will first tee the ‘topfold’ of your Homepage before scrolling down. Be sure not to make your header graphics too large or they may take away from the ‘topfold.’ Also, header graphics or company logos that are too large will leave you with less room for the all important text of your site where the major part of your message is contained.

Go out and make your conversion rates skyrocket now, just by applying these webdesign tips.