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How to make your site more effective, part
2
You know that a high ranking is important to get high quality
targeted traffic to your Web site. However, a high ranking
alone is not enough. Many webmasters have the problem that
their visitors don't buy something on their site even if the
way the visitors reached the site indicates that they're interested
in the products.
For that reason, we're going to tell you in our new series
what you can do to improve the effectiveness of your website.
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.
In the next issue, we're going to tell you how to write a
good sales copy and how to create trust and confidence so
that your visitors will buy something on your site.
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