It’s slow.

Long load time makes your visitors cry.

It has been seen that flash can get the CPU to become heavy and makes it very slow. So, you can imagine the extent of reduction of speed for your website. Flash restricts different usability and creates other problems too. Replicating usability interfaces in flash can be a tedious task. There are buttons and scroll bars everywhere that make the process more confusing.

It’s annoying.

The loading time with flash is very high and this can make users impatient. The longer time your site would take to load, the fewer customers would revisit it. Longer time in loading also means loss of time for the user and hence they would prefer avoiding seeing it once, let alone visiting again.

It’s expensive.

Complexities of the flash pieces also exist because these are not pictures that you can cut and paste with animation filters. Flash sites require specialized skills and are not affordable for organizations with limited budgets. Why get into frivolous expenditure when search engines don’t prefer it. It is best to not use flash for the sake of creating something different for your website. Flash should be used only if the website formatting and structure demands it.

It’s not accessible.

Using Flash wisely can enhance the visual appeal of the site making it very welcoming for the users. But a complete Flash-based site can lead to huge business losses as it would mean poor search engine rankings and hence less traffic. Another factor that you should remember is that with the facility of accessing websites on your mobile phone, you would further restrict the usability of your website by using Flash. This is because Flash is not mobile friendly and all those who are using mobiles for accessing the internet would not be able to access your website, or at least get an impression that you might have imagined.

Search engines hate it, too.

A lot of individuals use Flash on the splash page but fail to understand that this makes their site look outdated. Technically, splash pages had gone out of vogue now. Your home page should be focused on providing information about the website, its contents, additional features, etc. Flash can just prove to be useless for your website, and in some cases it can cause more harm than good, as stated by most search engines.

To summarize Flash does not provide you with any additional benefits, but can only add to the size of the website. It reduces the speed of the website, wastes user time, and most importantly does not add any value to your website, physically and even financially.

Handling your site navigation is vital because you would not want a website that appears clustered or confusing to those who visit it. This would simply mean that if your navigation bar is standard, then users will be familiar with it, and they would be able to access the site without much trouble. However, using tools or navigation bars that are relatively confusing would make your site more complex for the users.

Website links must be well organized. Links of all main sections like About Us, Services, Portfolio and Contact us etc must be placed on top navigation bar. Other important links can appear on left navigation suitably. The name of the links must be clear. Don’t place important links on bottom navigation as the users might miss important sections.

One of the suggested techniques is the CSS dropdown menus that are good for SEO purposes too. Hence, you should try and implement the navigation structure in the site accordingly. It is suggested to keep the navigation consistent on all pages so that the user does not have to continuously search for buttons or alternatives for using them. It has been seen that a lot of website owners keep too many links for top level. However, having too many links at the top level would only make the website more complex and clustered for the user. As an alternative, drop downs should be used because they are easily understood and standardized. It should be remembered that a clean layout and neat navigation provides ample white space and enhances the features of your website.

To avoid such errors try and make the site navigation ready before designing to prevent the cluttering of the forgotten links later on. Try to keep a site map or section contents to help the user. Make the navigation flexible to accommodate additions of pages on a periodical basis. Using drop-down menus or section home pages becomes mandatory in such cases. Try to position the main links together or try to create a separate home or splash page if you like intensive graphics.

Search features is quite user-friendly and a must have for websites with many pages. The visitors can simply type a search keyword and find relevant information. This also helps you track what your visitors are looking for. You can also have textual links within the web content of your website. If placed strategically they benefit both users and search engines. They are a perfect way to help end users cross reference information and also increase the click through rate of the website that helps enhance rankings. By keeping these few web navigation tips in mind, you can surely enhance the usability of your website.

Overview

These are the days of e-business where more and more people are turning to Internet for their buying needs.  As a result, the number of websites is increasing in leaps and bounds. With so many sites competing with each other, your need is to draw the attention of the net surfers to your website and convert their visit into a business opportunity.  How will you be able to increase the traffic of visitors on your site in order to increase your sale, whether it is a product or service. What will attract people to your website? Doing business on Internet is very interesting as well as rewarding provided you keep in mind the below-mentioned points.  We will try and give you an insight on how to optimize your business on Internet, through your website. Usability is very important and you are advised to never ignore or overlook this simple fact.

Your main objective is to first take steps to increase the traffic on your website and the second objective should be to retain the customers and clients who visit your site. Usability quotient should always be considered and it should also be your priority. Make sure you are able to wise up the users once they visit your site. This is possible only if your message on your website is clear, your product is good and you are able to deliver on your promises. This article discusses some important website usability guidelines.

Navigation

Your website should be simple, straightforward and uncomplicated. People should find your website easy to navigate. The more complicated you make your website the more people will avoid coming to your site. These days you have to value your client’s precious time.

Navigation needs to be consistent, clear and intuitive. You must understand that web users don’t have much patience so it is important to have clear cut navigation. Most importantly, all navigation links must work. Having a sitemap also helps users especially if it is a large website with numerous sections and subsections. Planning of website architecture is a must and must involve expertise.

Content

Your message should be easy to understand. Instead of confusing people with redundant information your main objective should be to tell them what your site is all about from the home page itself.  Make them understand (as much as possible) the meaning of the entire deal/ product/ services in very simple, interesting and attention grabbing ways and means. For example, if you are selling a product try and focus on one product at a time instead of giving them various options. This will confuse your client. Try and give as much information about the product as you can in order to allow the customer to arrive at an informed decision to make the purchase without any hesitation.

Readability of your site also needs attention. The content on the website must be well-written, well-presented and useful.  You cannot afford to have language errors or wrong facts if you want to impress you users. Text presentation is also important. Use suitable fonts that are easy to read. Long paragraphs can discourage readers from reading. Bold, large fonts and italics can be used to emphasize on important content. Also pay attention to headings, bulleted lists, and text spacing.

Website Design

Design and layout of the site is equally important as good content. It is the first thing that catches users’ attention and must be simple, straightforward and uncomplicated. The main pages of the site should not be hidden deep inside. They should be not more than three clicks away. The website layout should be consistent and the look and feel must match the website theme.

Use of Colors

Colors should be used very carefully on the website. Stick to blues and grays for a corporate look while pinks and yellows can be used for a funky site. Again website background colors also need attention. Soft and vibrant colors can be used for a site related to kids.

eCommerce website

An eCommerce website needs careful planning as it needs to display content and products both. Make sure that content and product images must complement each other. Their presentation and website layout is also equally important. It must have a customer support feature. Important information such as pricing and shipping must be clearly displayed and not hidden. Product images must be clear. Shopping cart must function well and must support all commonly used credit cards. Inform the readers that shopping on the site is completely secure and that their information is safe.

Other Key Aspects To Impress Your Website Users

Honesty and Transparency Pays

Never take your clients and customers for a ride. Transparency and honesty is paying and rewarding. Always deliver what you promise, never give your customers a chance to complain or doubt your company’s integrity. Never compromise on quality, whether it is a product or a service. Your clients should get what they see on your website. This creates customer loyalty and people will start re-visiting your site at regular intervals. They will also propagate your website name and page name to their near and dear ones. This word of mouth publicity is the best thing that can happen in an online business. Your sales will soar and your income, needless to say will increase manifold.

Client is the Boss

Your website should contain information from client’s perspective. Try and entertain and if feasible incorporate (in the website) suggestions of your client. This will give you loyal clients and customers. You are advised to value their time. It is therefore recommended that you have simple and easy-to-navigate websites. The moment the client finds your website to be a little confusing, he or she will leave your website immediately without doing any business on your site and in all probability will never re-visit your site again. Try to develop a rapport with each your users/clients by having useful and interactive content, customer support, live chat, prompt replies.

Update your site on a regular basis

This is another very important factor that has a direct bearing on your sale and increase in traffic. Your site should have latest and up to date information; the message and information should never be obsolete. In case you have outdated information on your site then you can be sure that people will never visit your site again. It is very irritating to know after going through the site that the information that you have just read is obsolete and outdated. It is therefore recommended to keep updating your site on a regular basis and always provide the latest information to your clients and customers. This is of utmost importance. One of the easiest ways to do this is with regular blog posts.

Conclusion

There are many people who have been earning a lot by doing business on Internet and they succeed because they follow these simple usability tips. Don’t forget to test for usability. If you want to prosper online, it is advised that you follow the above-mentioned guidelines as a thumb rule. You can earn a decent amount if you do business on Internet provided the basic rules are followed. You will also prosper the way others have flourished and prospered in this business.

Design continuity with a minimal color palate will look professional and instill trust. It will give the impression that the business as a whole, not just the website, is cohesive and goal oriented. This is a part of design psychology and color theory. These elements may not be recognized consciously, but subconsciously, these elements together will trigger something in the visitor’s mind that says, “Yes, this is a trustworthy business” or in my case, “I feel comfortable with this web design business representing me online.” If all the web pages of the website are designed uniformly, it will look consistent and part of a whole rather than dissimilar sections. Let us see how continuity in design can be achieved:

What does the visual design communicate?

In an overzealous attempt at designing, are you overdoing the fonts, colors and graphics? To maintain continuity in design, avoid use of too many fonts, colors, and graphics. In short avoid making the design too garish for the viewer. Fonts in different size should be employed to emphasize the primary information. But, if you are going to overdo it, then instead of complementing each other, different fonts and colors will start competing with each other. The result would be that the user will get distracted with the maze of colors and fonts. This way important content gets lost in the maze of graphics, and ultimately, results in loss of opportunity for the company. A best web design describes the website aptly, with minimum graphics and words.

Understand the principles of design

A website should be designed from user’s perspective. What will the user see when he/she browses through a website? Is the design able to convey effectively, the purpose of the website, the utility of the website and what action is expected of the user? If this underlying principle is kept in mind, the web design will be effective.

Let us have a look at some of the tips that would ensure continuity of design:

• Be sophisticated and let the web design be original.
• Try to be unique, by maintaining an exclusive style which complements your business motto.
• For images make use of GIF files whenever possible. These are faster than JPEG files. In any case, avoid graphics that are not in tune with the content and theme of the page.
• Make use of plain backgrounds. Ensure that the text is printer friendly. Too many patterns in background hamper legibility.
• Always provide alternatives to your users. Let the users enjoy the preference to offload the visual display. If there are no graphics, is your website still easy to understand?
• Avoid designing very big pages. Each page should be less than 50K. The layout of the page should be similar to the newspaper, that is, have a horizontal and vertical page layout.
• Maintain a normal frame and a page should be only two or three screens long at the most. Having to scroll horizontally can be irritating.
• Instead of using stylish fonts, use fonts that are legible to the readers.
• The users may use different browsers. Therefore, ensure that your website is compatible with all the browsers.
• Your website should be user friendly. Frames make it difficult to book mark web pages. Hence, avoid them.
• Do not undermine the importance of white space; use it.
• Ensure that the website is compatible with all operating systems.
• Though your revenue comes from advertising. Do not let the advertisement occupy too much of your space. Ideally, your web page should not have more than 15% advertisements. This is to ensure that your web page is not overwhelmed by advertisements.

Designing Web Pages

Do not treat each page separately. Rather, each page is a part of the website and should appear seamless. Look at the web pages as parts of a jigsaw puzzle, which should fit into each other to get the complete picture. For this, remember the following points:

• Place the navigation bar at both top and bottom of the web page so it becomes easier to navigate irrespective of the part of the web page – top or bottom – the cursor is located. The top and bottom navigation should be placed at the same location on all the pages. It is necessary to have a site map to facilitate ease of navigation to the users.
• The color scheme, layout, text fonts, links and other elements of a website must be consistent.
• Have a look at popular sites and see where most of the sites are placing buttons. Do not try to experiment with placing the buttons, as the users would be accustomed to the conventional locations of buttons and bars.
• Surfing between various web pages should be easy. The user should be able to easily flip through various pages of website.
• The user should be able to reach different pages from any web page. Most of the users land on the web page through search engines. None of the web page should reach a dead end.
• The web pages should indicate to the user clearly the desired action. Hence, the links should not be hidden under the page, but must be displayed prominently.
• Ensure that the text mentioned in the link gives a clear and discernible description of the contents of the linked website. Thus, if the link is about wedge shoes, the text link must clearly mention so.
• Check that the links are not broken.
• Conventionally, links are displayed in blue underlined text. It’s best to follow convention. If you decide to deviate, change the link color but do not underline text that is not a link.

Avoid Heavy Graphics

Many designers invariably design the websites with heavy graphics. They generally tend to add lots of high tech designs to the website, not all of which may be required. Hence, after designing the website, the designer should revisit the designs and check whether all the elements are necessary and do away with anything that is superfluous. If graphics are needed, see that the images are small. Also, ensure that the graphics sync with the context of the website. If the website is about canines, you cannot have an image of a soccer player.

Having too many graphics will reduce the speed of the page. The user may lose interest, if the page is too slow.

Remove unwanted elements

If there are any unwanted elements (from the view point of the website visitor), they should be deleted. It is often observed that too many graphics make the user wary of the website. Therefore, to bring about consistency in the visuals, any element that is not adding value to the website should be eliminated.

Continuity in designing is the most important factor in retaining the interest of the users in the website. Keep this principle in mind, to keep users attached to your website. Your web page design portrays you. Therefore, take due care while you design the website.

A dead link is also known as a broken link or dangling link. This link is permanently unavailable. The most common reasons for this is a 404 error, that indicates that the web server is alive but the page cannot be found. I came across a number of excellent dead link checkers online that could be used for free to check your website for dead links.

Dead-Links.com is a free service that helps scan your website, and blog for broken or dead inks. All you need to do is to visit the website and enter in the URL of the website you need checked. Depending o the size of your website it can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes for the link checker to check your website and return the results.

In order for a website to succeed and get properly indexed by major search engines its imperative that every page links to every other flawlessly. A well linked website will increase your website’s efficiency many folds. Online link validation tool is one of the fastest tools around. It will dig deep into your website to determine if all your links are working as they should. This is a great tool for any webmaster who wishes to keep their website’s integrity under check.

For people who want to check if the links on their website is working as it should then the W3C Link Checker is an excellent and free tool. This free tool will let you quickly and easily find out if your website has any dead links.

DLC : Dead Link Checker is a simple yet very effective HTTP link checker that is written in Perl. It generates HTML output that enable it to check results and further process link cache files of multiple requests so see if there are dead links.

Broken Link Checker is a plugin for WordPress that will check your posts (and pages), looking for broken links, and notifies you on the Dashboard if any problems are found. By default all old posts/links are re-checked every 72 hours, or you can set a different time period.

When blogging was first introduced a few years back it gave people a way to talk about their various experiences. They were purely information based so search engines really loved indexing them. Soon businesses began to catch on to the idea of blogging and now there are blogs that look a lot like websites minus the complication of setting them up and later maintaining them.

One of the biggest problems with a normal, conventional website is that in order to update, change or add stuff to the website you need to know HTML. You need to first edit the page then make all the appropriate back links work and then ftp back the pages to your server. Even when you are using an expensive program like Dreamweaver things can get complicated as your website grows and you need to add more stuff like a subscription box, flash objects etc.

With a blog you don’t need to know HTML because on the back end it’s supported with a CMS system like WordPress. Adding pages, posts, and plug-in to your blog is as simple as installing a program on your computer. Also changing the design of your blog is as easy as uploading it and changing the theme. This makes maintaining a blog much more time efficient and less prone to errors.

Plug-ins make it easy to get the most out of your WordPress blog. There are various categories of plug-ins that range from SEO plug-ins, to subscription box plug-ins etc. However installing too many plug-ins is not recommended and this is why it’s really important that you stick to the basic set of plug-ins which will work perfectly for most bloggers.

SEO plug-in

The ‘all in one SEO pack’ plug-in is the best wordpress SEO plug-in in the world. This free plug-in is updated on a fairly regular basis and makes it easy for you to optimize your blog for the keywords you are targeting. It also enables you to optimize your blog posts but and other aspects of your blog by simply entering in the terms you want your blog optimized for. There is also new functionality added to this plug-in every now and then which helps to increase the power of this plug-in.

Google XML Sitemaps

Having a site map makes it easy for Google to index your blog. The Google WML Sitemaps plug-in as the name suggest makes it easy to create Google Site maps which are XML compliant. The plug-in is capable of creating sitemaps at a click of a button, the sitemap is also updated in all the major search engines that support sitemaps.

twitMe plug-in

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform which makes it easy for businesses to get the word out about their products and services to millions of people. What the twitMe plug-in essentially does it its tweets your latest posts on your twitter profile for everyone to see. The biggest advantage of doing this is it helps you get lots of targeted traffic to your blog.

Over the period of a few years the importance of having a Meta Descriptions Tag has changed. In the very beginning it help web pages rank high search engine results as search engines would give websites with certain keywords preference. However that is no longer the case as things in the SEO world have changed. However the importance of the Meta Description is not to be taken lightly since it still plays a vital role in search engine results page. Today its not going to get you top position but it will be the deciding factor for people who go though search engine results in order to find what they are looking for. A good keyword rich Meta description will get more people to click.

With search engines like Google the snippet you see when you get your search results actually comes from your index page, however in many instances Google will also pull out keywords from your Meta Description Tag. This is why it’s so important to write good Meta Descriptions as well as good copy for your website. When people scan search results your website should some how make them stop and click. The snippet is something that will mean the difference between them clicking or just going over it. What you write needs to be short, sweet and to the point so that the person scanning though finds your website useful.

If you watch Matt Cutts video on Meta Descriptions you will get a fair idea of how to correctly use meta descriptions on your website. The video briefly describes the importance of using Meta Descriptions as well as how to write good keyword rich Meta descriptions. It is definitely worth a look for any webmaster and business that is looking to raise the number of visitors coming to their website.

In addition to getting more attention towards your business a blog can be used for many other things.  However you shouldn’t loose sight of the fact that you originally established a blog to promote your products and services and you are choosing to do this by providing valuable and useful information. Anything else you choose do use your blog for should just be an extension of what its already used for. This is imperative you want to have a constant supply of fresh traffic as well as high search engine rankings.

Using it to get customer feedback and testimonials

When people usually browse though various product websites they often come across the testimonials which are not very effective nowadays as most people feel that they are doctored to say the least. However when they come across positive comments on a blog they feel that the product is good because it has real people who have really used the product commenting about it. This is why many businesses often have a box below a short description about their product where people can leave feedback about it.

Article promotions

A blog is nothing more than a collection of good articles which people enjoy reading. These articles can be technical in nature or they can be informative about various products and services. You can also use your blog to promote recent articles which you have written on various other blogs, and article directories.

RSS Feeds

One of the most powerful tools and perks of using a blog is its RSS function. With RSS feeds you can virtually send out your blog post to millions of people who will then visit your blog to read more about what you have written. This is an excellent way to get lots of traffic to your blog. However make sure that you write a good three line teaser which will get people to click on the feed and visit your blog.

Regardless of how well you go about advertising your business or how many visitors your website may get you might still not be able to do as well as you should if your website is not properly designed. Here are a few tips which should help you tweak your website for maximum performance.

Welcome your visitors

When someone enters your shop the first thing you do is to welcome them. This is basic business etiquette which unfortunately does not follow though in the online world. When a visitor visits your website for the first time it’s imperative that they are greeted with a welcome message. This gives them a feeling of being valued as well as that this is a professional business.

Get people to your blog

When people come to your website they do two things they either buy or they don’t buy from you. However your job in addition to selling your products and services is to get them involved in a conversation. This means that your website needs to have a blog. When people get involved in a blog they begin to trust you. Your ratio of returning business increases as well as the ratio of people buying from you. Many times even visitors who don’t need your service at that time will come back when they do need your service, because they remember you from your blog.

Add value to your service

Many businesses complain that their clients never return or that the ratio of return business is significantly lower than their competitors. The reason you are not getting return business is because you are not giving your visitors a reason to return. You need to show them exactly why they need to come back to you i.e. discounts, excellent service, freebies etc.

Educate your client

People who are new to your service or if this is their first time doing things they may have many questions. These questions should be answered politely as well as effectively so that they don’t turn off the customer.