1. Focus on your user’s needs and views.
A common mistake that some website owners make is to forget to assess how user friendly their website is. Website usability is one component of web design that often gets neglected and has quite some disastrous consequences. Usability is how a user views the site and interacts with the information available on it. Always base your website design on the user’s needs. Never lose site of that. Scrimping on the cost of a website design by missing out prototyping the site and testing it with some representative users is a false economy. You won’t recoup your investment if users are not enticed to stay on your site long enough to enjoy the experience and generate sales.
2. Style over substance kills commercial websites
Flashy and ostentatious websites may attract visitors but when they encounter difficulties in navigation and usability, they quickly lose interest and leave. Thus it is rather absurd when website designs win awards for being visually striking and attractive but have poor navigation and low user-friendliness .
Flash is commonly used by webmasters to increase the appeal of the web page without taking into account that the search engine spiders only follow links, text and images with alt tags and cannot pick flash-based pages. Also, flash players are not installed in all PC’s, so those users without flash may opt to skip these websites altogether.
The outcome is that, every day, customers are driven away because they feel lost and confused or are discouraged when they have to wait for an eternity for pages to load.
3. Always add comprehensive contact information.
A lot of small business owners neglect to include their contact numbers or addresses in their web page when they have their website designed. Such omissions are costly; the goal of creating credibility online is lost and the site owner foregoes the opportunity to get a return on their outlay.
4. Content is king.
An aspect which webmasters often do not give much importance to is the concept of “Content is King”. Content which is keyword-based is a must if your goal is to rank high in search engines and recover your investment in web design quickly. Simple and snappy content will make it easier for users to like your site. Studies in web usability have confirmed that if they find what they need without too much difficulty, they tend to enquire and buy. On the other hand, if they have a hard time navigating your site, they will not buy your product or service. If you are a webmaster or site owner, you should direct your focus toward a design which promotes ease of use rather than in-your-face designs.
