Important Design Checklist for Your Business Website

When it comes to your business website design, extra attention should be paid to every detail to make sure it performs well to serve its purpose. Here are five crucial rules of thumb to consider to make sure that your website performs well.

1) Do not use splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you first arrive at a website. They normally have a beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. In fact, they are just that — pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the “back” button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Avoid excessive banners

Eye tracking studies indicate that, while such banners might distract visitors to a website, modern visitors are accomplished at not noticing the content that the banners contain. Unless your business plan is advertising, the last thing you want to do with your visitors’ time on your site is to direct their attention away from your content (and the action that the content is designed to achieve).

3) Don’t construct hurdles in navigating the website

Your navigation menu should mimic what your site visitors have used many times before. Make it evident that your links to other pages are just that; they should be like directional sign posts on a highway. If you insist upon an animated, dynamic menu or a multi-level dropdown, also provide a tradition, text-based static menu in one of the traditional menu locations, such as along the left panel of the site. Besides, the static menu will contribute toward your search engine optimization efforts.

4) Provide a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means “abandon ship”!

5) Use audio only very cautiously

If you are determined to have sound automatically load, make certain that it a) makes a genuine contribution toward meeting your objectives, b) allows the site visitors to control and volume levels and c) is not on a page on which all of their attention should be focused upon reading the exquisite copy. If your audio does not meet all of these criteria, make the sensible choice and disable it.