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By: Akhil Shahani, Fri Jan 26th, 2007
Attracting a large number of visitors to your website is only half the job done. You need to retain the traffic to achieve any deliverables that you may have set out. This is where web design plays a crucial role. Designing a website on your own can be a difficult task especially if you have no prior experience. While many vendors provide tools that allow you to build a website by yourself, it’s better to know what works and what does not before you plunge into web design. The following tips may help you avoid costly mistakes. Ensure fast download: Most people have neither the time nor the patience to wait for a slowly downloading site. It is estimated that half the traffic is lost if a web page takes more than 10 seconds to load. Remember that heavy graphics slow a site down, so try to use text as far as possible. At the same time, don’t overdo that either. No one likes to scroll endlessly, so make sure you break up large text into small paragraphs. Keep it precise and reader friendly. However, if your web design is highly dependent on images, use web graphics optimizer software to reduce graphic size without compromising quality. Take feedback seriously: Provide a feedback option on every page of your web site, but don’t stop at that. Act upon any constructive criticism you may receive. If possible, send out a personalized response thanking all the people who’ve taken the trouble to write in. Ideally, this should be done within 24 hours. Most important, revert back if you’ve taken any specific action based on visitor feedback. Update frequently: Refreshing the content on your website often makes it a lot more interesting to regular visitors and also gives them an impression of activity. A simple trick is to incorporate a news section into your web design, which must be updated daily. Provide relevant information: Most people use the internet to find information. If your site does not provide most of the information that visitors are likely to need, that is a web design flaw that needs immediate correction. List all the questions that visitors might have and build an FAQ section accordingly. This makes it a lot easier for them. Avoid advertisements: While advertisements may be important from a revenue point of view, an overdose of blinking text, banner ads and pop ups are a sheer nuisance. If the problem gets out of hand, it will ultimately reduce the traffic on your site. Change color of links: Programming links to change color when visitors click on them will give them a confirmation of action. It also helps them keep track of the sections they’ve already been through. Avoid Acrobat files: While such formats are useful for large reports that may be downloaded, don’t use them unless you have no other option. Acrobat files tend to slow down the entire operation, and can be quite turn off to visitors.