10 Ways To Make Your Website Effective and Attractive

Unique design, user friendly navigation links and usability are some of the ingredients which help you in making a successful website. There are different schools of thoughts regarding the philosophies which should be applied while coming up with a beautiful and profit making website but personally I recommend building a website which user may want to KISS ( Keep It Simple Stupid) as it is extremely SMART(Specific , Measurable , Attainable , Realistic , Timely).

World Wide Web has today become the hottest spot to promote your products and services and what better way to start your advertising then coming up with that perfect website. So let us uncover some hidden truths about web design that will help us in finding the perfect recipe for a high traffic pulling website:

Leave Guess Work for Solving Puzzles

You should congratulate yourself for the increased number of visitors getting attracted towards your website but what is the amount of time they spent browsing through your content? Do they revisit your website? Do fill up the referrals and invite their friends, families and business associates to visit your website? All these are the key indicators pointing towards the success of your website. A visitor is usually on your webpage to get some useful information and if his appetite for knowledge is not sated he is unlikely to revisit your webpage. If you want to redirect a person, all the links should work properly. There should be a site map to help a person in case he in unable to locate the information he is searching for, if you leave the person in maze you are likely to use a potential customer. So rule number one, take your visitors directly to the information they are looking for with right links, self explanatory informative content leaving no scope for ambiguities.

Get , Set & You Are Ready to Go

So you want a user to use your software or download your e-book the trick to keep your customer happy is not making him go through a lengthy registration process which is enough to test his patience. Your web design should not include some lengthy login forms which even a first time visitor has to fill just for browsing through your services and to understand what’s up for offer. Let the visitor get his share of information without the unnecessary hassle of divulging their personal information. Ease of browsing the content without sharing their personal data and absence of those tens of annoying pop ups are the second important rule to be followed in web design.

Gain Users’ Attention

A picture speaks a thousand words and should be included along with your content to gain users focus towards what you are trying to sell. But again a word of caution avoid using unnecessary images and heavy flash work which though attractive takes a lot of bandwidth and long time to load. Use eye catching graphics, patterns and images which are appealing and also help in generating curiosity in the mind of the users about how to get more information. Also maintain a proper flow so that user is redirected to the next page without applying much thought. Therefore in a nut shell the third rule for web design is to have a proper site orientation, capturing users’ focus and attention which leads to total customer satisfaction.

Clear Vision Easy Decision

Well would you like to use an easy step wise guide that will help you solve your problem? Well the fourth important rule of web design is the clear listing of all the features before the users that will help them in making a quick decision. Guiding your visitors through your website in a simple and friendly manner while exposing them to the treasures you have in store for you will help you in scoring those important brownie points. Use a clear cut layout in appealing colors with a systematic listing of all your features helps the user gain a better understanding of what benefits they can get from your business. So use a web design that presents content in a manner that is well understood by your site visitors.

Pen is Mightier Than a Sword

Well yes marketing is nothing but the war of words and to win this war it is essential to come up with effective content. Remember you have precisely say about 30 seconds to catch the attention of the user. Generally a visitor scans and not reads through the blocks of content written in a flowery language. So rule number five is coming up with excellent web content. Simple, short and sweet sentences effectively communicate what you want to say. Try using bullets and numbers with bold headings which a user can read easily and get a gist of what you are trying to say and if it matches with what they are looking you are a winner.

KISS web design

A clean page listing down what you had been looking for with out the unnecessary clutter of useless text and the noticeable absence of any annoying advertisements on the webpage is one of the best design practices. A simple layout with clear areas for navigation, header, footer and the content body will make the user appreciate your site more even if it is in another international language as french. Complex layout will make the content less digestible to the user as complex structures are difficult to scan, understand and to even work with. You can make your web design simpler by following Simon’s law of using hierarchical structure while presenting data which helps in reducing complexity making content easy to perceive.

Credibility is Reassuring

Would you like to visit the restaurant which has received rave reviews? Same is the case with the web site. An excellent web design technique would be to promote your credentials to the potential customers in form of amazing testimonials which you had received from your previous customers or by offering money back guarantee or warranty on the product that you are selling. Also if you want to create an e-commerce website ensure that you use a secure payment gateway that will safeguard the credit card information of your clients. Provide your contact information, email address and phone numbers on your web page that will make it easier for your potential clients to contact you.

Reach Out & Connect

Using proper keywords so that your website is search engine optimized and gets a higher ranking during search results is another web design technique which is helpful in popularizing your business by generating more traffic. But there are several other ways that can be used for promoting products like providing reciprocal links, coming out with your company’s newsletter and yes last but not the least online directories. Besides these networking is a great way to promote yourself, so start discussion boards, offer advices and yes ask customers to write back to you with their expectations which will help you in coming with solutions that are an exact match to customers’ expectations.

Nothing is Permanent But the Change

Continuous improvement is the key to success. Remember a good web site is never complete. To keep the visitors attracted towards your website keep on updating the content of your website if not daily then at least twice a week. Try adding new features, new pages and some special feeds which will tempt the users in revisiting your site. So rule number nine of web design is change, change layout, change content, add new features to keep users’ interest intact.

Test Away Bugs

Taking help of the above design principles you have built a great site but keep the tenth most important commandment in mind before launching your website- thoroughly test your website. Keep performing unit testing of your website whenever you complete one feature. Errors that are detected at the earlier cycle of web designing and development are often easier and cheaper to correct. Repeated testing will help you detecting and solving bugs that had remained undetected during previous rounds. A web develop should never test his own code and he will be unable to detect the flaws in his own web design. Ask your colleague or a member of the testing team to perform usability testing which will help in presenting your users with a problem free website.

Power packed with these rules of web design go ahead and design a unique and user friendly website which will soon be ranked high by all the search engines.