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Professional_Website_Dos_and_Donts
| Professional Website Dos and Donts.
Do’s and Don'ts of a Professional Website
A professional website is, above all else, professional. What
constitutes professional though? This question has been asked by
many, and the answers are as varied as those asking the
question. There are at least a hundred or more possible aspects
to consider, some consisting of parts of others, such as
demographics and content. Each factor has its own affect on how
customers perceive a website.
Being professional is an attitude portrayed by you, the business
owner, your business and your website. You don't have the luxury
of smiling real big, wearing your best suit, and shaking hands
with the customer. Your site has to do that for you. This brief
list of what to do and what not to do when creating a
professional website is only the beginning, one small step
towards success.
Do's 1. Know your visitors. Your site should be designed to fit
their needs and wants. If you're selling, know the demographics
of the people you're selling to. If you're just providing
information, know who you are targeting. Rule of thumb: Know
more about your audience than they know about you. 2. Know your
product. As strange as that may sound, people know when a site
offers products or services that they themselves know little
about. If you are letting someone else write the content for
your site and that someone doesn’t know the product, then your
customers won't know it either. Anticipate questions from
customers and answer them before they are asked. 3. Make your
site visually pleasing. Just because bright red and bright blue
are your favorite colors doesn't mean that they should be the
dominant colors in your site. Red and blue are at different ends
of the spectrum and will give viewers a headache if viewed to
long. You want to make viewers feel welcome, comfortable, and
that they are able to trust you. 4. Outline the concept of the
site before it is created. Know the answers to those golden
questions: who, what, when, where, why and how. While these
questions apply to your demographics they are also helpful in
deciding what information is truly important and what isn't.
Pinning down your tacit knowledge is often a challenge, and not
all tacit knowledge is valuable. What do you want the customers
to know and what do the customers want to know? 5. Make your
prices readily available. Hide your prices and customers will
wonder what else you are hiding. Don't wait until after you ask
for their credit card information to tell them how much it
costs. You don't make sales that way; what you do make is
frustrated customers who tell other potential customers to stay
away from your site. 6. Keep your site credible. Back up what
you say with statistics or links to articles that support your
claim. If you have experts in your company, highlight them. Show
the customer that there are REAL people running the business.
Update the content as often as possible - if updating the
content isn't possible, add links to news articles and update
those links. It is time consuming, but in the end it is worth
the time and effort. 7. Ask for input from people who know
nothing about your product/service/business. This is the best
way to get true feedback. People who know nothing about what you
are doing can find the smallest error and ask the best
questions. They can give you a fresh perspective on your site
and sometimes your business. They don't know what you know, and
they often see what you don't. 8. Use images that portray
confidence. You want the customer to trust you right? Then show
them that you believe enough in yourself and your product that
there is no doubt that you are trustworthy. Dress for success.
You wouldn't wear snow boots on a hot summer’s day, would you?
Then don't let your site wear images that could make you look
cheap and untrustworthy. 9. Keep your site translator-friendly.
This can sometimes be challenging as we tend to use different
terminology than other countries. What we would consider 'normal
phrasing' may be considered 'odd' or offensive to someone else.
Avoid slang and check your site with a translator. Check to see
which words are translated and which ones aren't, then try to
figure out why. 10. Be consistent throughout the site. Making
each page of your site different can be entertaining to
teenagers and new internet users, but most of your potential
customers aren't new to the internet. If a viewer feels as
though they're on a different site each time they click a link
on your site, they are likely to go to another site. Consistency
counts in site design and professionalism, and your customers
will expect it.
Don'ts 1. Don't guess at who you're trying to reach with your
site. ‘Guesstimation’ is for horse shoes and card games. If you
don't know your demographics then you might as well have thrown
your site together. 2. Don't get too technical. Your customers
are the ones reading your site, so it should be written for
them. Sure, your competition might read your site as well, but
they already know the business jargon. Besides, you aren’t
trying to sell to them anyway. Remember, other business owners
may browse, but your customers are your buyers. 3. Don't give
your customers a headache. There are 256 colors available for
site design. 216 of those are browser 'safe.' Just because there
are an abundance of colors does not mean that they all should be
used at once. Warm colors shouldn't be used with cool colors
because of the conflicting hues. Meanwhile, bright colors make
the eyes work harder to focus and after a few minutes will
likely give your viewers a headache. 4. Don't keep content that
isn't being read. Keeping track of what your customers are
actually reading is very helpful. You want a customer to peruse
your site as completely as possible. The more they know, the
better your chances are that they will purchase or sign-up. If a
page isn't being read then try something else. Rewrite it. Add
psychological triggers. Rephrase. Find a way to make the page
valuable. 5. Don't repeat the same information on every page.
The viewer doesn't want to read the same material over and over.
Give them new, fresh information on each page. If they want to
go back and read the previous page, give them that option. 6.
Don't hide contact information. You'll find conflicting
information on this topic. Some designers will tell you to put
your contact information on every page, but customers tend to
find that redundant. One page with multiple ways to contact you
is more affective even if the customer never visits the page.
Just having the page there tells them that you can be reached
and that you really are there for their convienence. 7. Don't
use animations. Some would say use animations to draw attention
to your ad, product, 'new' idea/newsletter/etc. but by following
that suggestion you frustrate the customer. Flashing, moving
objects distract the eyes. A customer is there looking for
information, if their eyes are distracted while reading, their
comprehension decreases while their frustration rises. The use
of colors such as yellow and orange become helpful in this area.
Bolding or italicizing words is another way to emphasize
phrases, or items you want the customer to notice. 8. Don't use
multiple fonts. It only takes the eye seconds to adjust to a new
font, but those seconds are distracting to the mind. Different
sizes, styles, and colors are confusing. Choose one font and
stick with it. Consistency is more important than creativity
when it comes to text. 9. Don't take control away from the
viewer. Creative cursors, full screen browsers, and other
'entertaining' aspects of site design are great, if your target
audience is teenagers or new internet users, but for a
professional website they give the appearance of being cheap,
second rate, and amateurish. 10. Don't 'bunch up' the text. Add
spaces between paragraphs so the customers don't feel
overwhelmed with information. Placing a small picture pertaining
to the content gives the eyes time to relax before reading
further.
About the author:
Wynn Wilder is a Website Psychologist and owner of Critical
Thinking (http:www.thinkingcritically.net}.
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