Many of the concepts here are the same for both internet and print. Websites have the added advantage of being instantly changeable. Also, websites at their best engage your customers in your message. Customers cannot be engaged if your website is not interesting to look at, if they don’t understand the message, or if they aren’t able to figure out where to find what they want. Most of the points below are about making the layout as easy to use and understand as possible. The rest are about giving people what they want.
Layout & Design
a. Clarity – When organizing information for your animation, website or brochure do it from the visitor’s point of view. What is the first information they want? What’s next? Your layout should be clean, clear and uncluttered. This means lining things up straight and leaving space around each element. White is usually the best background color. It looks clean and wholesome, and has the most design flexibility. Text is easier to read on a white background, and it’s what people expect from years of reading documents on white paper.
b. Attention – People look first to images. These can be used to get visitors’ attention and direct it where you want. Small animations can be great for gaining attention but you must make sure they’re not irritating and don’t overpower the message.
c. Links – The bright blue color of text hyperlinks breaks the monotony of a lot of text, and makes it more appealing to the eye and interesting to read. Visitors like a lot of links so they can exercise their freedom of choice and find out what’s on the other side. Your site is more fun if every photo is a link to something.
Navigation
a. Page Title – For websites, it should be immediately apparent what the main focus is for every page. Visitors should know where they are on your website at all times. This can be as simple as putting a title at the top of each page. For larger websites we use what we call “bread crumbs” which shows the path from the homepage to whatever the user is on at the time.
b. Site Map – On a smaller website visitors should be able to get to any page from any other page. On larger sites this is not possible. In these cases you should have a link on every page to the html ‘Site Map’. This is not the same as the XML sitemap which is one of the background files of your website used in SEO.
Marketing
a. Give Value for Free To Capture Contact Information – To start a relationship with potential customers you need to capture their contact information. A good way to do that is to give a little something of value for free, even if it’s just information. This tells potential customers you really do have something to offer.
b. Text – Use simple language and as few words as required. Speak in definite terms by avoiding words like ‘some’, ‘perhaps’, and ‘virtually’. Say ‘runs’ rather than ‘is running’. Present ideas in a logical and consistent order. Speak in terms of gain, and talk about the benefits of using your product rather than its features.
c. Repeat Visits – Do you offer information on your website that visitors will want to check back for? Perhaps they would give you their email address so they could receive your newsletter. This is an excellent way to build loyal customers.
d. Credibility – Customer testimonials add to your credibility. Including a photo of the person who gave the testimonial, and an actual photo of their letter if you have one increases its credibility. Video testimonials are the best.
e. Security – Security and privacy issues are very important to people who buy on our website. Your policies for handling this information should be prominently displayed, along with the logo of your SSL Certificate provider.
f. Money-Back Guarantee – If you are doing business from your website you will do more if you have liberal return policies and state them clearly.
g. About Us – The more that people know about your company the more they are likely to trust you. Good things to include are – job openings, a staff list with small pictures and brief bios, your company’s noteworthy activities like trade shows, press releases, big customer acquisitions, product launches, and publicity. Your blog is also a good place for this kind of contemporary information.
h. FAQs – If you have a page for Frequently Asked Questions you can post answers to questions you don’t want to handle individually.
i. Call To Action – Invite people to take specific action at the end of every page, and try to give it some urgency, such as a time limited offer.
Accessibility
a. Feedback – People like to be heard. Provide visitors ample opportunity to give you feedback on any issue, and the sooner you get back to them the better. If handled properly these contacts can be the beginning of a productive relationship.
b. How To Buy – Make it as easy as possible to buy your products and services, and not too many clicks to the ordering page. Always include information telling people all the places, and all the ways they can buy. It’s good to have a Toll Free number with trained staff answering calls. Accept as many forms of payment as you can. It’s good to explain the steps in the buying process so people feel you know what you’re talking about and that they will receive good service in all the steps mentioned.
c. Contact Us – Make sure all your contact information is easy to find from anywhere on your site.
d. Fast Loading – You should try to make your pages appear as quickly as possible. This is always a challenge when you are trying to make your pages visually engaging. If your target is other businesses this won’t be an important factor because most have high speed internet connections. It is also less of a factor if your audience is very committed because they will wait. But Google is now penalizing web pages that take too long to load so keep this in mind also.
