Unless you built your web site to show pictures of your cat to people all over the world, you probably want them to take some sort of action before leaving, most likely, in the form of exchanging their hard earned dollars for your valuable products or services. Unfortunately, most web sites are not designed to do this effectively. On the other hand, by following some basic usability guidelines, you can significantly increase the number of visitors that become customers.
Avoid intro, splash, or entry pages. A visitor is at you web site for a particular reason, whether they're looking for a Spanish translator, portable sound systems, or a marketing company, so they don't want to wait for a movie to load or have to click a link before entering. Also, avoid music that begins automatically. If someone visits your web site at work and music begins to blast from their speakers, they will immediately close you page to avoid being caught conducting personal business.
Ensure that your navigation is simple to use. Visitors won't think that you are clever if they have to spend any amount of time figuring out how your navigation works. Stick to the basics and keep your menu across the top, or down the left or right side of the web page. You may also consider adding an additional menu at the bottom of the web page. As an added measure, you should include a site map.
Include your contact information on each page. This should consist of at least a phone number and email, if not your mailing address. this makes it easy for visitors to contact you and instills confidence that you are a real company rather than some fly by night operation.
Design your web site for most major browsers that your visitors may be using. If your web site sells computer games, chances are than most of your visitors will have the most current browser available and you can use more advanced technologies, however, if your web site sells crochet products, you should probably design your web site to work in older browsers because your visitors probably won't have the most current browser.
Though it should go without saying, design your web site for your visitors, not the search engines. While you may improve your ranking slightly (probably not though) by adding your keyword phrase to every sentence, your visitors will leave your site with the impression that your copy was written by a baboon with a hangover before spending a dime. Since that's not your desired outcome, write your copy so that it reads well, not so that it has as many occurrences of your keyword phrase as possible. This goes for all aspects of your web site design.
