Basic Rules for Any WEB site

Basic Rules
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The 12 Rules

Overall Look
Your visitor makes her assessment of your website within seconds of entering it for the first time. Schlock doesn't cut it - your site must have a highly professional appearance. Use a graphics designer. Go for clean, simple, and attractive. Underwhelm.

Home Page
Your home page must convey your complete message. Think billboard. Tell me exactly what you want me to know right up front - tell me simply, clearly, and immediately.

Message
It is tough getting visitors. Give them a reason to stay. What is your offer? Exactly to whom is it directed? What makes your site better than others like it? What is in it for me if I stick around?

Speed
It is mandatory that your site be quick. Use graphics judiciously. Get rid of the gimmicks. Cut out the fancy scripts. Try to keep each page and all its components under 20K bytes.

Graphics Size
Good graphics adds pop to your site. But graphics are your biggest bandwidth hog. So be careful. Set your graphics to the proper resolution (72 dpi), crop them carefully, reduce their dimensions, and use compression software to squeeze out extra bytes.

Text Legibility
Don't get fancy with fonts. A simple font on a light background is usually best. Separate wide blocks of text into columns. Use plenty of white space.

Page Skimability
Use many short headings. Highlight key words within the body of your copy to elaborate on the headings.

Copy Quality
Your web story is told with words - but your visitor is very impatient. He does not like to read. So make your copy simple, sharp and direct. Use half as many words as you think you should. Keep your paragraphs and sentences short. Use the word "you" a lot.

Navigation
Make it easy for your visitor to navigate your site - no matter where he finds himself. Include a link back to your home page on every page of your site.

Contact Form
Your visitor does not like filling out your forms. If you must collect information from your visitors, collect as little as is necessary. If you plan on collecting your visitor's email address, tell her how you plan to use it.

Testimonials
Many of your visitors are suspicious of cheats and incompetent business people. Prominently list testimonials from your best customers to help assuage their doubts.

Mistakes
You will lose visitors if your site has broken links, missing graphics, or scripts that don't run correctly. Check your site often with the popular browsers (IE, Netscape, and AOL) and fix the mistakes.

That is it, twelve rules - all common sense, most easy to follow. But I am startled at the number of sites that ignore them. Whether you do the work yourself or use a pro, overhaul your site now - it is a necessary first step to winning on the web.

Article by Bruce Lawrence, proprietor of theNETrep.

Basic Rules
for
Any WEB site

• How to Start
  

• The 12 Rules
  

• Advertise More Effectively
  

• Web Page Traffic
  

• E-Commerce