Essentials of Good Business Web Site Design

by Fiona, Web Goddess

More and more businesses are finding it useful to have a company web site. And, it is not only the Fortune 500 companies with multimillion dollar advertising budgets that take advantage of web advertising. Local businesses such as grocery stores, specialty shops, and car dealerships are finding that web advertising can not only be significantly less expensive than the cost of radio, TV, or newspaper advertising, it can also be more versatile. Restaurants and bars can provide menus and information on specials often for less than the cost of an ad in the yellow pages. Tourist sites are discovering that for little cost they can deliver much more information to potential customers than they can through billboards and brochures. Service groups and non-profit agencies can spread the word of their organizations and in many cases have no ongoing costs.

So, what is important in creating a business home page? Designing a web site for a business is very different than designing a personal web site. The things that you find cute, or humorous, or clever on your kid's personal web site you will find irritating, childish, and amateurish on a business web site. The successful business site web designers have learned to design pages that load quickly and to get their message across quickly and in a cohesive, coherent, professional manner.

Following are some guidelines we find useful in business web page design:

• MAKE IT EASY TO FIND INFORMATION ON YOUR SITE. A simple, well-organized, easy-to-navigate site is critical on a business web site.
• USE A CONSISTENT LOGO AT THE TOP OF EVERY PAGE. Identification graphics such as a masthead or title bar at the top of each web page will help to remind a visitor whose site they are visiting. By using the same logo graphic, subsequent web pages will load faster.
• MAKE SURE THERE ARE LINKS TO THE FRONT PAGE ON EACH WEB PAGE. Remember that a visitor may not always enter your site at the front web page. They may have book marked the page or maybe they found the page by using a search engine. In either case you want a visitor to be able to easily get back to the beginning.
• DO NOT USE LINKS THAT JUMP SOMEONE TO THE MIDDLE OF THE PAGE. This technique often confuses the person as to exactly where they are in the site. It is also frustrating when they find the exact information they want, click on the "print" icon, and instead of getting only the material they saw on the screen they have to wait for their printer to print many pages of other information they find useless.
• DO NOT USE "Under Construction" SIGNS. The picture of a little worker in a hard hat is cute the first time it is seen but, it frustrates the person looking for information if it has not changed the next time it is viewed. Leave this off and instead wait until the site is finished and presentable. This is a sure give-away of an amateur site.
• DO NOT USE BLINKING TEXT. Blinking text can also be distracting and interfere with your site's message. Again, this "cute trick" is a sign of an amateur site.
• MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO MISSPELLED WORDS. Typos and misspelled words are sure to be spotted and are unprofessional.
• DO NOT OVERLOAD ANY PAGE WITH GRAPHICS AND IMAGES. Some use of images is great as it will liven up your message and capture their attention. The average "web surfer" will however only wait 10 to 15 seconds for the page to load.
• DO NOT USE LARGE GRAPHICS OR PICTURES. Huge image files seem to take forever to load on some computer monitors. Keep in mind that not everyone accessing your site has the latest and greatest equipment.
• CHOOSE BACKGROUNDS CAREFULLY. Color is important. Like with images, it can add something important that will hold your customers attention. Background colors or patterns that make it difficult to read the text will make your reader go elsewhere for information.
• DO NOT MAKE YOUR READER WAIT TO HEAR YOUR PRIMARY MESSAGE. Business web surfers have very little patience for sites which appear to have little or no useful content. If they don't read something that tells them they have found some useful information on the first screen to screen and a half they will not stick around.
• USE JAVA SPARINGLY. Java or Java-script message can sometimes be seen as intrusive, often slows down loading, and sometimes is blamed for crashing a user's browser software.
• DO NOT OVERLOAD WITH ANIMATION. Sometimes animation is tasteful and business like however it often just makes the site look amateurish and should therefore be used sparingly and with caution.
• DO PROVIDE AN EMAIL LINK FOR COMMENTS OR MORE INFORMATION. Many potential customers who would never take the time to call or put a stamp on an envelope will instead take a few moments to drop you an email if you make it easy for them!
• CONSIDER PUTTING AN ONLINE GUEST BOOK ONTO YOUR PAGES. Particularly if your pages are from a non-profit agency or a tourist related site the ability to show comments and testimonials will be invaluable.
• VIEW THE FINAL WEB PAGE IN A WEB BROWSER. Dangling HTML tags visible on the Web page are often caused by the use of some of the Web page generating software packages.