Below is a list of components detailing how
to make a website attractive. We will discuss the mandatory parts
of a site, and the components which would be a nice addition.
1. Make sure you state the purpose of the site
up front so people can clearly see what the site is about, most
sites these days don't do this. If a vistitor can't find what their
looking for within the first 10 seconds of being on the site, they're
usually gone.
2. Give visitors a way to find what their looking
for right away. This can be simply done by adding a search tool,
make sure this stands off the page too. Many people that come to
your site, already know what they want, and just want to go directly
to that product.
3. Photos can be a very important aspect of
any site, this helps to keep the visitors attention and lets them
view your site longer and more thoroughly. However, make sure to
only use a few photos per page, too many photos can hurt the page
download time, which will detract users on slower connections.
4. Use some sort of traffic anylizer tool to
keep track of all of your visitors information so you can know how
to target your marketing campaigns, and other promotional material.
This also helps if you use a pay-per-click campaign so you know
where to place your assets.
5. Place items on your site that keeps vistitors
interested. This can be anything from audio, video, or flash animations.
Make sure you compress any extra media on your site to keep the
file size down.
6. Write articles and press releases on your
site to help promote outside traffic, link exchange is also a very
useful method to promote traffic.
7. Use different forms of interactive media
such as forms, guest books, flash applications, etc....
8. If you use a shopping cart make sure everything
is fluid. When a vistitor goes through your cart and purchases something,
or fills out a contact form, make sure to setup a thank you page.
9. Make sure any offers you have on your site
have a purpose, and can be useful to the customer, it's pointless
to place disoriented material on your site.
10. Develop a clear path for a new user to
follow on their first visit, this way you can grab their attention
and bring them into the rest of your site.
11. Develop a news letter that is consitent
with the 80/20 rule, 80% useful material, 20% marketing, this way
you'll generate more traffic instead of just trying to link people
to your site.
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