The first thing your visitors notice will be the design of your website. Because first impressions are so important, you should get your design right on the first attempt, so that people won’t leave your site as soon as they enter it. These tips can help you prevent this outcome.
Incorporate a tagline prominently on your website. This expresses exactly what your business offers. This is important since the average user knows if they want to stay and explore a site within eight minutes.
Be sure that scanning your website is a simple matter. Usability testing has shown that visitors are interested in scanning the content for items of value, rather than reading every word. Having text in certain areas to create a more bold appearance will catch the attention of readers who quickly scan each page. Also, the more important info should be kept towards the top. This will satisfy your visitors and have them coming back for more.
You want to ensure that your site has passed the NoScript test. Download the NoScript extension on the Firefox web browser and activate it to see if your website can still be read. It is necessary that you pass it in order to sell items or services online as most of these functions require script or you won’t be generating revenue.
Minimize page sizes and loading times. Not everyone who uses the Internet enjoys speedy connections, so they are likely to lose interest if your site takes a long time to load. If the wait is too long, your visitors may give up and leave.
Avoid pop-ups. Everyone hates getting pop-up after pop-up on a website. It does not matter who or what the website represents, most visitors will not hang around if they are bombarded with pop-ups. Make sure your customers are happy by eliminating these pesky ads from your site. If you have a host where pop-ups are mandatory, then perhaps you should be out looking for a new one.
Keep your topics separated. Each different topic should have a separate page on your website. This will eliminate visitor confusion and make it easier for search engines to gain a clear and broad view of the site and help you build traffic.
Search engine capabilities are an essential part of a large site. It is best to put a search box in the top right corner right of your homepage. Make sure that anyone can search for any item that would be included in your site. You can find search functions to use for your site on sites like Google.
Use some pictures on your site to make your site attractive. Pictures on your website can provide a friendlier approach to visitors. When people see a picture, they spend more time on the site and clicking to see more.
To create a better-optimized site, avoid using frames. While frames look nice, they do not help when it comes to search engines. Your website won’t rank high if the information isn’t visible. This will lead to a reduction in visitors.
Always use fonts that look professional and are readable. Look at the font of a site and you can distinguish whether or not it’s professional. Don’t use fancy or non-standard fonts. Some people may not have these fonts installed on their computers. Unique fonts tend to default on most user’s computers if it’s not available to them. This will inevitably come off looking bad.
File Types
Your website’s load times are effected by which file types you use for images. You are better off keeping the graphics to the normal GIFs and JPEGs so it loads smoothly. While BMP and PNG files might be better for creating web graphics, these file types tend to use significantly more disk space. To be sure visitors have a positive experience, graphics should be converted to file types that are better-sized.
All load times on the website you design should be as fast as possible. Most visitors will leave if it takes a long time to load your website. Speed your website up by having less scripts running, few graphics, minimal amount of flash, use SSI files, tweak the HTML, use server side caching, and lessen the amount of CSS and JS coding.
Even though development platforms provide you with code, some are not nearly as trustworthy as classic text editors. A WYSIWYG editor allows you to drag and drop, cut and paste, and basically create a website as you would a word processing document. If you hope to gain a real understanding of coding, though, then a text editor is a good learning tool.
A basic layout is best for your website, this way you can get a handle on the basics of website creation initially. Beginning with a no-frills site allows you to constantly innovate and change things as you learn new techniques.
Use good looking graphics throughout your website. Prevent a bland appearance by wrapping text around your images. People get more into your site if they see that you put a lot of effort into it.
You should have a visible tagline included on not only every webpage that is in the domain, but also the sub-domains. They should be bold and large so that the viewer can see them. This tagline let’s people know what the page is about and whether or not they should stay there or not.
In order to be a successful web designer, you will have to become familiar with Html5. Learning html5 can take a lot of time, but is a real benefit to building your website.
Keep the curiosity of your visitor in mind. Don’t disrupt the natural flow of his or her exploration of your site. This also means avoiding surveys or pushy offers that cause viewers to break their focus and lose interest. Forcing users to behave in a certain manner can cause alienation; users may avoid your site and badmouth your company.
A big part of your site’s first impression is its design. This factor alone can determine whether a visitor sticks around or goes to a competitor’s website. Your visitors should get a good first impression. It is hoped that these tips have given you some of the tools you will need to be a success with website design and traffic retention.