How to Design a Great Web Site

Perhaps this should be an article on how NOT to design a web site! I spend a lot of time on the net and view thousands of web pages, as most people do. What absolutely amazes me is the extremely poor design on some of the more serious business web sites.

Are you considering a web site for your business or organization? If you have a good web hosting service that provides a built-in page creator, there's no need to spend big bucks on developing your site -- If you follow some simple rules.

First, employ the KISS principle. You remember that, right? Keep it Simple, Stupid. A good web site that will attract and keep customers or visitors coming back does NOT require flashy gimmicks, automatic audio kicking in when you open the page, etc. The more you throw onto your home page, the less likely the visitor will look at it.

This may have been the case a year or two ago when flash objects were all the rage, and now the video inclusions. But expert web masters and marketers have come to their senses and are going minimalist, reducing and distilling the pages down to what the visitor expects: fast, easy navigation to get to the product or content information. If you don't capture the potential customer's attention with the first few seconds, they will move on and you have not only lost a sale, but possibly a returning visitor.

Here are the basics that you should always keep in mind for your web site:

- The value of simplicity that I touched on earlier. If you are selling can openers, the visitor does not want to see flashing graphics, a bloated page with irrelevant information, and worse yet, products other than what they were searching for. A large image of the can opener, along with informative content that explains the benefits, features and why they should buy yours, will go a long way to keeping that customer focused on your primary product - can openers! If you distract them with the other stuff mentioned above, you probably will lose the sale.