Red Frog, Inc.

by Ladan Lashkari

You know how important it is to drive high traffic to your web site. What's even more important though, is designing a web site that makes them stay...a web site that sells!

After all, what's the use of spending all your time and money on creating a unique product that many people want, building a 100-page site, winning top rankings on search engines and spending $5,000 in advertising if nobody stays once they arrive?

In this article, I'm going to tell you five common web site design mistakes to avoid or your traffic and sales will suffer.

1. Slow Loading

One of the biggest problems you see on the Internet is that some web sites are slow loading. There are many sites that take more than 30 minutes to load -- a lifetime on the Internet.

People just don't have time and patience to wait that long. The best way to make your site fast-loading is to use more text and fewer graphic.

Wild graphics and animations are "traffic killers" so don't use them unless you really need to. If it takes more than 10 seconds for your web pages to load, chances are you're losing half of your site's traffic!

To make sure your web site loads fast, view your site with slow connections. If it doesn't load in 10 seconds, reduce the number of graphics. Also, you can use WebGraphics Optimizer software to reduce graphic size.

Don't assume all visitors have fast connections. Many people still use slow connections like 36.6 kbps or 28.7 kbps, so design your web site so everyone can view it quickly - not just the few who have high-speed Internet.

2. Hard to Navigate

People should easily and quickly find what they're looking for. If visitors have to click on 10 links, scroll down each page, and click on the Back button several times to finally find how to get to the page they're looking for, your site is hard to navigate.

Make it easy for them to find the information that they want. They should enjoy surfing your site. Make your site easy to navigate!

People don't always enter your web site from your home page, especially if you submit your site to search engines. That's why each page should have a title so they always know where they are at.

What's more, each page should have a link to the important pages of your web site, like home page, order page, contact page, etc. so it will be much easier for them to go to the page they're looking for. For example, if they enter from your order page and want to visit your home page, they should be able to find the link or you'll lose a valuable customer.

Also, don't use unusual names for your links because visitors should know where each link will take them at a glance. For example, if you want to create a link to your order page, "Sale" is not a good name for a link because it's unclear and confusing. Use "Order" instead because it's common and at least 90% of websites use this name to link to their order page.

The key is making it easy to find what they want, so make your site easy to navigate!

3. Unsuitable Colors

The best color for text is black and white for your background. Your copy is the most important part of your web site, so it's essential that you make it easy to read, and nothing is easier to read than black text on white background.

The easier it is to read your copy, the more effective it will be. If you use inappropriate colors that make your copy difficult to read, few people will bother reading it and if no one reads your copy, how are you going to make any sales?

Also, don't change the default color for hyperlinks because it will confuse visitors. Millions of people on the Internet recognize hyperlinks as blue, and visited hyperlinks as purple. So when they're looking for a specific link, they search for blue underlined text.

4. Overusing Pop-ups

What's a pop-up? It's a window - usually a small window - that is opened when you click on a link or open or close a window. Unfortunately, many people go overboard with pop-ups, which only results in annoying visitors.

They think that when a visitor leaves a page, if three pop-up windows appear to ask them to order, they are three times more likely to make a sale, but they're completely wrong! Not only will they not make any sales, but they'll also lose a potential customer forever.

Don't get me wrong! Using pop-ups can be an effective way to get a higher response to your offer.

If you use them wisely, they're good marketing tools. Just remember not to overuse or abuse them. Time is valuable and we should respect our visitors' time.

Pop-ups are best used to offer something of high value to your site visitors... something that you know they're very interested in. Make an offer that they can't resist!

5. Forgetting Your Purpose

Why are you creating your website? Do you want to sell your products and services? What do you expect from your site? Decide on your purpose before you start designing your site. This is very important.

Each part of your web site should lead to your purpose. All links, graphics, titles, and the colors you choose should lead to what you want.

If you forget your purpose, one day you'll see that your web site isn't what you wanted. All that time you spent designing it were wasted because you didn't keep your purpose in mind.

Sometimes people are so wrapped up in being a website owner that they forget their site is to sell. They just look for ways to make it look better. But there's a problem here: beauty won't sell.

They spend a lot of time designing a "thing of beauty" and they're sure that they'll make a lot of sales, but they're wrong! People won't buy their product just because their site is beautiful. You should keep your purpose in mind all the time. This is very important!

Ladan Lashkari is the author of Proven Marketing Tips FREE newsletter that reveals hundreds of killer Internet marketing tips and tricks. To access her articles, visit: http://www.provenmarketingtips.com