What Makes a Great Website?

Perhaps you have a completely unique product and you can sell your website visitors with a simple product sales pitch. If so, you're one of the lucky ones. Many of us sell products or offer services that are offered on thousands of other websites. We need to set ourselves apart from our competition. And how do we do that? By creating a great website!

Your website needs to be pleasing to the eye

This doesn't mean you need to go out and spend thousands of dollars on a web designer (but you can if you want to) or hire someone to design some fancy Flash graphics for you. If you keep the following tips in mind, you should have no trouble creating an eye-pleasing website:

1. Have plenty of white space for easy reading.

2. Have a consistent theme throughout your website. It's not only hard on the eyes when the theme is constantly changing, it's also confusing for your visitors.
 
Have a Solid Navigation Structure

Your website visitors need to be able to find their way around or they will leave in a hurry. Be sure to:

1. Put a link to all your important pages on ALL your pages. This can be in the form of an easy-to-use menu bar.

2. Have your contact information easily available on each page of your website.

3. Provide other important policy information like "shipping & returns", "hours of operations", "privacy policy", etc.

Have fast-loading pages

You may have some pretty graphics to show off, but if your pages aren't fast loading, your visitors will click elsewhere. If you have a number of graphics you want to include, split the graphics into a few pages.

Check your page loading times for free at Netmechanic.com. Remember, most people still access the Internet on a 28.8 K modem. Perhaps, you're on ADSL or cable modem, but most of the Internet world is not.

Provide Good Information & Something FREE

Offering something free will help drive traffic to any website. This can be free information, a free ebook, a free sample, a free information ezine, free shipping...whatever. Offer something of value, outside your sales pitch and visitors will return for more. They'll even tell their friends about it.

Make sure your content is well-written

It's true that most people don't do a lot of reading on the Internet when they're surfing. But you can bet that when they're ready to buy
or consider a business opportunity, they are going to be reading what
you have to say. The surfers aren't that important to you.

For tips on writing for the Internet, read Andrea Wilson's article: Writing for the Internet: 15 Simple Rules to Keep 'Em Reading Your Content

Provide Some Interactivity to Your Site

Try message boards or chat rooms. People like to have a place to offer their opinions and share information. Have contests, where people can come back often and enter. Make your visitors feel like they are a part of your site, not just a silent observer.

For the ultimate test, have an honest friend (one who isn't afraid to tell you the truth) read this article and then go to your website. Ask her how your website stands up to the "Great Website" Criteria.

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