How To Build A Website To Attract And Keep Visitors

When building a website it is sometimes tempting to fill it with all sorts of gimmicks and graphics trying to make it as bright and attractive as possible. You cram as much information as possible onto your home page competing for your visitors attention. This could actually lose you visitors!

Your website needs to be attractive to the search engines so they know you are there. As search engines can only see words, don't fill your site with too many images as this will make it harder for the engines to crawl your site. It will also confuse visitors to your site as they will be overwhelmed with all the information.

Use colour wisely for the text on your site, as some colour combinations will be easier to read than others. For instance, black or dark grey on white gives the maximum contrast. Use regular breaks in the text as one large block of text is harder to read and your visitor will lose interest.

Have a universal design which you use on all your pages rather than a different design on each page, which is easier on the eye and appears professional.

To keep a visitor on your site as long as possible have links to help them navigate their way around.

Make sure the information they are looking for is going to be as easy as possible to find. If it is too difficult to find their way around they will leave your site without buying anything or signing up for your newsletter.

Make it obvious what the site is about and make the lead attractions on your site stand out. People use the Internet to find information quickly and usually for free so give something of value, such as a free business course and make the offer stand out to catch the eye of your visitor.

Overall, your site should be pleasing to the eye, easy to navigate and the pages should load quickly-people don't have time to waste waiting for a page to load!

Visit your own website and view it from a visitors point of view. Do you find the experience pleasant? Or do you find yourself confused with the layout and waiting too long when you click on a link to a page. Do you have broken links? Check your website frequently as broken links will put a person off your site immediately. Would you go back to a site that can't be bothered to check it all works correctly?

When building a website work on ways to keep your visitor interested and above all, make your site easy to navigate.

Remember, people who use the Internet do so to find an answer to a problem quickly, cheaply and preferably free!