3 Simple Ways To Dramatically Improve Your Website

Before you start worrying about marketing your website on the internet it always pays dividends to look at the website itself and get the fundamentals right before looking to shout about it from the virtual mountain-tops.

You may already have thought about the following 3 ways and some of you may already have them in place on your website. If so ? congratulations ? you're well on the way to having a website that will bring you more business. So here they are then ? the 3 Simple Ways To Dramatically Improve Your Website..

1. You're Fishing For Visitors ? You'll Need This To Hook Them.

Ever been surfing on a website that held your attention and then the phone rings? You take the call, take some notes, get distracted, visit another website and before you know it you've forgotten all about the website you were viewing. It happens all the time and if you don't have a Bookmarking tool on your website it will be happening with the people that come to your website. A Bookmarking tool is just a simple link or logo that your visitors can click on in order to bookmark your website or add it to their favourites. It is best to have the button located on the homepage but an even better option is to have a bookmarking button on every page so a visitor can actually bookmark each specific page of your website for safe-keeping. Look to the left of this article and you will see the bookmarking button we use ? click on it to see how it adds this specific page to your favourites ? nifty eh?

2. 'X' Marks The Spot.

Visitors come to your website and if you're lucky ? they like it and click beyond the homepage. Excellent. But they can't find what they're looking for. Uh oh, you could be in trouble. There's a lot of information on your website and Mr. Visitor doesn't have time to sift through it all to find what he's looking for. You'd better hope that he's either very patient or that you've provided him with a simple map to help him get to the 'treasure' he is looking for. A Site Map is an essential item ? particularly on larger websites.

There is nothing more frustrating than hunting around for something and wasting time when just a simple one pager that presents a summary of all the information on your website could be used. A Site Map should be reachable from all pages of your website in just one click and should have clickable links on it so that a visitor can zoom straight through to their desired location without having to hunt around. If you don't give them a map your visitors may become frustrated searching around for that desired piece of information and they may leave your website never to return.

3. Don't Make Your Visitors Have To Write An Email To Contact You

If you are inviting enquiries or contact from visitors to your website you need to provide them with a way of doing this that is as easy as possible for them. Just posting your email address on the website is not the best solution. Why? Because when they click on it they need to then create an email from scratch. Do you know how busy your visitors are? They hardly have time to read the content of your homepage ? never mind create an email from scratch. The solution? You need to use a simple form. A form enables you to standardise the responses that you receive and it also makes it very simple for your visitors to get in touch with you ? all they need to do is pop in their name, email address and tick a few boxes and that's it.

Making it easy for your visitors to contact you isn't the only reason that using a form is a great idea. Doing so means you can get some information back from each person that fills in the form. You can ask them how they discovered your website, which other websites they like to visit ? you can ask them anything! Anything that is going to help you learn more about them, more about who they are and more about what will make them buy from you. You think they would tell you all this if they were creating an email from scratch? No ? of course they wouldn't! That's why you need a form.

Mike Cheney, www.magnet4web.com (c)

About The Author

Are You Getting Your MagnetMail? - Mike Cheney's World-Famous Free Magic Mail To Make Your Website Magnetic, Get Yours Now: www.magnet4web.com/website_services/?page=magnetmail

---

Web Design: Use it to Showcase the Message

If you are designing a web site for which the... Read More

Why You Should Hire a Professional Website Designer

Your web site should always adhere to standards!A professional web... Read More

Website Advertising: 10 Dynamic Tactics To Super-Charge Your Sales

Here are 10 dynamic website advertising tactics to super-charge your... Read More

Why Long Web Pages are Better than Short Ones

Many Internet sites that try to sell you something have... Read More

Build Web Pages from the Top Left Corner Down

There are two important reasons to build your website from... Read More

No Matr How Goud The Infomation...

Typos, misspellings, hideous grammar, exclamation overkill and run-on sentences all... Read More

Graphic Terms- The Basics Part I

You're almost set. The content of your website, e-book, or... Read More

How To Create A Stunning Drop Capital Effect On Your Web Pages

Drop Capitals are frequently used in many newspapers, books and... Read More

Keyword Density

We can't emphasize enough the importance of including keyword-rich content... Read More

HTML - A Website Language Explained - For Over 35s

This is a very perfunctory look at the website code... Read More

Free Web Design Advice

In this article I will give advice and tips of... Read More

Bad Web Design: ActiveX

ActiveX uses an interesting method for enforcing security ... it... Read More

Create A Web Site That Builds Trust

If someone doesn't know you personally, will they trust you... Read More

Top Ten Ways to Use Audio on Your Site

Audio can provide an added dimension to your site. It... Read More

When Good Computers Go Bad

Remember the day that you got your new computer (or... Read More

8 Tips for Designing a Great Website

Square buttons, round buttons, flashy buttons ? will they match... Read More

How To Choose The Right Web Design Company

1. Size does not equate to competencePeople sometimes assume a... Read More

Website Promotion Ideas: 10 Tips On How To Use Your Picture Effectively To Increase Your Sales

Seeing is believing.One trick to increase your visibility as well... Read More

Business Opportunity for Graphic Designers

As a graphic designer, you are sitting on a gold... Read More

Through The Looking Glass

My mother used to take me along when she visited... Read More

Wording Up Your Website

Back to basics. Forget funky design, good copywriting is the... Read More

Choosing Form Over Function Kills Your Site

Never put form over function. Why? Because it's crucial that... Read More

Make it Clear What Your Website is About

Just about every list of the "Top 10 Web Design... Read More

Creating Quality Websites

Websites, there are literally billions of them out there in... Read More

3 Simple Ways To Dramatically Improve Your Website

Before you start worrying about marketing your website on the... Read More

9 Ways to Gain Your Visitors Respect

The internet is filled with sites and they are good... Read More

3 Tips You Can Use Right Now to Improve Your Web Sites Usability

Studies done by Jakob Nielson the man touted as the,... Read More

Website Promotion and Design Tips

Are you thinking that it is about time your small... Read More

Fast Web Design For The Skint Webmaster

About two years ago, I had a go at commercial... Read More

Website Savvy: 10 Key Steps to Turn Your Customers ON!

"How to turn "slightly interested" customers into "I've got to... Read More

3 Tips For Writing Content That Will Make You Sales

Content is king. Without content your website is an empty... Read More

Concentrate On Web Content Instead Of Search Engine Optimization

For many webmasters the title of my article may seem... Read More

Developing An Effective Physical Therapy Web Site

Physical therapists have unique web presence needs. An effective site... Read More