This is a no brainer but make sure all of your buttons are hyperlinked to a page and the right destination page. No one including Google likes broken link pages. It can be tedious but do it anyway. As you hover over the button and look down in the left-hand part of your screen, you will see the hyperlinked page. Just verify that yours are correct.
5. About Us - Is Your Map Reliable?
People usually want to know basic things before they do business with you. Who are you, how do I get a hold of you, what is your product or service guarante, will you resell my email address, what is your privacy policy, when will I get the product, etc. You need to answer these questons to create trust between you and your potential customer.
6. Sitemap - How Do I Find My Way Around This Big City?
Let's say you have a lot of products or pages and resources. A sitemap helps people to find what they are looking for quickly without have to rummage through your whole site like a lost soul. They are not hard to create but are useful for large sites. It also helps the search engines to know what you are about very quickly.
7. Fast Loading Pages - All Lanes Are Go!
There is nothing worse than slow loading pages. You can optimize your graphics for your website. People hate to wait. You can chck your page load time and page rank on Alexa.com. Slow pages equal death to an online business.
8. Shopping Cart - Need To Buy Some Souvenirs
If you are selling items or services, you need a reliable and well organized shopping cart. I have seen some websites that have a zillion products listed and to email them for orders. What a nightmare! Yes, the shopping carts will charge you a fee, but it is worth it for them to handle the transaction. There are many good shopping carts available and I would research them based on your business' needs.
9. Templates or Original Design- Chevrolet or Porsche
People often think that to have a website designed is going to cost thousands. So they opt for the templates and throw together sites. There is nothing wrong with this approach except I can tell the difference between what I call a "canned" site and one that was created from scratch. While I don't think a website that uses templates will turn off a customer, I just think it may not be as appealing.
Have fun with your online business. You can go to any number of photography sites and download professional photos from cows to race cars. This will make your site look more customized.
Again, I recommend that you shop for a good web designer. I paid around $400 for a basic site to go up. I know others would have charged me $1000 or more. That's why you need to shop and see examples of their work.
10. Customer Service - The Finish Line!
Okay so how is customer service a website design? Well, customer service should be written all over your site. From tips, to fre reports, to guarantees, to fast and reliable shopping. People want to know you know what you are talking about and can deliver the goods they want. Give a little and I guarante you'll get in back tenfold.
