subject: Building Your Own Professional Website [print this page] You should always remember the basics of running your web site. In this article are five of the hottest tips to help you create a web site that everyone will be talking about.
Always have useful, practical and interesting information. Consider what the goals of your website are and implement the changes that will help you to achieve these goals. It is important that you include links, articles, newsletters and promotions in your site. Update your site regularly. If you want your visitors to keep coming back to your site than you should keep offering up-to-date information.
Make your website easy to view. If you really want your site to be easy to navigate then you should group all of your site links together in one place. This will help to direct your visitors to the "access Panel" to the rest of your site easily. You may have other links that you need to have on your web site such as: media, career opportunities, contact us and about us but they can go at the top or the bottom of the page. These links may be important for your site but they will not be the main attractions. When you have finished creating the new pages and adding all the links, remember to include a home link on all of your pages. These links will help you to guide your visitors back to the main page whilst removing the need for them to clink back several times to get there. Navigation is crucial so you should spend some time checking and rechecking all of your page and homes links.
Your site needs to be fast to keep up with the competition. If you want to keep your visitors attention then you need to reduce the amount of graphics you use or try and keep them between 80 - 100k. Try and keep the fact that not everyone who views your website will have the best computers or internet connection at the disposal. Be sure to make your site cross compatible to help those who are even using text browsers are able to access it.
You need to know who are the people you want to come to your site. The people you are aiming your site at are your target audience. You need to identify what the age group, gender, class and spending habits of your target audience are. This will help you to create a likable atmosphere on the your site. You want to create a space for the few not the many.
Offer real contact to your visitors. You want your customers to get in touch with you, you want them to be able to feel like they can tell you what they want from you; you can do this on your contact us page. This will give you a way to communicate directly with your customers in a way that will help both of you. Make sure you answer their questions, comments and concerns, you should never leave them hanging. If you are looking for business to customer contact there are several things you can do, such as newsletters and email marketing that will help to keep your visitors aware of what is going on even if they haven't visited in a while.
Use the information contained in this article not only to improve your own but to evaluate other websites. These tips will help you to keep your site strong, professional and give you the ability to identify those that aren't.
