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Articles Influential Website Design Why is it that so many webmasters don't actually know how to make the most out of websites? I'm not talking space and design. I'm not talking search engine optimisation. I'm not even going too deeply into navigation and broken links, but even more basic than that. What makes people stay and buy?
The answer (we think) is often obvious, so we decided to put together a list of points to keep your visitors on the site and ultimately to help them to buy.
Make the price obvious.
There's no getting around it. If you're selling something, ask for the money. Tell your customer how much you want. Ultimately, there WON'T be 100% take-up. People DO browse, but for every person who can't see a price, you're probably going to lose their custom. Just look at some of the big supermarkets. They have prices VERY clearly displayed and they seem to make loads of money. Just do it.
Navigation is key
Without decent navigation, you cannot hope to sell anything. What happens if someone finds a product they like on a rival site, then tries to find it on yours and can't? It doesn't take a programmer to work out it's a bad idea. Make a flow diagram and work-out exactly how to get there. If there's more than one route, make the shortest one the most obvious and easiest. Minimise the number of clicks needed to find ANY product.
Frames must die!
Okay, so this has been covered in previous newsletters by billions of "experts", but Frames really are a bad idea for most websites (not all... just most - phpMyAdmin seems to work very well). Frames for shops (for example) are a really bad idea. How can I bookmark my favourite pair of stripy green underpants when I visit a framed underwear shop? Use a scripting language like PHP, ASP or some other kind of pre-processor for HTML. This allows the user to bookmark a page directly. You could always ask us about our shopping cart customisation solutions.
Reduce download times
I'm not talking about turning everything into text but large images, video, audio and messy flash files can all reduce download time. This is becoming less of a problem as more people get faster connections, but these fast connections are there to speed things up, not to allow better stuff at the same snail's pace. If you have a large image uploaded, consider using something like the PHP GD library to reduce the size of the image BEFORE it's downloaded. Or just re-scale it yourself before you upload it to the server. Download times can be a major reason why people don't stay on a site. Why should I wait for your site to load when I can just go to eBay?
Use persuasive language
Use positive language. There are loads of tips and tricks that can be used to increase your chance of a sale. The best words are things like "Excellent", "fantastic" or "wonderful". This kind of positive wording can also be used with pictures that "speak a thousand words". You want people to feel sunny and warm when they buy a blanket, so have a really nice picture of a person in a blanket, with a warm glow. All too often I go to sites with pictures of fake smiles or ambiguous expressions. Get a real grin on! Make me feel like I want to buy with visuals and positive wording, but for goodness sake, leave off the background music! Use CSS and check compatibility. You can do this by visiting W3C at http://validator.w3.org/
Using CSS is good practice. It allows a lot more scope for designers to change a site at the drop of a hat, should they need to. It also makes the site more accessible. Real-world shops are required by the disability discrimination act to cater for disabled people. So are websites. Tables and frames can (sometimes) cause problems for blind people who use screen readers to access information, so CSS is a better way forward.
You have an advantage with an accessible website that others won't have. Make the most of your site and check the W3C's validator program to ensure your site is compatible.
Use a good payment gateway.
We all know of PayPal and other free services, but they're not the best for a professional image. (Sorry)
These free services are fine, provided that you allow BOTH this and another, more professional looking system.
If you’re taking payments online, you'll need a merchant account and a good payment gateway. You're more likely to get someone to pay you if you make it look like you've thought about your gateway provider and preferably design or customise the payment pages to fit with your brand image. Myo International can do this kind of payment gateway for you, or advise your existing designers on best-practice if required.
Use a good admin section
We are regularly asked by our clients to produce admin sections for their websites to dynamically alter their pages themselves. Ultimately this reduces cost of development because, after the initial outlay of building the system, you don't need to bother your webmaster again. A good admin section also saves time, even if you are a webmaster, yourself. All you need to do is login, make the change and then relax with a cup of tea.
You can use CMS (content management systems) to control anything on a site, provided that you've made provision. We at Myo International use CMS to control things like: Calendars of events, bookings of property, listing of items for sale / rent, daily polls, images, membership profiles, image activation, news, keeping track of client's requests and invoicing... you name it, it can be done!
Make images clear
There is NO POINT in an image being unclear. If you have text on an image, put the image as a background image and add normal text over the top. This is not only better for Search Engine Optimisation, but also enables visitors to select the text and put it in a text file to refer to it later. This means that your visitors can compare prices with other sites easily. It also means that they can (if they like) increase the font size of the image without zooming in to a bitmap image.
Update your copyright
It sounds obvious, but if you show your site as copyright 2005, why should I visit it? It's already years old. Why does that appeal? If it's a food shop it doesn't instill much confidence. What about fashion? Several years old… I don’t think so!
You can use an automatically updating script. For example by using the date(Y) function of PHP. If you have a "last updated" notice on your website, either update it regularly or get the thing off your site forever. Old looking websites (Cobweb-sites) are a bad idea and don't encourage people to buy
