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Each page of your website contains elements that contribute to it’s overall success.  They must complement each other in achieving your goal — a call to action on the part of visitors. Home page is the main portal, and therefore deserves extra attention.

Home page of Attraction Web Design site

Maximize the value of each website page
Every page of your website contains elements that contribute to it’s overall success.  They must complement each other in achieving your goal — a call to action on the part of visitors.

Avoid Splash pages
Some sites start with a “front page” or “landing page” containing merely a brief video or static image, along with an “Enter” link.  In most cases, this is unnecessary and requires surfers to click again to get to the information they came for.  This can be frustrating to people and a page like this contains very little information for the search engine tigers to chew on!  Skip this and get to the point right away…

Home (index) page
The home page is by far the most important part of any site.  It is the main doorway to your organization by which the vast majority of visitors will arrive at.  First impression is key to help them decide to view internal pages.  You have 3 to 7 seconds to capture attention and convince visitors to stay, so the initial appearance, site title and headline should draw them into reading a brief introduction to your company. 

   • Official company logo – use similar colors and design as printed materials
   • Website title or company name – state your topic or name of organization
   • Main Headline – grab attention with a question or solution to a problem
   • Text – at least one or two paragraphs of introduction to your company and what you can do for your customers (or members).  Squeeze in as many “search terms” as possible without making copy hard to understand.
   • Images – one or more photos or graphics should reinforce the text and be a visual representation of how the site will help visitors
   • Slideshow or video – if a picture is worth 1,000 words, moving pictures could be worth a million!  Use your very best images to tell your story
   • Contact information – all pages should make it easy for visitors to request more information, but it is imperative that a phone number, email address or mailing address be visible to people ready to contact you based on their first glance at your site!
   • Current info – update home page regularly with a news item or mention a recent event to prove to visitors that your site is actually current.
   • Bullet lists – to avoid overwhelming visitors with lengthy text, use concise lists of features, benefits, samples or reasons for people to delve deeper into the site.   
   • Newsletter sign-up – Opt-in area for eBulletin, free gift, or membership to capture contact information for additional marketing opportunities.

All of these features should drive visitors toward a specific “Call to Action”. Failure to convert potential customers into sales leads is mostly due to homepages lacking primary and secondary calls to action. It may be a link that states, “Contact us for details” or “Tell us your situation and we will set up a conference call.”  Guide web users along your sales process to convert more of them into customers.  Read more tips!

Here are some bad ideas—things NOT to do when designing a website. You can annoy visitors to the point of driving traffic away forever.  Large files slow down pageloads.  Pop-up windows create more work and confusion for visitors. Splash or “entry pages” serve little purpose on most sites.

No pop-up windows
Don’t annoy visitors with automatic pop-up windows.  It is fine to allow new windows to open when links or text or images are moused over or clicked on, but let the viewer control that decision.  And provide a “close” button if the window does not disappear by itself.

No spaces in file names
Filenames (including page files and images) should not contain spaces.  Some servers do not support spaces.  The underscore may be used. 
These are good:  “bob3.jpg”, “about_us.html”.
These are not good:  “bob 3.jpg”, “about us.html”.

Audio must be controlled
Sound files must be used with caution.  If appropriate, automatic sound bites or background music can add to viewers’ experience. Give visitors control to turn on and off.  Music can seem very unprofessional for most business sites.  Even on more casual websites, it must be remembered that many viewers—particularly at the workplace— have speakers turned off.  Sound files can also cause delays in loading pages if not properly optimized or incorporated.   

Optimize image files
Compress image files which can cause slow page loading.  Especially if a viewer is using dial-up, a 25 KB image loads more quickly than a 200 KB one, and a 2 or 4 MB photo (right out of a digital camera) can cause severe delays. Don’t make your customers wait! 

Reduce file size of images

Once you or your webmaster learns how to crop photos and resize them to proper width and height for the web, adding new photos will be quick and easy.  Open the image in editing software such as Photoshop, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, or another program that came installed on your PC or came with your digital camera, scanner or printer. Specific procedures for using Microsoft Paint are listed at http://www.AttractWeb.com/images.php. You should “Save As” a different name, so that you still have the full size original.

Don’t overdue multimedia
Beware of excess multimedia – too many cool effects can cause confusion and hurt search engine rank.  Multiple blinking or moving images can make your site look like a circus.  Even an expertly created Flash movie can detract from nearby text if it commands too much attention.  Keep visual effects as subtle as possible, unless you happen to be a circus, or children’s site or rock band.

Avoid “Splash” or entry pages
Stay away from “Splash” pages unless it’s vital for you to convey an artsy or glamorous feel and can afford the risk of losing visitors. An entry page is usually the index or main page that directories and search engines would review and refer visitors to.  If there is little more than a movie or a handful of words, the search engine tigers will be furious for being given so little content to eat.  Visitors who are pressed for time may not be happy to have to click ‘enter’ to get to the meat of the site either. 
If at all possible, try to combine your impressive introduction to the website with the general overview of home page material.  In that way, your video, Flash movie or slideshow is directly supporting the words of description on the page.

Don't be too Flashy

Do not overuse Flash
To make websites more visually appealing and interactive, many designers specialize in using Adobe (Macromedia) Flash software.  Flash movies may be integrated into pages or entire websites may be constructed with Flash.  The danger is that more Flash means less content as far as Search Engines are concerned.  A completely Flash site offers no text for the tigers to feed on since it is all just movies and images on each page.  Even the internal links can’t be seen, so Search Engine “spiders” fail to see (and index) all of the pages on the site. 

Flash is fine if used on pages or websites that visitors are already aware of or directed to from more search engine friendly pages.  They can offer video game types of visual experiences that are attention grabbing for artistic or entertainment related themes.

Don’t use Frames
By designing a site with “frames”, certain sections of a page remain in place while others (usually the main section) can scroll up and down.  This is useful for maintaining a navigation area on the screen while reading long pages.  But search engines have difficulty indexing pages, so they are not worth the effort.