General Guidelines for Good Web Sites

General Guidelines for Good Web Sites

Are you a businessman/woman who wonders if your business would benefit from a web site? If so ask yourself these questions: Do I know what objectives I want from my web site? Does my overall marketing plan include use of an Internet web site? Can my customers communicate with me on the Internet site? Am I prepared to spend money to maintain and update the site? How will I promote my web site address?

A second point: how will you measure the success of your site and, if needed, change it. Other concrete measurements are: number of sales leads generated, savings on customer service expense, saving on information distribution, and developing new customers.

The mechanical aspects of the web site, to minimize visitor frustration and maximize their satisfaction are: quick load time (30 seconds or less); minimal but purposeful graphics; pages are easy to read, the site content is logical and well thought out to suit the visitor's needs, not the designers. The site should contain a company logo or banner, provide new and useful information, provide useful links to other related web sites and an ability to return to the home page from anywhere else on the site.

Ensure that your grammar is correct and you have no spelling or typographic errors. The site should provide easy navigation and direction, with functional internal links provided for rapid movement from one section of a page to another. Frames should be used in moderation and only when they serve a navigation purpose. A good site should provide some means of feedback for your visitors through an e-mail address, a mail in form or a guest book and contact information on every page.

Other points to remember are limited animation, and no psychedelic, cluttered backgrounds. If the page is going to take a long time to download (over 30 seconds) then a notice should be posted at the top warning visitors about the lengthy time. In addition an illustrated page should also provide a text only version of the material for those visitors who do not wish to spend time waiting for material to download