In the blink of an eye! That’s when it takes a visitor to check out the overall look of your website. Research has recently shown that a site visitor will determine if you like your website in 1/20 per second. That is less than the time it takes to blink! And in less than 10 seconds they decide to stay on your website or leave!
The report, published in a recent issue of Behavior and Information Technology, states that “if the first impression is negative, it is more likely to dismiss people. It's just a response to life, "Gitte Lindgaard told Reuters. Not to mention the report, is what makes the website a success, pleasing to the eye, but only how long it can take a visitor to make that decision.
In these 6 years we have developed websites, having the ability to explore many different styles and looks of websites. We also read effective sites to discover what the secret really is. What we found is amazing. Are you okay?
It's no secret! Well, there is no single, correct way to build a website. There are, however, many “wrong” ways to avoid it.
The real secret to a good website, is to eliminate anything that drives your visitors away. And how does one do what you are asking? By understanding your target market. That is a real strategy for designing an effective website, and more importantly a home page that will keep your visitors engaged.
Too often new website owners think they need all the hardware and steering available. They often pack their homepage with many items that are simply “eye candy” and have no real value to the viewer. Some people strip their sites and everything you see for miles and miles of content, and there are no attractive images to entertain.
What is needed is a site with a proper balance of images and content. By “right”, we mean anything that is most exciting to your intended audience. If you are trying to attract the attention of elementary school children, then having a large collection of brightly colored pictures, bright colors, and large fonts may be appealing. However, if you are attracting Fortune 500 companies those strategies can definitely shut down.
I like to think of a website as a house. Take your house as an example. You probably have a brightly colored front door, and perhaps a crown or other decorative (even a nice door knocker) hanging on the door. You may have a special type of mat that you spend time choosing just to give your guest an acceptable place to wipe their feet. You keep the area around your front door clean and tidy. Your front door is welcoming and warm, which makes your guests feel like they want to enter, that they want to see more.
In the same way, your home page is the front door of your website. This is a page you should spend a lot of time building, because if visitors don't go through it then other pages will not matter! You want this page to look good (but not complicated), to navigate easily (but not boring), and to have the right amount of content to capture the attention of your visitor.
Let's start with the visual appeal of your homepage.
First you have to have a logo designed professionally. Your company name featured in the blank Arial text will not just cut across most of your visitors. A well-designed logo is the first step in gaining loyalty with your visitor, and as a result it should be displayed prominently at the top of your website.
As well as a memorable logo, your website should include the colors your audience will respond to. For more information on choosing colors, please see our "Color Theory" article at http://www.nicmedia.com/color_theory.htm.
Clear images are also important to help the viewer relate to your website. Professional photos can achieve this easily and are still affordable. There are many stock photography houses that offer high resolution photos at very affordable prices, or you can hire your own photographer to do the custom work.
If you use pictures of people, keep them down in the world. Studies show that although viewers like to see the attractive people in their group, they should not be seen as role models. It is very important that the images show the contact person who looks like him or her "real" in his or her eyes rather than being built up.
Your home page should be organized so that visitors can quickly understand what they can accomplish. A typical website has a logo at the top (sometimes called a masthead), with a horizontal or vertical rotation on the left hand side. Yes, this may seem old-fashioned and out-of-date, but this is what visitors have come to expect and rely on. When that happens a lot they feel comfortable and tend to back off.
Navigation is the key to the flow of your website. Your navigation should have links that can be easily seen. Home, About Us, Our Products, Our Services, Contact Us - yes those are the names we have seen a hundred times and we think we would like to blur that - but do not forget that this is what your visitor wants. Remember, newspapers are written in 8th grade so that most of its readers can read and understand, and that same principal should work on your navigation and throughout the website.
Make sure your navigation flow makes sense to your viewer, arranging your pages with the most important pages listed followed by pages that are less important or that may not be viewed. This helps ensure that you get your audience in the flesh of your website quickly. To avoid confusion, consistency is important, so any navigation you use on your home page should be conducted throughout the rest of your website.
Finally, the content. The content should be rich and fun enough to attract your visitor inside, and be short enough to attract their attention! Research suggests that the average student can read up to 40 words in ten seconds.
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