Too many people get caught up in misinterpreting what actually makes a website successful. Do you spend hours every week poring over your web stats and looking at how many hits you've received that week? Here's something that may surprise you: hits mean NOTHING. Nada. Zilch. If five million people visit your website every day and no-one calls, emails or buys anything, is your website successful? Go back to your original aim – for the website to convert and bring in business. If you website isn't doing that, it isn't working.
Make your website user-friendly
If potential customers can't find their way around your site or find the product they want within three or four clicks, they're very unlikely to buy. People shop online because it's less hassle than trudging around high-street shops so make sure you capitalize on this and ensure the online shopping system is quick and easy for every customer. Don't allow your design to get messy and laden with enormous images and special offers. You have to face the fact that you can't have everything on the front page.
It's easy for someone to click off of your website; certainly a lot easier than it is for them to walk out of your shop. The internet is faceless and ruthless and you need to respect that intrinsic difference. Grab the customer's attention, but don't scare them off.
Highlight your calls to action
A call to action is a visual indicator of something you want the user to do. Looking for potential clients to call you? Have your phone number prominently placed at the top of your website where people can see it. Want people to sign up to your newsletter? Highlight that box and make sure people know about it. Internet users need to have their hand held. This might surprise you, but you'd be amazed at how much of your internet browsing is completely led by the person who designed the website. You don't have as much free will online as you thought you did!
First impressions are everything
How long do you have to convince a user to stay on your website? This might surprise you: less than five seconds. If the user hasn't found an obvious path to their destination well within that time, they'll be off. That's why your web stats show a ton of bounces in the 5 seconds category and the rest spread nice and evenly over much long periods. With internet users becoming more savvy and aware of the amount of competition on the web, this number is falling all the time so first impressions count more and more all the time.
Keep it conventional
Make sure your menus look like menus and your links look like links. If your links are the same color as your body text (or, in fact, are anything other than blue and underlined) you're likely to confuse a lot of people. Make sure your logo links back to your homepage and your menus are either horizontal across the top or vertical down the left-hand side. Web users are driven by their experiences of other websites and what are considered to be conventional design standards.
Keep it simple, stupid
KISS. Remember that. It applies to EVERYTHING. Keep your design and layout simple and ensure you only try to convey your one most important message on the front page, where possible. Don't throw everything at your visitor the second they get on the page. It's just like walking into a shop and having fifteen sales assistants run up and start measuring you and offering you leaflets.
Keep your color scheme simple, too. Don't make it bland, but don't try to integrate every color under the sun. Stick to a simple color scheme which utilizes two to four main colors. Anything else can be off-putting – no matter now boring you think minimalism looks. This website isn't for you and your aesthetic pleasures – it's for your customers and your profit margin.
So, when you come to make your own website, keep the end user in mind at all times. Be completely objective and try not to involve your own opinions and preferences. The likelihood is that you're the only one who agrees with a lot of it. Follow the research and the statistics and give users what they want and before long your website will be converting increasing numbers of visitors and boosting your bank balance as well. Which would you prefer: a flashy website that you absolutely love (and no-one else does) or a website which brings in big bucks?
