Design Do’s and Don’ts

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Design Do’s and Don’ts

Design Do’s and Don’ts

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Home Page > Internet > Web Design > Design Do’s and Don’ts

Design Do’s and Don’ts

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Posted: Jun 23, 2010 |Comments: 0
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A user-friendly web site should be equivalent to a search-engine friendly website. When you are designing a site, there are several rules that need to be abided. If you choose to “break” one rule, it is best to compensate in another area. Below is a list of design do’s and don’ts provided by The Truth About Search Engine Optimization by Rebecca Lieb.

The list consists of:

Avoid splash pages – A splash page briefly appears as an introductory web site home page. It tends to be graphic-heavy and text-light. These types of pages are not good because they only link to one other page within the web site.

Do not use frames and inline frames (iframes) – Avoid using frames and inline frames because they make it hard for search engines to crawl web sites. They break each page into three or more files (rather than just one).

Use clean, valid coding – It is best to use code that is lighter, cleaner, simpler, more semantically defined, and in agreement with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards.

Avoid duplicate content – Do not place the same text content on multiple domains or within more than one page on your web site.

Avoid Flash websites – Majority of flash sites only consists of one single web page. You will not rank for dozens of separate keywords with only one page.

Utilize individual title tags – Every page on your web site should have its own distinctive title tag. No two pages should be identical.

Place graphics lower on a web page – Because search engines pay more attention to words that appear higher on a page, it is best to use graphics only near the bottom. Search engine crawlers only index words.

About CODANK Charlotte Web Design

CODANK is a top Charlotte Web Design and Internet Marketing Company located in Charlotte, NC. The company is dedicated to providing a broad range of web design services. CODANK specializes in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Graphic Design, Online Marketing, and Web Design and Development.

For more information, visit CODANK Charlotte Web Design and Internet Marketing Company at www.codank.com

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About CODANK Charlotte Website Design and Markjeting Company CODANK is a top rated Web Design and Internet Marketing firm located in Charlotte, NC. We are dedicated to provide the highest quality, cost effective custom software development services, delivering a broad range of business consulting and outsourcing services. For more information, visit us at http://codank.com

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Why might an advertisr use a placement broker rather than working directly with a search engine web site?
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Article Tags:
charlotte web design, splash pages, flash websites, title tags, frames, iframes, search engines, search engine crawlers

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Do’s and Dont’s Guide to Great Web Design

admin    Website Design     Design, Do's, Don'ts, Great, Guide

Do’s and Dont’s Guide to Great Web Design

When followed, this guide will prove to be quite a valuable web design resource. From the inexperienced to the experienced, this guide has something for everyone.

The Process of Great Web Design Just to make sure we are all on the same page, lets begin with the basic definition for “web design”. According to Wikipedia, web design is:

“a process of conceptualization, planning, modeling, and execution of electronic media delivery via Internet in the form of Markup language suitable for interpretation by Web browser and display as Graphical user interface”.

The process of web design can be compared to the process of writing a research paper. In the conceptualization/planning stage, flowcharts (the outline) are created which illustrate the navigational structure of your website. In the modeling stage, static wireframes are created (the rough draft) which illustrate the skeletal layout for each section of your website. After the wire frames are created, graphics, colors and text are used to create the design of your web pages based on the layout of the wire frames. In the execution stage, your design is converted into a format supported by web browsers, text and content are added, and finally, your website is published live to the Internet for the world to see (final draft).

All three stages of the design process are equally important. Many web designers skip a stage in order to save time or because they don’t think that is is necessary. However, all three stages are necessary if your goal is to create a successful design and respectable website. Even if the three stages are used, there are many mistakes that web designers can make that will lead to poor-quality, non user-friendly websites.

It’s time to clean out the cabinet of bad web design practices and restock it with the good ones.

Stage 1: Conceptualization and planning

This stage is skipped more often than the other two stages. Most writers don’t enjoy creating outlines for research papers, and most web designers don’t like creating flowcharts either. Don’t be lazy. If you put forth the effort and plan out your website, then you will find the web design process to go smoothly with fewer mistakes made along the way.

There are a few things that you will need in order to effectively conceptualize and plan your website:

-a brain

-a pen and paper

-(optional) flowchart software

-a general idea of the different sections of your website

To begin, grab your pen and paper or launch your favorite flowchart software. We use OmniGraffle Professiona for Mac OS X which costs 0 per license but is well worth it if you create websites on a regular basis. If you’re on a PC, then SmartDraw is a great FREE piece of flowchart software that you can use. A pen and paper work just fine, though.

There are many methods to creating flowcharts. We are going to show you the most basic way to do it for the sake of time and the length of this article. If you want to learn more about flowcharts search for flowcharts on Google or Yahoo.

View the flowchart that we created when conceptualizing Chromatic Sites. (1) At the top of the flowchart we list the name of our website. (2) Next, we include each primary section of our website: Home, About, and Services. These sections are the main navigation for your website. What the names of each section will be is entirely dependent on the content of your website. Try to use as few sections as possible so that your visitors are not overwhelmed when navigating through your website.

(3) Next, add all of the secondary pages (subsections) that will be listed on each of the primary pages. For Home, we have included Professional Web Design, Web Development, and Search Engine Optimization. The secondary navigation needs to be more descriptive than the primary navigation. The deeper your websites’ navigational hierarchy goes, the more descriptive each label should be.

The Dos

-Less is more; keep the number of primary sections to a minimum. We use 6 sections on our website which is more than enough -Whether you use a pen and paper or flowchart software, keep things as clean and organized as possible. Although you (and anyone working with you) are the only ones that will be using the flowchart, it still needs to make sense -Your primary sections should use broader terms, while secondary and tertiary terms should be more descriptive

The Donts

Creating a flowchart is pretty straight forward; however, there are a few mistakes that can easily be made:

-Don’t use very descriptive terms in your primary navigation unless your entire website focuses on one narrow topic -Don’t try and lump multiple topics on the same page. Create a general section for these topics and from that section create subsections. This will make the subsection (descriptive) web pages more likely to have better rankings in the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask) Once you have created a concise and descriptive flowchart, you’re ready to move on to the second stage of the web design process:

modeling.

Stage 2: Modeling

In the modeling stage, static “wireframe” mockups are created. Each mockup illustrates a bare-bones skeleton of the layout for each of the web pages that will be included in your website. This stage is important because it gives us an idea of where different elements will be placed in our design. Some of these elements are:

-logo

-navigational menu

-content

-images, videos

To create these mockups, you can use a pen and paper or your preferred mockup software. In the past we have used Photoshop, but lately we have been using OmniGraffle Professional. OmniGraffle is not as resource intensive as Photoshop is and it allows us to assemble our wireframe mockups much quicker.

In addition, make sure that you have the flowchart(s) that you created nearby as you will need to reference these from time to time to make sure that you are mocking up all of the pages that will appear on your website.

Here is our example of how a wireframe mockup should look. As you can see, there are no colors or graphics included. This is exactly how a wireframe mockup should be – a skeletal layout of your design. The purpose is to be able to have a general idea of where each of the web page’s elements will be placed.

We usually begin from the top left and work our way down to the bottom. There is no specific way that a wireframe should look. Use your imagination. However, make sure that when creating your wireframes you don’t forget to include the most important elements of a website (logo, navigational menu, content placement, images/video placement).

If some of your pages will be using the same layout, then it is not necessary to mock all of those pages up (although you certainly can).

Just be sure to mockup any unique layout that your website will have.

You’ll thank yourself later.

The Dos

-mockup all unique pages

-include important elements (logo, navigation, content placement, images/video placement) -start from the top and work your way down -reference your flowchart created in stage 1 to make you don’t forget to mockup any pages -save, save, save – like with anything on the computer, save your mockup(s) every 10 minutes or so

-focus on clean, user friendly layouts -label your elements so you don’t forget what they are when you reference them in stage 3, execution -use other web sites as inspiration; there is nothing wrong with taking elements from other sites and making them your own (see “donts”)

The Donts

-don’t include graphics or colors (that’s for the next stage) -don’t make your mockups too “busy”; focus on clean, well organized, user friendly layouts -don’t skip this stage; it is just as important as the first and the last -if you take elements from other websites, make sure you don’t plagiarize; there is a difference between being inspired by another website to create certain elements of your design and blatantly ripping off their layout and colors

Stage 3: Execution

In the third and final stage, execution, the planning from stages 1 and 2 are combined to assist in creating a live, interactive website.

The third stage is by far the most time intensive since you will be 1) creating the graphics 2) creating the content, and finally, 3) converting the web designs from images into code that web browsers use to present your website to the world.

By the time you reach the third stage, you should have a clear idea of:

-how your visitors will get from one place to another (stage 1, flowchart) -how your web pages will be laid out (stage 2, wireframe mockups)

If you don’t have a clear idea of these two things, go back to the first and second stagees and continue to develop them. You will find that the third stage is easiest when you have constructed a clear, concise battle plan for designing your website.

Ditch the pen and paper

In stage 3, you need to be using Photoshop or another image editing program since you will be using colors and graphics to create the layout for your website.

We usually begin creating the “home” page (index) first. Use your wireframes that you created in stage 2 as a template for each of the pages you create. However, instead of using solid boxes, use graphics, colors and text instead. Each page must look exactly how you want them to look on the Internet since this is the final stage of the design process.

Be sure to include the background for your navigation (but don’t actually add the text to your image). When converted using CSS (cascading style sheets), your navigation should be in the form of text and not images. Images are not crawl-able by the search engines (the keywords used in your navigation won’t be indexed in the search engine results pages, meaning fewer people will be able to find your website).

When you’re happy with your designs and feel that they are ready to be put on the Internet, it’s time to break apart the designs so that you can create a CSS based layout. For more information on converting your layouts to CSS or marking up your website in CSS, visit w3schools.com. After looking around the Internet, we couldn’t find a decent image-to-CSS tutorial – so expect one from us in the coming weeks. Converting your designs into CSS is extremely important since table layouts are a thing of the past.

Here is an example of a nearly-completed website of the layout we mocked up in stage 2. This was taken directly from our web browser and as you can see, there is now a logo, colors, a pretty navigation system, a footer, and a most importantly, a clean, organized layout.

Thanks to the planning in stages 1 and 2, our layout is well-organized and easy to use.

The Dos

-reference your templates that were created in stage 2; though it is fine to deviate from your original layout, you shouldn’t need to -do some research before creating your actual design; get ideas from other sites and make them your own (without plagiarizing) -include color and graphics to create the final look for your web pages -use CSS (cascading style sheets) to convert your designs from images into markup understandable by web browsers -reference your flowchart from stage 1 when coding your pages with hyperlinks; it is better to use a drop down menu that includes all (or the majority) of the links in your website on every page; this will allow for easier navigation and also make your pages easier to crawl when the search engine spiders stop by; a great place to get CSS drop down menus is at DynamicDrive.com -finalize your design while working in Photoshop or whatever image editing software you use; it can be a pain to make changes to your design once it is converted into markup (code)

The Donts

-don’t include the text in your navigation menus when converting to CSS; instead of using image text, use regular text that is readable by search engine spiders -don’t use tables when converting; even if you need to buy a book on CSS, it will be worth it; tables are dead -don’t skip the first two stages just to save time; your website WILL be better if you start from the beginning of the web design process (instead of at the end) -don’t forget to compress your images when they are cut apart for CSS; there is nothing worse than a slow loading website because of large image files; Photoshop has a “Save Optimized For Web” option (CS3 – “Save for Web and Devices”)

Process Makes Perfect

By following a web design process such as the one illustrated in this article, you increase the chances of creating a website that is well-organized, easily navigable, and very user-friendly. Lets face it – if visitors get lost or become confused while attempting to surf your website, they might hit the back button and look for a more user friendly website. People do not like to think when it comes to finding their way around websites. Don’t make them think. You do the thinking by planning out your website from stage 1 to stage 3 and you will find that more people will enjoy visiting your website.

Find More Web Design Articles

6 Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing

admin    Social Media     Do's, Don'ts, Marketing, Media, Social

6 Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing

There are a few things to make sure you do when using Social Media Marketing.

1)    Be selective when choosing the Social Media you want to market your business on.   Is it a reputable and active one?  Establish your interests and add friends that make sense. Comment on posts that relate to you and your company’s interests. Comment as often as possible on things  that relate to your business. You want to be considered an expert in your field and promote yourself that way. Don’t forget who you are and where your business is going.

2)    Getting people to click on your links is important.  Make sure you are offering quality products, posting good content and only recommend  things you believe in and trust.  If you send them junk, you sever the trust factor.

3)    Let people find you in a natural and authentic way, don’t come off like a business – be friendly and a person of interest to them. Creating relationships and trust is the whole idea.

4)    Decide how much time and effort a specific Social Media will take. Make sure you do not let your work time slip away with excessive Social Media Marketing.

5)    Stay positive.   Negativity never sells anything. This works both in friendships and business. Now that the two are meeting – you want to be positive more than ever.  Remember that what you put out there on the internet says there indefinitely .

6)    Give your posts some thought.  You want others to know you are the expert.

Social Media Marketing takes responsibility and a plan. Know that you will not build your brand and reputation overnight.  Be patient and have fun. The time you invest will be well worth it in the end.

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10 Web Design Don’ts (for the Graphic Designer)

admin    Website Tips     Design, Designer, Don'ts, Graphic

10 Web Design Don’ts (for the Graphic Designer)

1.    Don’t start a layout without having a concept/idea.

Before starting, ask yourself: who am I designing this for? What are the target’s preferences? How am I going to make this better than the client’s competition? What will be my central “theme”? Would it revolve around a certain color, a certain style? Will it be clean, grungy, traditional, modern etc? What will be the “wow factor”?
Then, before jumping to your favorite part – laying everything out in Photoshop, right? – take a sheet of paper and sketch your idea. This will help you organize the elements better and get a general idea of whether an idea would work or not, before you invest too much time designing in Photoshop.

Do sketch the layout before laying it out in Photoshop.

2.    Don’t obsess over the trends.

Shiny buttons, reflections, gradients, swirls and swooshes, grungy elements – all these are staples in contemporary web design. But with just about everything else, moderation is key. If you make everything shiny, you will end up just giving your visitor an eye sore. When everything is an accent, nothing stand out anymore.

Don’t go reflections crazy

3.    Don’t make everything of equal importance.

Egalitarianism is desirable in society, but it doesn’t apply to the elements on your web page. If all your headlines are the same level and all the pictures the same height, your visitor will be confused. You need to direct their sight to the page elements in a certain order – the order of importance. One headline must be the main headline, while the others will subordinate. Make one picture stand out (in the header, maybe) and keep the others smaller. If you have more than one menu on the page, decide which one is the most important and attract the visitor’s view to it. Create a hierarchy. There are many ways in which you can control the order in which a visitor “reads” a web page.

Do layout the design elements according to their hierarchy

4.    Don’t lose sight of the functionality.

Don’s just use elements because they are pretty – give them a legitimate place in your design. In other words, don’t design for yourself (unless you are designing your own websites, of course), but for your customer and your customer’s customers.

Don’t make pretty things and then ask what you can use them for.

5.    Don’t repeat yourself too much and too often.

It’s easy to get tricked into reusing your own elements of design, especially once you got to master them to perfection. But you don’t want your portfolio to look like it was created for the same client, do you? Try different fonts, new types of arrows, borders styles, layer effects, color schemes. Find alternatives to your go-to elements. Impose yourself to design the next layout without a header. Or without using glossy elements. Break your habits and keep your style diverse.

Recycling is good, but don’t overuse the same elements

6.    Don’t disregard the technology.

If you’re not the one coding the website, talk to your programmer and find out how the website will be implemented. If it’s going to be all Flash, then you want to take advantage of the great possibilities for the design and not make it look like a standard HTML page. On the other hand, if the website will be dynamic and database-driven, you don’t want to get too unconventional with the design and make the programmer’s job impossible.

This Flash website is not your usual standard layout. Check it out!

7.    Don’t mix and match different design elements to please your client.

Instead, offer your expertise: explain how different elements look great in a certain context but don’t work in another one or in combination with other elements. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t listen to your client. Take into account all their suggestion, but do it to their best interest. If what they suggest doesn’t work design-wise, offer arguments and alternatives.

Don’t throw EVERYTHING in the blender.

8.    Don’t use the same boring stock photos like everyone else.

The happy customer support representative, the successful (and political correct) business team, the powerful young leader – they are just a few of the stock photography industry’s clichés. They are sterile, and most of the time look so fake that will reflect the same idea over the company. Instead, try using “real people”, or search harder for creative and expressive stock photographs.

Customer representatives are the happiest employees. Right?

9.    Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

Being creative is in your job description, but don’t try to get creative with the things that shouldn’t change. With a content heavy or a portal-style website, you want to keep the navigation at the top or at the left. Don’t change the names for the standard menu items or for things like the shopping cart or the wishlist. The more time a visitor needs to find what they are looking for, then more likely it is they will leave the page. You can bend these rules when you design for other creatives – they will enjoy the unconventional elements. But as a general rule, don’t do it for other customers.

Some things are better left alone.

10.    Don’t be inconsistent.

Stick with the same fonts, borders, colors, alignments for the entire website, unless you have strong reasons not to do so (i.e. if you color-code different sections of the website, or if you have an area dedicated to children, where you need to use different fonts and colors). A good practice is to set up a grid system and build all the pages of the same level in accordance with it. Consistency of elements gives the website a certain image that visitors will become familiar with.

Don’t make the visitors believe they landed on a diferent website every time they click a menu link

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Web Design- Dos and Don’ts

admin    Website Design     Design, Don'ts

Web Design- Dos and Don’ts

Web design is an important part in advertising a business. Being important, the process of web designing can be really challenging to the webmaster or designer engaging in it. Apart from the content, keywords, SEO, design, navigability and search engine marketing there are certain things that many things that a webmaster must not overindulge. Doing more than what is needed can yield negative returns and create a business loss.

Empathizing with the needs of the patrons and stakeholders before designing a website is highly important for a best web designer. He must research up on website information and read books written by experts and finally apply the knowledge gained therein. He must remember the features and characteristics of a miserable website before starting up the new website.

1. These websites do not tell the users about their operations and business.

2. They do not provide any email address and contact information to correspond.

3. They use horrible, unmatching colors for their web pages.

4. They use ugly and unpresentable backgrounds.

5. They use ludicrous text that does not coincide with their background making the text unreadable.

6. They contain spelling and grammar errors.

Keeping these thumbnails in mind at the first instance is the key duty of any web designer. He must ensure that he does not indulge in any of the above faults.

Other Keep-In-Mind Points

1. Avoid Multimedia And Plug-Ins

A website is bound to loose customers if it uses pointless pug-ins and multimedia. These things can be a real nuisance.

A visitor will have to download the stuff put up by you and it will be a time consuming process. He may not get the information outright and this can tempt him to move on to other websites for more relevant content and information. You must hence, introspect if the website really needs these plug-ins. A music and entertainment website can use these things as it suits their business needs. However, in most cases plug-ins and viewers are not recommended. Also, be particular about the formats the viewers can use.

.HTML, .GIF, and .JPEG images can be fine. Sound formats like .WAV, .Au, .AIF can be handy. Do not provide PostScript document files unless you are sure that the user has a PostScript viewer.

2. Use Old Version HTML

A designer does not need to be too clever and use the latest version of HTML. Remember that most specific features do not go well with certain universal browsers. The latest versions and features can be highly attractive and useful. The may have several user-friendly interface technologies and may be far more sophisticated than the older versions. However, a webmaster needs to remember that most of the visitors do not use latest versions immediately. Therefore, he may need to use the previous version to see traffic and referrals remain good.

Two Versions Of A Website

However if a webmaster is confused about the technology to use, he may create two versions of a website: one for the new version and another for the old version browsers. This may however require a large amount of time. A webmaster must go ahead only if he has done enough research and is sure that this will be of use to the business.

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Google Optimization Tips – Dos and Don’ts

admin    Twitter Marketing     Don'ts, Google, Optimization, Tips

Google Optimization Tips – Dos and Don’ts

Google without doubt is the most powerful thing existent online and if you are able to market your business through this top rated search engine, you are bound to get terrific results. This is the very reason that Google optimization is given a lot of mileage and people are looking to invest to get organic results for good keywords on Google. However the question that most ask is how to get this done.

Is there a secret behind a Google rank?

Well, there are quite a few secrets that you need to be aware about however if you are a layman with no technical know-hows you can still carry out certain steps that can help you establish a decent presence on Google’s organic rankings. Here are a few points that can help you.

1. Article Marketing: The simplest of all techniques and quite effective in getting you ranked on Google. Make sure that you can gave reasonably good, knowledge imparting content written that you can submit to popular article directories like EzineArticles and others. The crucial thing here is that you choose the right category and sub-category to enhance the relevance of your submission hence Google optimization can be attained.

2. Press Release Marketing: A press release is a very powerful marketing tool and since it generally talks about a new service or product, there is a specific date for submission. For this very reason the PR sites are frequently indexed by Google, which means that a submission here has a higher chance of getting indexed. Don’t be shocked if a PR written by you is on the top page of Google for certain keywords within 48 hours of submission and release.

3. Twitter and Facebook: Two of the most powerful tools today, you can use them effectively by creating a Facebook fan page and a Twitter page. make sure you keep the updated and add comments regularly, within no time you can see them appearing on the top pages as well.

4. Social Bookmarking: A very simple yet effective way of Google optimization is by creating bookmarks on social bookmarking sites. There are lots of them and you can have a freehand in selecting the ones that you want to submit to.

While you can go ahead and make use of the above mention Google optimization tips, you should also stay away from certain things that are considered to be banned by Google. Do not associate your site with link farms or automated linking software because many a times this is considered to be spam and thus banned. You have to be very careful because one wrong act could mean that all your hard work goes in the drain.

If you think that you are not completely capable of getting the best Google optimization results, contact the professionals. Seek reliable help so that you can get the right value for your time and money.

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Direct Sales – The Do’s and Don’ts of Networking on Twitter

admin    Twitter Marketing     Direct, Do's, Don'ts, Networking, Sales, Twitter

When it comes to using the social media site Twitter, there are a few Do’s and Don’ts you need to be aware of.Let’s start with the Do’s1. Fill out your twitter profile so that others can learn a little more about you and your Direct Sales business. If possible, upload a small picture of yourself or a small business graphic. However, you will find that most twitter users prefer to see a personal photo compared to a business photo.2. You will need to be consistent with your tweeting. You can’t just log in once a day, post 2 tweets and then jet out. You need to spend a little time tweeting about what is going on with your day or your business, so that you can build a relationship with your followers.3. Try to connect with your followers by responding to their tweets or re-tweeting their messages. Twitter can be useful when it comes to business relationship building, if you take the time to converse with the people who are following you.Here are a few Don’ts1. Don’t send automatic direct messages. There are numerous online services where you can sign up and have the service automatically send out a direct message, to every person who decides to follow you. Experienced tweeters find this to be impersonal and very annoying.2. Never spam your business website links or business information via direct message unless a specific person has requested the information from you.3. Don’t sit on twitter 24 hours a day spamming business links. If you are only there for self business promotion and not there to build business relationships, you will be quickly labeled as a twitter spammer. When it comes to networking on social media websites like twitter…it is important to make connections with those you are following. In a nutshell, business networking means building quality relationships with other like-mind individuals.

Web Marketing Strategy: Five Website Optimization Dos and Don’ts

admin    Website Marketing     Don'ts, Five, Marketing, Optimization, Strategy, Website

As a small business, it’s important to realize that you need a web marketing strategy in place to develop online sales on a consistent basis. With over 100 million websites in existence today, you can’t put up a site and expect the traffic to come.

Spend some time on your site, and look at it through your prospects eyes. What are your visitors looking for?

Think about what you look for in a website when you’re out searching online. The key to making a great website is to put your own impressions behind you. Ignore what you know about your business. Instead, concentrate on what your visitors would want to know about your business. In many cases these two items are distinctly different.

To help you get started, let’s take a look at common website optimization techniques that will help you get your website noticed. Use these five Dos and Don’ts as guidelines.

1. Do use headlines. Headlines help engage the reader, and assist them in making their way through your site. Headlines are meant to provide something of interest to the reader, and motivate them to want to read on – and ultimately move to the next step. Bold your headlines to make them stand out above your regular text, and consider increasing the size of the font.

2. Don’t assume your visitor will take action today. Nine out of ten website owners miss connecting with potential customers because they try and make the sale today. Instead, offer something of value to your visitor in return for capturing their email address. Plan on creating a long-term relationship with a prospect instead of creating instant sales.

3. Do use testimonials from a variety of sources. Include a variety of real-life customers, well-known people in your industry, authors, and other important business people in your community. People connect when they know other people have trusted your company, and have purchased your products and services. Sprinkle testimonials throughout your site instead of creating a special page.

4. Don’t ignore who your customer is. Every audience expects a different functionality. A group of 20-something males with careers in computer programming will have different expectations than 40-something soccer moms. Build to capture the heart of your audience.

5. Do test your material. The “build once” concept works fine for a brochure, but a website is meant to be updated regularly. Keep track of your numbers, and try adding new functions to your website at least several times per month. The more you learn about what works and what doesn’t, the easier it is to develop new material for your website.