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3 Simple Tips to Make Your Website User-Friendly
By Lindsay Glass (c) 2008

The one assumption you need to make to follow along with me
in this article is "People Buy People."  It can be a hard
concept for many people to understand and agree with.
However, millions of spent dollars have proven this premise
to me, so I consider it more of a law than a theory.

If you understand the rule that people buy people, then
your website MUST have a pleasant atmosphere that allows
the visitor to connect with you, your company and your
products.

By now, you've heard me talk about our Celebrity
Branding philosophies, and the fact that you need
your picture on your website goes without saying. But,
there are some smaller, often overlooked, areas that
shouldn't be forgotten.

Here are three simple tip to make your website
user-friendly:

1. Navigation

The navigation on your site is probably its most important
element.  If visitors find your site confusing or cannot
successfully navigate through it, they will leave.  Make
your navigation bar as simple as possible.  One of the
worst mistakes is using an expanding navigation bar that
makes the visitor scroll over it in order for the menu to
reveal their options.  Most often, this type of navigation
bar has too many choices; your visitor doesn't know where
to go, so they get flustered and leave.

Navigation on your site is an art, and you should direct
your visitors through a logical path to where YOU want them
to go (not to where they think they want to go).  One way
to do this is through call to action buttons or CTAs.  We
use these buttons on all of our sites; a visitor will go to
a main page, and then we can direct them to the parts of
that site that we want them to be aware of.  We use this
method instead of an expanding menu, because we find that
it is more logical for visitors.  With this method, you can
direct visitors to where you want them to go, allowing you
to control the buying process.

Quick Tip: most "expanding menus" are created in Macromedia
Flash.  Search engines cannot read Flash, and therefore
they will not pick up these links on your website.  If the
search engines do not pick up the links on the navigation
bar and these links are nowhere else on your site, they
cannot accurately crawl or index your site.  This is search
engine suicide, because without even knowing it, you are
stopping search engines from understanding what your site
has to offer and from driving traffic to you.

A good rule of thumb is that a visitor should be able to
get to every page on your site with two clicks from your
home page.  Now, this is not realistic for very complex
sites.  If your website is complex, you can have a sitemap
to help visitors navigate.  Some sort of search function
may also be a good idea for your site.

2. Page Load Speed

It's hard to believe that some people are still stuck using
dial up.  Even if you have entered the world of high-speed
Internet, no matter what you do, some websites will load
slowly. (If you're frustrated using high-speed Internet,
imagine the frustration of those on good 'ol dial up!)

Page load speed is VERY important.  I know that when I am
surfing the Internet and I stumble upon a site that loads
slowly, I get annoyed, frustrated, and don't browse the
site for very long.  If your website is loading slowly, you
are probably losing out on valuable customers, no matter
what business you are in.

In today's web world, we are seeing more and more images,
audio files and videos.  These things are useful, but you
have to be careful that they do not affect the inner
workings of your site (in this case, the time it takes for
a web page to load).  You want to be careful about the size
of the images on your website.  Both large-sized images and
using too many images can cause your website to take too
long to load, resulting in visitors leaving.  Another tip
is to convert videos into a jpeg (image) that only loads
and plays the video when a visitor clicks on it.  Yes, you
may be adding more images to your website, but these are
usually small image files; in the hierarchy of the web, a
video will slow down your website much more than a small
image.

Another factor that can influence the load time of your
website is the amount of excess code you have on your site
(that is a topic for another day - but ask your webmaster,
and they will know what I am talking about).

3. Information

The number one thing that visitors look for is information.
They are coming to your site to be educated about your
products and/or services and, most of all, how THEY can
benefit.  With this in mind, it is critical for the
information on your website to be accurate, complete and
up-to-date.  Visitors will leave your site in a split
second if the information you are providing is old news.

What's that best way to provide up-to-date information on
your website?  The best way we suggest is through blogs and
articles.  By having a section on your website for blogs
and articles, you can provide new, relevant and educational
information to your visitors.  Adding them is not only
simple, but it is fast too!

So there are my three simple tips for the month on how to
make your website user-friendly. Although this covered just
the beginning of what your website should contain, don't
worry, I won't leave you stranded--  I'll reveal even more
tips in next month's article!
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Known as the "Online Celebrity Producer," Lindsay Glass
helps her clients tell their stories in the online world.
Lindsay began freelance writing in 2000 and soon after
launched her own PR firm that thrived by offering an
in-your-face "Guaranteed PR" that was one of the first of
its type in the nation.  She is now a founding partner of
DNG Media Group, LLC.  For more information, please visit
http://www.dngmediagroup.com
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