Be sure and carefully plan your site navigation

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Confusing navigation is another way to keep your visitors from coming back or even staying very long on their first visit. You must provide a way for your visitors to find out what you've got - it's of no use if no one sees it.

Link Every Page To The Home Page

One huge mistake that many webmasters make is to forget to link every page back to their home page. It's important to remember that search engines typically spider your entire site. This means that visitors can land literally anywhere in your site. If you are smart you will accept this fact and place a link back to the home page.

Java or ActiveX Menus

I know those Java or ActiveX menus look great, but a large minority of your visitors will not allow these to operate due to security concerns. In my company I am in charge or security, and one of the things that we do is turn off the downloading of ActiveX controls from the internet. Period. We are also very cautious about allowing unknown Java applets into our organization.

The point is stick to a simple, clean navigation interface. Personally, I would avoid Java and most especially ActiveX in anything intended for the internet.

Confusing Menus

You want to make it difficult for your site to succeed? Then make your navigational system difficult to understand and use. Bury your hyperlinks in a complex image map that's not obvious to the user. That's a great way to stop people from looking around your site. 

Some other things you can to do prevent users from enjoying your site:

• Scatter your links all over the page haphazardly
• Put your menus only at the bottom of every page
• Make the hyperlinks the same color as the rest of the test
• Make the text very, very small or in a strange font
• Make the menu actually move around the screen (I've run into a couple of sites with strange floating menus)
• Put the menus on a popup window or console of some kind

No Easy Contact Method

Behind every web site is a person, and behind every PC is a face. I wonder sometimes about webmasters who make it difficult to contact them. The larger websites are famous for this - try communicating with someone at Yahoo, for example.

Just place a link to a contact page on every page of your web site. Make it obvious and easy to get to. Personally, I prefer using a form instead of an email link due to the huge number of email spiders which seem to be appearing all over the web. It doesn't really matter how you do it, just be sure your visitors have an easy way to get hold of you.

What About Those Without Graphics?

Believe it or not, many people surf the web without graphics. Just as an experiment, go into your browser and turn off graphics, then surf for an hour or so. You'll soon understand some things that you need to do to allow for those people.

Why would anyone not want graphics? Well, it does make surfing much faster, and some of the older browsers don't support graphics at all. You would be smart to use ALT tags to make it easier.

This is especially true of image maps - be sure to include ALT tags or someone who has graphics turned off will just leave your site fast.

Additional Reading

• A poor design chases away visitors and gives you a bad name Design your site poorly and your visitors will go elsewhere
• There are many silly mistakes that you can make with text People come to your site for the content, and text is what they usually way. Make sure they can read it without being annoyed.
• Graphics are great unless you make some of these mistakes Graphics are great except when you make some of these stupid, idiotic mistakes. (See also Graphics Formats, Graphics Formats - GIF, Graphics Formats - JPG and Graphics Formats - PNG)
• Use animated GIFs very sparingly Animated GIFs are excellent when used properly, but it's easy to overdue it and chase away your visitors. (See also Graphics Formats - Animated GIFs).
• Be careful with various sound options Adding background sound to your pages is generally a mistake
• Video is tough to do correctly Careful with those videos - visitors like video but load times make it difficult to do correctly.
• Be sure and carefully plan your site navigation Carefully plan your site navigation or your visitors will not come back
• Layout your pages properly to keep people happy Plan your page and site layouts well to keep your visitors happy and fulfilled
• Use Java sparingly If you use Java without allowing for non-java visitors you will loose people immediately
• Don't use ActiveX on an internet site My advice is to not use ActiveX at all on an internet site. It's fine to use it on an Intranet site as you control the environment.
• Colors can make or break a web site Want to really lose your visitors fast? Use a bad combination of colors on your site! Make it look like an LSD nightmare.
• Organize your site Properly organized sites are a dream, disorganized sites are a nightmare
• Keep your pages relatively short Short pages are the rule in web design. One to three screenfuls is best, longer is a site killer.
• Advertising is a necessary evil You generally want to advertise but keep it short, simple and tasteful (See also The secrets of how to advertise your web site).
• Use Rings wisely Yes you want to use Rings, but don't use them incorrectly
• Careful with dynamic HTML Be careful with dynamic HTML. Can increase load time, make for slow, clunky sites, and is incompatible with earlier version browsers.
• Don't change the cursor unnecessarily Be careful with dynamic HTML. Can increase load time, make for slow, clunky sites, and is incompatible with earlier version browsers.
• Popups are stupid and obnoxious Don't use popups ever. They are annoying, stupid and scare away visitors
• Are Popups Ethical? Is it ethical to place popups and popunders all over your web site? Depends upon what you are trying to accomplish
• More on Popups, Popunders and other Unethical Behaviors There are many unethical devices such as popups, popunders and so forth. Are they needed or desired? No, they are not.

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