You think your website could be better? Well, it can be. Because no website is perfect (except for mine) ;)
Here is my list of the top 3 things that can make your website better (if you apply them). I made this list from information I have gathered from studying peoples websites and user reactions.
- Navigation
I see a lot of websites with terrible navigation. Navigation is very important. Why do people come to your website? Usually to find some information. How about making it easy for people to find what they are looking for?
- Navigation should be organised. Divide your navigation up into sections when you can (such as by topic). Group together navigation items that are related to each other.
- Navigation should be easily found. Place it somewhere users are expecting it... such as right below the header going horizontal or vertically on the left side of the page.
- Navigation should contrast from the rest of the site. This will greatly help people to instantly find it. Positioning isn't everything.
- Font and text
If you want the content on your website to be read (which you probably do), you need to make it readable.
- Don't have fixed sizes for fonts. Use % or em... not px for sizes. That way, people will see it just the size they want to see it at. If they have a low resolution, the font won't be too big, and if they have a very high resolution, the text won't be unreadable. Use 1em or 100% for your standard size for your body text. NOTE: this advise is for making your website work well in IE6. It's not really an issue otherwise (although I think it makes more since to use em and % or px).
- Use good contrast. Have good contrast between the text and the background it is on. And for text that is read (not just scanned, like a navigation or product descriptions for example), use the color black with a white or very light colored background. It is OK to have not-so-good contrast on parts of your website if it looks good and there isn't a lot of text to read. Also make sure that the two colors you are contrasting actually look good together as well (don't put yellow text on a blue background please).
You may think, "but now it doesn't look as good!" But think about this; What is more important, the 'looks' or the content. Regardless of your answer... people coming to your website for information care much more about the content.
- Make it scanable. Make all your text scanable. Use short paragraphs (about 8 sentences), simple words, and contractions when writing. Write at an 8th grade level (without the misspellings). People don't read on the internet, they scan.
- Content
Content is very important. That's why people come to your website. But you need to make it good content!
Answer peoples questions they might have. They will love you for it. If you don't know what your visitors are looking for, ask them!
Take this real life situation for example:
An entrepreneur was wanting to start an ISP in a third world country using WiMax technology. He did google searches to try to find companies that would sell him the equipment he needed as well as provide information on how to set it up. Almost all of the websites he went to were worthless. They had a little bit of bad copy on their homepage with nothing after it. Sometimes they would have links to go to for pricing... but for most you were left just hanging their. That's why with copy writing it is very important to tell the reader what to do at the end.
Any way, he finally found a website that had a large manual in pdf format for setting up their equipment and running an ISP. But it was buried deep within the site and very hard to find. How much better if they had a link to it on their homepage for people like this entrepreneur to see.
The entrepreneur ended up contacting the company for more information on their equipment and prices... but they never got back with him.
Well, that's it for now. I was going to write 10 things... but it was long enough at 3. So it's just 3 things to do to make your website better :)
Joey
