The Internet has become one of the most popular pastimes for people all over the world. Users frequent it to shop, research and entertain themselves. If you are trying to design a website, you need to create one that keeps users in mind. That is the only way that you will convince visitors to return to your site. The article below will show you the best way to keep them coming.
You must figure out who your target audience is before you start building your site. The last thing you want to do is build a site that will attract users that are not in your target demographics. While that is bound to happen anyway, you do not want to have an entire user base made up of people that have no use for your products or services.
Make sure that the design of your site is very clean with simple navigation. When sites have pages that take too long to load, many users will not wait. They will leave your site and find one that does not give them any type of hassle. All of the pages of your site should have clean lines and load very quickly. The ideal time it should take for any of your pages to load is between fifteen and twenty seconds at maximum.
Try to integrate some interactive features on your site. If the entire site is built on just written content, users may feel that it is a bit boring for their tastes. You should put some video and/or audio on your site, but be very careful. Make sure that there is a way to turn off any audio that plays on your site. Also, do not put too many videos because it may make your site very slow.
If you have sound on your site that cannot be turned off, it may irritate users so much that they will not revisit the site. Many users feel like you are not respecting their choices by forcing them to hear this. Graphics that use Flash are okay, as long as you do not become excessive and use too many of them. It looks very tacky, amateurish and unprofessional when a site implements too many Flash-based graphics.
Before your site goes live, you need to check it out to make sure that everything works just like you want it to. Put yourself in the mind of a user and navigate all of the areas of your site. Make sure that there are no broken links, video playback problems or issues with slow loading times. In case there are any problems, be prepared to revamp the site to make it user friendly.
Designing a website is serious business, but you should also be creative and have a little fun with it. Make sure to focus on the users first and the products and services second. Use the tips here to create a site that will bring new users your way and convince them to return.