Build promotion into your website

Everyone will agree that the process of building the site is the fun part but promoting is not. How often have we heard webmasters complaining “I should have thought about it earlier” when they realized the importance of promotion. Due to the oversight, they will have to go and change everything – from the metatags to the graphic elements to the wordings. It is not our human nature to want to change something that has being finished. As such the below will help you design or redesign your website according to your visitor’s needs. it will show you how to demand their attention and that of the search engines too.

Bells and whistles

You can do a lot of really fun things on your website. You can play cute and nice animations. You can also add sound and streaming videos. You can make colors of your site change continually and make your banners blink on and off. However, this is the formula for a disaster.

If you have these “attractions” on your site, get rid of them. If you don’t have them, don’t add them. All these are only fun the first time a visitor view your first few pages, but like a movie, they get boring the second time around. Multimedia gadgets can even be frustrating and downright annoying as the first time a visitor visits your website, it takes such a long time to load due to all the fancy graphics. Always put ourselves in the shoes of our visitors. It may be nice to us but tormenting to them. Many features can be incorporated into your site but each has to be looked and examine to see how it furthers your goal. If you are not sure about making the feature work or whether it will enhance your visitor’s experience, leave it out. Visitors will be more upset about having a feature that doesn’t work than they will be if you don’t include them at all.

Visitors don’t complain, they will just leave

Always remember that complicated graphics take time to load. So bear that in mind when you design your website. Speed is the vital essence for your visitor’s good experience with your website. And to make matter worst, not everyone has a fast internet connection. Only so much information can be transmitted through a tine phone line. That is what limits the size of pictures, the amount of sound, and many other aspects of the Internet. So use your discretion. Use bells and whistles only when your site really requires it with no other options. Remember, if your visitors want to look for these type of “entertainment”, they would have gone to watch the television.

A good rule of thumb is if it doesn’t add any value and bring enhanced information to your website, get rid of it. Keep your site uncluttered, clean, and focused. If you are going to cram everything into your front page, you are going to scare off your visitors. Clutter and too much variety on a page confuse people. We all know that confused people do not buy. If you can be very clear up front about what you’re offering, and if you can clearly lead your visitors through your site navigation, you, you stand a better chance of holding their attention. Giving them too much unnecessary information and expected them to dig around until they find what interests them isn’t going to make it. They will just hit the back button and leave your site.

The mindset of the ‘typical’ visitor

People on the internet want information, and they want it fast. Visitors don’t really surf. They frantically hop from one website to another searching for what they need. They’ll give your site about 30 seconds, and if they don’t find what they want, they’re gone forever. And that 30 seconds includes the time it takes to load your page and those unnecessary fancy stuffs can take those precious time to download. Sound can also be an unexpected annoyance to your visitors. That song you loved so much that you had to have it on your website is probably a great disruption to your visitors.

Summary on how to promote your website

Build your website through the view point of your prospective visitors or customers. Most of the people on the webs don’t want to search. They want to find. They should get a feeling of satisfaction for finding your site and accomplishing something. Keep your website highly focused and targeted. Avoid those bells and whistles unless it is absolutely necessary. If you use them, make sure they work with all the different types of browsers. Visitors don’t want to wait a long time for a page to load. Always use your web authoring program to check how much time it takes to load your page. Again I would like to stress, keep in mind that most bells and whistles irritate rather than motive your visitors.