9 Ways To Make Your Website More Presentable

Your website works as your spokesperson presenting the
message you wish to convey. Thinking in terms of this
analogy often helps you to look at your website from a
different angle and make visitor-friendly changes.

Imagine a situation - you have to make an announcement
about an exciting event or an opportunity. You have
appointed a spokesperson to make a presentation on
your behalf to an audience consisting of invitees,
interested persons and on-lookers. How would you like
her to perform? Your website should do the job of a
real, living spokesperson. Following considerations
will make your website more presentable.

1)Main Theme - The presentation in the above example
has been organized for a particular occasion.
Similarly each webpage should be built around a
particular theme. It doesn't help if too much
information is given on a webpage on seemingly
unrelated issues.

2)Fast Opening - You would certainly not like your
spokesperson to be late and make your audience
impatient. When a visitor clicks URL of your webpage
or is redirected there, the webpage should open real
fast. Your webpage gets just a few seconds to engage
your visitor's attention. You would like your
visitors to spend those few seconds looking at your
webpage rather than waiting for the webpage to open.

3)Appearance - The spokesperson should have pleasant
appearance and should wear a welcoming smile. This is
to ensure that the audience is not put off even before
start of the presentation. Your webpage should have a
pleasant, inviting appearance to attract your visitor.
If spokesperson is very gorgeous looking, she will
distract attention of the audience from the real
issue. Your website should avoid loud graphics and
distracting colors so that the visitor remains focused
on the main theme.

4)Make Text Interesting - You would like your
spokesperson to use clear, flowing language, keep the
audience interested and gradually lead them to the
main theme. The presentation should be interactive,
made lively by stories, snippets etc. Monotonous
speech should be avoided. All these ideas can be
incorporated while designing the website. The text
should be broken into small paragraphs of 4-5
sentences or less, subtitles should be added for
clarity, key words should be made bold. These are some
ideas to make text more readable. Often a visitor will
see only titles and subtitles. Therefore on their own
the title and subtitles should convey the basic
message.

5)Highlight Benefits - Other methods can be used to
make the audience interested. The audience is really
interested in what benefits they will derive;
therefore this point should be highlighted
sufficiently. The visitor to a website is interested
in what is there for her. The potential benefits to
the visitors should form a part of the main theme.
This is an important consideration and cannot be
over-emphasized.

6)Free gifts or Bonus - The audience attending the
conference can be given gifts - after all they are
investing there time for the presentation. The website
can also offer several incentives to the visitors and
lure her to visit again and again. Free ebooks,
subscription to newsletters, links to related
resources, articles and additional information are
some of the simplest incentives that can be offered to
the visitor.

7)Anticipate Questions - When a question is put up to
the spokesperson, she should accept it with
understanding showing that she had been expecting the
question and was prepared to answer it. This approach
will re-assure the audience as they develop the
feeling that "everything has been taken care of".
While designing a website anticipated questions should
be compiled and answers should be provided. It may be
helpful to provide separate pages displaying common
questions and answers.

8)Testimonials - After the end of the presentation,
very few people are likely to sign-up immediately.
Those who are still interested after the presentation
would like to take some time to decide. They are
likely to seek additional information and confirmation
of the information already provided. The spokesperson
should clearly spell out how easy it would be to get
any further information. Visitors to the website often
re-visit several times before they take any decision,
particularly the decisions involving money
transaction. Testimonials and endorsements appearing
on the website are very effective in getting a
favorable response from the visitors.

9)Follow-Up - During a presentation it is common
practice to register the names and other details of
the participants. This information can be used to
follow-up with them by sending further messages. The
website should be used to perform a very important
function of capturing names and e-mail addresses of
interested persons for following-up with them.

Thinking of website as a spokesperson adds a human
dimension with which we are more familiar. Reviewing
your website from a new angle can reveal ways of
improving it.

Sanjay Johari is an engineer with vast industrial experience. He operates on-line business and has published several articles. Visit his website for information, ebooks, articles, opportunities and more on small businesses:
http://www.Sanjay-J.com
Mailto: articles@sanjay-j.com