Website Building Tips

There are some very important issues that you need to take into account when building a new website. The following 30 points will guide you along the process and will help you to avoid some of the mistakes.

Tips on building your website:

1. Decide whether you are going to built your site yourself or use a professional
2. If you are going to do it yourself make sure that you have the necessary tools
3. There are a number of reputable DIY web site providers on the web to choose from (Microsoft Office Live Small Business or Yahoo! Small Business to name two)
4. If you are going to use a professional, use someone like websitepros.com to assist you with the decision making process.
5. Choose the correct web hosts, use Web Hosting Review, Hosting Review or consumer Search to assist you
6. Choose a merchant account service (Pay Pal is one of the more well known providers)
7.  If you are not using a designer to manage your photos and graphics you need a tool (try Microsoft Digital Image Suite, PhotoPlus or Quick Web Photo Resizer)

General design principles:

1. Keep it clean
2. Never use dark text on dark backgrounds
3. Choose colours carefully
4. Make sure that your customers can always navigate easily around your website

Pages a website should have:

1. Contact us,
2. Testimonials
3. Privacy policy
4. FAQ
5. Free Goodies page
6. About us
7. Confirmation page that acknowledges an order and thanks the visitor

Avoid these mistakes:

1. Do not have a confusing site structure
2. Do not make the menu to complicated
3. Do not laps onto industry jargon
4. Do not over promise and under deliver

The following should be incorporated:

1. Pay attention to contrast and sharpness throughout your website
2. Know HTML but only what you need to know
3. Add  PayPal buttons
4. Add an embedded video player
5. Add slide shows
6. Let visitors open new browser windows from a link
7. Add maps and directions
8. Add a hit counter (resources: htmlgoodies.com, websitetips.com)

Thank you for reading this article. I hope that the information is of value to you and can assist you with building your new website. Make use of a website optimization service provider if you get stuck. Good luck!!