Regardless of our connection speed, Internet users expect information to be readily obtainable, pages to download quickly and solutions at click of mouse. As such, you should look at your home page as your Sale point. Have you explained succinctly what you are selling and included links to more detailed information? Note that on first page, you should try to pre-sell your potential customers on benefits of your product or service.

If you are offering many products or services, place only most attractive on first page. Do not overload your first page. People might get confused if you provide too much information on one page. That is one of reasons why I always advise my customers not to use flash intros on their first page or at very lease, allow them to skip through it. Today, internet users have less patience to wait and will move on quickly if pages take too long too load or if they have to “wait through” fancy openers that are all flash and no substance.

Site structure

Structure of your site should be dedicated to one goal only. Leading visitor from your home page (pre-sale point) to different pages (sale points) on your site.

Structure of your site should be as simple as 1 – 2 – 3.

The 1 should be your home page, where you provide basic information (read benefits) about your product or service.

The 2 should be a “more details” page where you will list and elaborate on benefits and prices of your product

And 3 should be your “add to cart” or “contact us” page.

Navigation structure

If you are serious about having your business on Internet, do not experiment with navigation of site. Keep it simple and easy to use. If your pages are long, place a menu on bottom of page to save your users from scrolling to top of page to reach menu.

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If you are like most internet surfers, you will spend much of your time hanging around websites with dynamic website content, or content that is updated constantly or personalized to your preferences. The age of static, archival websites is long gone, in in its place is a dynamic and powerful internet driven by PHP, ASP, CGI, and Java.

But setting up a website with full SQL support and advanced features is not an easy task, especially for someone who is still waist deep in HTML coding.

So...what to do?