top tips for your website

<p>This week’s guest blog is provided by Hyphen Marketing:</p> <p>If you’ve decided to start a new website, or just update your current site it’s a great opportunity to create something that gives a good first impression. It can also serve as a gateway for your customers to find out more information or even gain access to your products. It is therefore important to make the experience as simple and enjoyable as possible to encourage them to return. Hopefully this will give you some simple advice that will improve that experience.</p> <p><strong>Avoid talking about yourself too much.</strong></p> <p>Always try to think from a users point-of-view. Don’t use meaningless words or jargon to pad out your website. Always try to be engaging and think of your audience as they are the ones you want to keep on your site for a long as possible. The more time they spend on your site the more likely they will remember you increasing the chance that they will want to use your services or products.</p> <p><strong>Don’t use long complex flash animations if you can avoid it.</strong></p> <p>Avoid unnecessary old-fashioned  splash pages or introduction animations. Visitors hate waiting for big Flash files to load, particularly when they are repeat visitors. Flash effects can be great in certain circumstances and particular audiences, but remember that some Flash content cannot be seen by Search Engines, so if you have text within a Flash file that contains important keywords, they are very likely to be missed by Google.</p> <p><strong>Use consistent website structure and navigation</strong></p> <p>There’s no worse user experience than when every page looks completely different on a website. Nothing is more frustrating than when a visitor just wants to find your contact details but can’t find your contact page. Although you want your site to be dynamic and stand out, some universal standards always have to be kept such as a navigation bar, in the header section and links in the footer. Always try to keep things that appear on every page visible and in a consistent place.</p> <p><strong>Don’t forget about your website</strong></p> <p>Good effective websites are constantly updated with new content. With the pace of the web these days, out of date content shows your company is not on the ball and some clients may even think you aren’t trading any more.</p> <p>For more information about designing websites or if you would like to know about how we can help you, feel free to get in touch, 0116 281 5731 or email <a href="mailto: hello@yourhyphen.co.uk" target="_blank">hello@yourhyphen.co.uk</a></p>