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January 01, 2001

This Week’s:

Features

3 Types of Sites

Reviews

Robin Williams Has a String of Hits!

Techniques

Horizontal Rules!

Features

5 Quick Improvements to Any Web Site

by Carolyn Cooper

1. Focus, Focus, Focus: Choose a specific target audience. Provide a benefit to your target audience that is uniquely useful to them. Make certain everything on your business site pertains to your topic and your business. Include a call to action.
2. Don't Waste Your Visitors' Time: Get to the point. Make it easy for the visitor to find the information desired. Avoid long download times without warning. Provide all the necessary information for the visitor on the site. Don't force the visitor to contact you for "more information" as a marketing ploy; provide as much information, including costs or price ranges, as possible.
3. Keep It Simple: Clear the clutter -- both verbal and visual. Increase the visual "white space" of the page. When in doubt, eliminate. Use a consistent format, layout and interface. Use a page template.
4. Keep the Essential Information on Every Page: Include the site title and contact information or link on every page. Put your slogan or message tag on as many pages as possible. Always include a link to the home page. Ideally a consistent navigation menu should appear on every page.
5. Support As Many Browsers As Possible: Use standard HTML. Clean out browser specific tags. Use an HTML editor that doesn't add tags, particularly browser-specific or server-specific tags. Don't require a particular browser or plugin to view essential information pages. Make your site handicap-accessible. Provide a text-based interface option.

Find out how to arrange an independent consultation or a workshop for your conference or organization on this or any other Internet-related topic.