How can I improve my Website?
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The best starting point to improve your web site is to
ask someone else to take a good hard look at it. Authors and book publishers use proof
readers to check their text. Get a friend or business colleague to proof read your text,
checking for spellings, grammar, punctuation, layout, ease of navigation.
Get Critical It's best to be your own worst critic. Be tough on yourself!
If asking a friend relative or colleague to check over your site, please ask them to be
very critical. Make sure they query every single example where they have any problem
understanding your meaning, following your navigation. If they have any questions, try to
find a way to answer them on site.
Whose Fault Is It? If customers can't find things on your site, whose
fault is it, theirs or yours? It may be their fault for being so stupid, but it's
also your fault for not making it idiot proof. If people freqently fail to understand
something on your site, make it easier to understand.
Add More Content Your site is all about "content". In our opinion, it's
almost impossible to have too much content. Of course, you may need to split this content
up into a larger number of smaller pages, or find better ways to make long pages easier
to read.
Attractive Layout Web sites, like books, magazines or newspapers need to
careful attention to their layout. It's a good idea to work to a small set of templates,
so each page shares certain characteristics. A main heading, a simple concise opening
paragraph telling what's to come, sub-headings so readers can jump from topic to topic
instead of jumping from your site to the next, suitable illustrations if relevant, an
attractive colour scheme. Detail is important!
Colour Scheme An attractive colour scheme is important. OK, most search
engines can't tell or don't care what background colour you use, but people can. If
surfers get to your site and think "Yuk, what revolting colours", get a headache or feel
sea-sick, then they won't stay long, and won't come back.
Fonts And Typography Choose a limited range of typefaces, it's very easy
to use too many different fonts. They make any site look a messy. If in doubt, keep
it simple.
Keep Up To Date Keep the content of your site current. If you don't want
to remove old pages, put them in an archive section, rather than leave them mixed in with
new stuff. You can always put links between them and newer pages.
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