Website Colors, Navigation, Quality – Are Your Keeping Your Visitors in Mind?
When it comes to your website, are you keeping your visitors in mind, or just your profits? By being conscious about using the best website colors, navigation, easy of use, and the overall quality of your content, you can dramatically increase your profits.
The first rule of Internet marketing is to create valuable content and websites for users first, and Google second. In the end, Google will reward you for the valuable website you created for your visitors.
That being said… it’s a good idea to test. Test you colors, layout, AdSense placement, etc. I’ve noticed a 50% increase in profits just by changing themes. But for the most part, you want to stick to the basics.
- White backgrounds with dark text is always best. Don’t use contrasting colors that strain the eyes
- Keep the reader in mind. Keep paragraph length to a minimum, use bullets and numbers
- Keep your content clear and concise
- Make the navigation of your site easy to find the most valuable content
A lot of people ask me to review their websites, and to be honest… a lot of them are just hideous. I’m by no means an artist myself, but I don’t know why people choose the ugly Blogger themes that are either too bright or too dark. Clean and easy, to read and navigate is always better than trying to make something pretty.
Some of these websites have such great, valuable content… all it needs is a change in style and design to make it easy for the visitors. Don’t worry about what you like, think about what your visitors like. More importantly, think about what they respond to.
So how do you figure out what works best?
- Test It
- Look at Crappy Sites and Note the Reason Why
Here are some examples for you…
- Just plan ugly: http://www.alternativetransportservices.co.uk
- Not even sure what I’m supposed to read: http://www.scopesys.com
Compared to clean, easy to follow, guides your eyes exactly to the right places…
Take notes, adjust where necessary and try out different themes colors and navigation styles until you get it right. One thing I’ve learned is that what I think is great is not usually what other people find user friendly. So ask a friend to look at your site and give their feedback. A peer review can be very valuable.
