Five Keys to Building a Better Site

I’m working with a client now who just wants to start. He won’t stop to ask himself what he really wants to get out of the site, what his visitors will want to get, or even list the items that he must have on the home page.

If he doesn’t stop and think about it clearly, he will end up with an ineffectual site that satisfies no-one.

Here’s what he needs to do to make his site successful:

1. Be clear about what you want your site to do for you.
    
2. Make sure your site gives visitors what they want,
    
3. Look at the competition and see how their sites look and work--and what they say. Learn from them--see what they do right, and just as importantly, wrong. But don’t copy them, or you aren’t offering anything unique.
    
4. Think of your site as if it was a place, and envision how people move around, what they see, learn, and buy. You want to lead your visitors by creating useful, easy-to-follow paths for them to follow.
    
5. Test the site on your customers, see what they like, and encourage them to tell you what they don't. Then look at your logs and see what pages people visit, and don’t. Learn from them.

For more information:

• eFuse, the friendly place to learn how to build a better web site
• eFuse’s Planning page--the place to start before you think about designing or building
• Efuse’s Site Planning Basics--What to know and do before you start.
• eFuse’s WebSense: Web site design doesn't start with "how it looks," it starts with "how it works

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