Design & Navigation - Keeping Your Visitors Attention

Your website should have a clean, simple and uncluttered design if you want to help visitors to spot quickly the information or service that they need. Navigation should be made as intuitive as possible.

Don't pester your visitors with unnecessary or generic images. Use only a few graphics which are relevant and useful. The same goes for Flash animations and other distractions: use them only when they add value to the content of your website.

• Place your navigational links in a clearly defined area, and label them properly.
• Also feature a site map, a search bar that works, and breadcrumb trails on each page, so that your visitors can use their favourite method to navigate your website.
• Put your most frequently requested information in a prominent location, such as your home page, or on a page directly linked from your home page.
• Make sure that links to such site features as your FAQ, sitemap, contact page, privacy policy and "about" page are on every page and are clearly visible.

With only a few seconds to make the right impression, it is extremely important that you present your visitors with a site which is full of relevant content, and helpfully designed.