Visualize your Web site as your e-business showroom. Just as in the real world, your showroom must be attractive, easy to move around in, and a sparkling showcase for your products and services. Too many Web sites ignore design principles of successful e-businesses. Pages are too long, navigation is confusing, or the site is difficult to read. The result - potential customers click away to a competitor because they can't find what they're looking for or page downloads are excruciatingly slow. Vista.com incorporates many site design guidelines into its templates to ensure top quality, but you should follow proven design rules when you personalize or add new sections to your site. Overall Look
First impressions are important! Your site should have a clean, uncluttered and professional look. Too many colors, graphics, and blinking icons are distracting. You have only a few seconds to capture the attention of a first-time visitor, so your home page should contain snippets of information that invite visitors to find out more inside the site.
Message
Tell visitors up front what they'll find at your site. You can offer products or services, information, entertainment, advice, help, links to useful sites and more. People want to know "what's in it for me". If they're shopping, they want clear, complete product information that is easy to read, easy to find and, most importantly, easy to order.
Speed
Customers hate to wait, so ensure your pages download fast. Use smaller rather than larger images and limit the number per page. Keep in mind this simple rule of thumb - the more animation, color and sound on a page, the slower it downloads. Text downloads fastest, and some of the most successful sites on the Web have minimal graphics and creative use of text. The Yahoo home page is a good example of this principle.
Navigation
Imagine that your site navigation system is a "table of contents" for your business. The main navigation headings are like departments - a quick way for a customer to get straight to what they're looking for. You can add pages within each department to organize and present information in a clear, easy-to-use manner.
Privacy Statement
Building trust with your customers is critical to the success of your online business. If you collect any personal information, your privacy policy tells visitors how you plan to safeguard their interests. People want to know what you do with their email addresses, any personal information they provide, or how you use information gathered from children.
Words
Words deliver your sales proposition and are the most important element of your site. Take care to make your writing Web-friendly with lots of descriptive words in short sentences. Remember that people skim Web text and read headings, subheadings and bullet lists before paragraphs. Finally, check spelling, grammar, and punctuation before publishing your pages. Your careful work in building your site is at risk if you bypass this final step.
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Credit: Vista.com
Vista.com is dedicated to narrowing the economic divide and leveling the playing field for small business owners. Vista.com empowers them to establish a professional presence on the Internet. Founded by John Wall in 1999 and funded by a set of private investors, Vista.com provides access to world-class Internet technical and marketing expertise, revolutionizing the way small business competes on the Web. Article found at: http://charter.vista.com/main.php3?primNavIndex=6&mainURL=
http://charter.vista.com/contentbuilder/layout.php3?contentPath=content/61590/userdirectory45.content Reprint of this article does not constitute an endorsement by the National Business Association; the article is for informational purposes for our members and viewers of our Web site. | 
