Top 10 Ways To Create A Web Site That Sells
1. Planning

A site has to be well-planned. If a site appears to be thrown together, then most likely it was. Users
can tell.

First, prepare a mission statement. It doesn't have to be long. A sentence or two should be plenty. In
that mission statement, try to summarize exactly what you are trying to accomplish with the site. Once
you've done that, the rest of the planning will come easier. The rest of the planning will simply
become a means toward arriving at your mission statement. If you begin to lose sight of your mission
statement, then write it on the top of all your outlines. Or better yet, use your mission statement as
the title of your template pages.

Now to the hard-core planning. We've found the best way to be with a notepad and a pen (or a pencil
with a good eraser). First, lay out a site map in a flow chart style. Stick to that flow chart religiously.
Once you deviate from your planned site map, you create almost twice the workload for yourself.

Once you have your site map drawn out, outline your home page on pen and paper. Draw out your
tables and the file names you'll be linking to. Sketch your graphics out and position them accordingly.
Note where you want to place any scripts or animations. Even if you aren't the world's greatest artist
or your handwriting is tough to decipher, you're well on your way to painting that picture in your head.

Now, outline each individual page you link to from your home page. As you begin with each page, ask
yourself 'what is the purpose of this page?' Sometimes you'll find there is little purpose in a page, and
you'll delete it from the site map. All the better. It's best to find your flaws before you're too deep into
the project.

Now you start the coding/designing process. With a strong outline to guide you, not only will you work
faster, but you'll eliminate future mistakes and changes.

Your vision will probably change to some degree during the creation process, forcing you to either
re-map or redesign some of the pages.. When that happens, get the same notepad and pen out, and
modify from there. Trust me, laying out a site on paper is much faster than laying it out in code.

2. Design

Many people forget how crucial a site's design is. There is a fine line between a well designed site
and an over designed site. You can enhance the design of a site (colors, graphics, etc.) by planning
it in a similar fashion as you planned the entire site.

First, figure out what color scheme you want. Establish what colors represent you the best. Usually
two colors is enough. If you're unsure, try renting a book on color theory in the library, or look online
for color theory resources. You don't want your colors to be too subtle, nor do you want them to be
too vibrant.

Now sketch out your graphics/buttons. Try to keep the colors down. Lots of colors are not only
distracting, they are also larger files. You want to keep your graphics clear, easy to decipher, and not
too involved. If you plan to have any effects, such as rollovers, try to do it as subtly as possible.

Before you begin creating your graphics, We recommend that you lay the site out without graphics.
Instead use tables and table backgrounds to illustrate the color of the site. Create a rough draft of
your home page. If this is a team project, show your draft to other members of the team and listen to
their opinions. If you are doing this by yourself, show it to friends, family, or anyone who is willing to
give it a look. Sometimes the best feedback can come from people who aren't web savvy.

If you, or others, aren't satisfied with the draft, create another one and repeat the same process.
Create as many as it takes and don't work on anything else until you've settled on a final layout.

Once you're satisfied with your layout, start creating the graphics and plugging them in. You may find
that what you had initially planned doesn't work with the final layout. That's okay. It's inevitable that
adjustments will be made during the creative process.

Once you are satisfied with the graphics, then move on to the other pages. We recommend keeping
a similar look and feel throughout the site. If you feel that doesn't work for you, then we urge you to
use the same process for every page with a different or varying look and feel.  

3. Speed           

If your site is too slow, people will leave before the graphics even load. Sometimes when we
encounter a graphics intensive site, we will search for an alternative while that page is loading. Your
users will do the same. Nobody likes a slow site.

You can increase your speed in many ways. Naturally you have to optimize your graphics. We
recommend Macromedia's Fireworks or Adobe Image Ready. Make your files as small as possible
without compromising too much on image quality.

Optimize your code. There are several utilities that will eliminate extra data from html files to make a
page smaller in size. Use them on every page on your site.

Reuse graphics. Try to avoid creating extra graphics when you can use an existing one. A different
graphic might make the site look a little nicer, but the existing graphic has usually already been
loaded and is still in the user's cache. On this page, for example, there is probably not one new
graphic. The only thing your browser had to download was the html.

Last, make sure your server can handle your traffic. If your server can handle 10,000 hits a month,
and you're getting 20,000, do something fast. Either find a new, faster server, or mirror the site
elsewhere. There is nothing you can do from a developers perspective to speed up a server. You
can have the smallest graphics on the web, but your page will still take twice as long to load as it
should. If you aren't sure how fast your server is, find out. There are plenty of utilities out there that
test server speed.  

4. Organization

Your site has to be organized. Keep your ftp clean. We recommend creating as many subdirectories
as you can. Create one for images, and create others for every other page/department on your site.
On this site, everything is broken from large departments, to subdepartments, to
subsubdepartments, etc.

If you leave everything in one or two folders, maintaining it will be an absolute nightmare. The more
you update, the less organized it becomes. Finally, you'll get to the point where it takes longer to
navigate the server than it does to create the updates themselves.

If you move pages around a lot, use absolute urls (full urls) for your graphics and other pages. Yes,
we all hate to use them and they usually take a while. But it's a lot faster to deal with absolute urls
than it is to fix 50 broken links every time you move a page.  

5. Clarity

Keep it simple stupid - My favorite cliché.

Your users have to understand what your doing. Keep your message simple and clear. If you do a lot
of writing on your site, be direct and to the point. Don't beat around the bush.

Try to use one word menus, and alt text for descriptions, or window.status Javascripts. As we
mentioned before, try not to use too many colors, and try not to use contrasting colors. Your users
should have an idea where to go and what to do on your site as soon as the page has loaded.

Don't put the same links all over the place. Keep links in one place, or duplicate text links at the
bottom of your page for non-text browsers. Keep your links to the left, right, or top of your page, and
content in the middle. If it doesn't seem like there's enough space to include a link you want, either
make the space or lose the link.

Leave plenty of white space. Too many images and text together will confuse the user. Leave space
in between. White space will direct the eye where it needs to go. Nobody likes 'busy' web pages.  

6. Content

Your content is the backbone of your Web site I don't care how good it looks, or how well designed it
is, or how snazzy those rollovers are. If it doesn't have good content, then it simply shouldn't be there.

When putting together your content, you should reflect on the planning stage and specifically your
mission statement. Every bit of content should be in some way related to the mission statement, or it
shouldn't be there. If your mission statement is to make people laugh, then anything that isn't funny
should be left out. If your mission statement is to inform people about whale mating habits, then you
shouldn't be talking about browser updates.

Don't create 'filler' content. Don't write something or put something online just for the sake of having
something online. Plan your content as you planned your site. There's nothing more irritating to us
more than visiting a site only to find mindless banter. When writing, be direct and to the point. Use
short sentences if necessary. If you need help writing, pick up a book at the library.

The best writing is usually the most researched writing. If you have the time, research what you're
writing about. If you don't have the time, either make it or have someone else write for you. We
probably sound like a broken record, but use the library or the web.

We shouldn't have to say this, but DON'T STEAL CONTENT. Do your own research, or give your own
opinions.

Keep the content going. Update your site and your content regularly. Don't put something up and
leave it there for years. Everything changes, and as we in the development business know, things
are changing faster now. Keep up on it. If the world passes up your content, the users will pass up on
your site.  


7. Service

A common misnomer about web development and Web marketing is that customer service is not a
requirement. Not true at all. If you don't believe me, pick out 10 random sites and e-mail the
Webmaster See how long it takes to get a response, if you get a response at all.

Sometimes we can be blinded by being too close to our sites. We should listen to our users for the
same reason we seek outside advice on personal issues, or we ask others to edit our writing. You
can never visit your site for the first time again.

It's a good idea to insert a mail to link somewhere highly visible on the home page. Encourage users
to leave you a comment about the site, whether good or bad. Sure, you'll get more e-mail than usual.
E-mail can be hard to manage, but not if you check it regularly. When we're working, my e-mail
(several accounts) is checked every 5 minutes. I don't read and respond to it every five minutes. But
if we get a free moment, we read it, but more importantly we pay attention to it. No, we don't answer
every single piece of mail. That's too much to ask of any Webmaster, but we answer anything we feel
is important.

User comments have helped me more than we can express in this article. The questions we have
about our site, such as ease of use, clarity, are answered by our users. Plus, it's gratifying to hear a
positive comment every now and then.

Not only will listening to users help your future development, but it will also make your users feel they
have a voice. The web has become too impersonal. Any sign that the creators/developers care about
the users is truly a relief. Remember that every person who hits your site is an actual person in
search of something. A Webmaster's responsibility is to make that something easy to find.

8. A sense of personality

Entertainment is always welcome. Every page should have some level of entertainment. Whether it's
a joke every now and then, or cute graphics, or what have you, it should be somewhere.

Even if you maintain a site on gardening, a nice bit of humor is refreshing. Now don't go overboard
on it. I would advise against having a Joke-of-the-day column on a gardening site, but something
cute every now and then never hurts.

Mix things up a little bit. Make it a challenge to make your users smile. They'll reward you by coming
back more often

9. Usefulness

In some ways this is the most important tip. Every site should fall under one of the following
categories:

1. Informative - Offer information about a trade, a product, etc. Offer educational materials. Be a
resource of some nature.

2. Service Oriented - Offer a service (search engine, downloads, auction, etc.), sell a product, or
advertise a company.

3. Entertaining - Self explanatory. Humor, multimedia, etc.

If your site doesn't fall in one of these 3 categories, We implore you to abandon the project before
you waste any bandwidth. If you're going to put up a web site, only do so because you feel you have
something of value to offer the general public.



We're sure you've run across a web site, and asked yourself, 'what's the point?' You wouldn't want
anyone to ask the same thing about a site of yours, now would you?  

10 Surefire Ways to Annoy Your Visitors

Remember, these are things we don't want....


1. Start with your entry page. Be sure to include a huge graphical logo, but absolutely no useful
information. In general, large unnecessary downloads such as background music (ideally totally
inappropriate music), multimedia presentations and video files, are an essential element of the truly
annoying site, so include six or seven on every page.

2. Very tiny text (SIZE=1) can be a great way to damage your visitors' eyesight. Unfortunately
modern browsers include a font-sizing feature which negates much of the power of this technique.
Webmasters can seize back control by mixing tiny (SIZE=1) and very large (SIZE=6) text on the same
page.

3. Low contrast color combinations like yellow on white, or better yet, dark gray on black, have
been proven to increase web surfers' aggression levels.

4. WRITING EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS CAN HAVE INTERESTING EFFECTS IN YOUR
VISITORS' PSYCHOLOGICAL MAKE-UP. EXPERIMENT WITH switching between CASES FOR
absolutely NO REASON, preferably EVEN IN THE midDLE of WOrds, TO REALLY WIND THEM UP!

5. Make sure absolutely every page positively requires horizontal scrolling.

6. Frames can be a powerful technology for making people's blood boil. Be sure to use them
heavily, and don't let users easily break out even when leaving your site. For extra credit, combine
this with horizontal scrolling and have the 'Home' button "accidentally" put the entire frame-set inside
the smallest frame.

7. Forms are most interesting when they don't work at all. Unfortunately, it won't waste much of
your visitors' time if the form has only a couple of fields. Therefore make sure your form has at least
20 fields which must be filled out exactly right (add validation code), and wait till they've struggled
through them all, before giving a CGI error.

8. Banners adverts are one of the most under-used technologies on the web. Some sites
have only 2 or 3 per page. Show those sites how to do it right, by having at least 20 banners per
page. Remember never use a text link when you have a chance to use a banner!

9. Sadly some hosts do not add pop-ups to your pages. If your web host is holding you back in
this way, don't despair. After you've mailed your letter of compliant to the hosting company, add a
little JavaScript to your pages to achieve the same effect.

10. Finally the old ideas are often still the best ones: Bad English is well-known technique that
many webmasters are familiar with. Be sure to include a more than adequate number of speling
misteaks in all your text, or for a really exciting twist make your sentences really long, with way too
many clauses, a superabundance of overlong and unnecessarily obtuse terminology and gratuitous
jargon, and unexpected changes from formal language into the a more colloquial style: as it this way
cool example!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Exclamation marks are also good, the more the better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

It has come to my attention that there are a few webmasters who actually want people to enjoy their
site, bookmark it, and maybe even come back more than once. If you are a member of this particular
minority group, you can of course do the exact opposite of these suggestions.
To learn even more ways to "Create A Website That Sells" be sure to
look into our Mentor Program where as a Member we offer a 2 week
virtual e-class to teach "Five Simple Ways To Increase Your Website
Conversion" You will be amazed to learn these simple techniques for
profits!
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