This past week, I did just that. In order for You to gain some benefit from what I did, I will go over all of the points I addressed.
1) The overall appearance of the site.
Your visitor will make a judgement of you and your business
almost the moment your site loads. You need to display a
professional appearance. Anything that looks like an
amature put it together will shadow your credibility.
Your visitors first impression is critical.
2] Home Page - The Biggie
The first thing that greets your visitor needs to make an
impact. This is your billboard. Tell your visitor exactly what
he wants to know about you and do it in the first couple
of lines. Unless this information virtually smacks him in the
face, he may leave and never return.
3] The Message
This gives the visitor a reason to stay. Can your visitor see
to whom the message is being directed and can he see
why your site is better than all the others that are offering
much the same thing? This must answer their question:
WIIFM - "What's In It For Me?"
4] Load Time
How fast does the page load with different modems? Run
it thru websitegarage.com and continue to make changes
until you have the speed of loading your site down as far
as you can. If graphics are a big part of your page, and
quite often will be, optimize them as far as you can without
losing their impact. It is imperative that the home page
especially loads in less than 15 seconds. Most visitors
will never stay around. Eliminate music, applets, heavy
graphics or whatever it takes to optimize the load time.
5] Graphics
How pertinent to what you are trying to convey are the
graphics that you are using? A picture says a thousand
words, It's true. And it's difficult to show your product or
service and to excite the senses without the use of
graphics. In addition to optimizing them by reducing the
number of colors, also reduce the dimensions and once
again eliminate all that are not necessary to convey your
point.
6] Fonts - Readability
Use basic fonts that are easy to read and keep their size
where they can be easily read by all visitors at all screen
sizes and resolutions. Make sure there is plenty of white
