When you begin to design your website, keep in mind the needs of the average internet website surfer. Even if you are designing your first website, you probably have been using computers and surfing the internet for quite some time, and you may have forgotten what it was like when you first began.
Computers are so commonplace it is unlikely the vast majority of people using the internet are not using a computer elsewhere in their lives, however, their competence in surfing the internet is probably somewhere in the “novice” category of users.
The average user of a computer use to be a group of people we often thought as those who understood many aspects of the computer, inside and out. With the internet reaching the homes of almost everyone, we no longer view computer users as “professionals,” but average, everyday people using computers and the internet like an everyday appliance, sort of like using a microwave or VCR. This creates situations in which you as a webmaster must learn the things you can do and might want to avoid doing on your site.
Get your website listed in search engines
One of the first and probably most important steps after you build your website is to get it listed in the search engines so the average user will indeed be able to find you quickly. You know that an average user needs only to type into the address bar the full web address of your website and your website would immediately appear. However, the average user may not know this trick, and instead of typing in the actual web address you hand out on a business card, they may type in part of the address that might end up looking something like this instead: “strawberries.com.” Average users of the internet have a difficult time it seems typing in full addresses of websites. According to reports from “Metacrawler,” some of the top search engine queries are terms like “yahoo.com,” or “google.” Therefore, work on getting your website listed with the search engines as quickly as possible. If your website name is actually “strawberriesdelight.com,” and an average user types in just “strawberries.com,” your website should at least be one in the list they eventually pull up from their query. Otherwise, the average internet user you gave a business card to may complain to you that your site came up, “could not be found.”
There are several FREE services in which you can use to submit your website to search engines. There is also professional software you can purchase to help you get your website search engine ready that you can set to submit your website automatically on a regular basis. It is recommended to submit your website to the search engines no more than once per month. Otherwise, you run the risk of “spamming” the search engines and causing your website to be banned from indexing.
Designing web pages
Keep them simple! A cluttered page with a lot of information might confuse visitors and as people search for information on the web, the average user tends to look for things as quickly as possible. Keep your web pages clean and simple. These also do better in the search engines. I see a lot of web pages on professional websites that contain so much information I get tired in just a few seconds looking at all that with a box here and a box there, small boxes of information, large boxes of information, vertical and horizontal boxes of different sizes of information and different colors everywhere. This makes for a very busy page in my opinion and one that is difficult to grasp hold of anything specific. When I reach these types of web pages, I generally just give up looking for what I am looking for and click onto another website. Dynamic looking web pages might be what some people think really sets them apart on the internet, but to the average internet surfer, I do not believe this is the case.
Pop-up advertising on your site
In general, you really need to keep these at the minimum. If you send a newsletter and this is recommended to capture e-mail addresses and to continue marketing to website visitors, one pop-up window to announce your newsletter is enough for the average internet surfer to have to deal with. Just a small box asking for an e-mail address is all you need. Be sure to let your visitors know exactly what they are signing up for, and that their e-mail address will be kept private, only used for the newsletter purpose. Stay clear of website hosting that runs ads and pop-up windows on your site. This is very unprofessional and can send your visitors off your site quicker than you would like.
In conclusion, you want to create a website that is as user friendly as possible. Keep in mind most internet surfers are “average users,” you want returning to your site over and over again. Make it easy for them to find the information, products or services you offer.
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