Whether a website is “good” (meaning profitable) or “bad” (throwing your money down the drain) depends largely on the focus and functionality of your site. If you have a product or service and you want to generate business online with a profitable return on investment, there are a few basic design rules that you need to keep in mind.

Make a solid first impression.

Think of the user experience. If you have a fancy Flash intro, you must offer a skip intro button. It is frustrating to want to move forward and not be able to, and this person is just getting to know you! As a matter of fact, if you know you have to offer a skip intro button and that most people are going to use it, why use an intro at all? Deliver what your visitors want without the waiting game. If you must use an intro, at least make your site intelligent enough to recognize loyal visitors who keep returning with cookies, so they don’t have to keep hitting that skip button each time. Don’t make your visitors wait while your home page uploads or launches in a pop up window, as most people get those pop ups blocked. You only have a few precious seconds to engage your visitors with the content on your site. Don’t lose a potential lead or sale before they know anything about you because they lost interest and left.

Don’t play music that the visitor hasn’t requested.

If you have music on your site that automatically starts playing, you are bound to have a high abandonment rate—even if the Stop button is prominently displayed. Just because you can do something on the Internet, doesn’t mean you should. With your website, you are creating an experience for your visitors with your brand. Are you making that experience engaging or annoying? Frantically searching for the audio on/off button is just another speed bump between what you want the visitor to accomplish. If you are a band promoting your music, then yes, music is appropriate, but for anyone else, is it really necessary? Also consider how many people surf the web at work and when blaring music comes out of their speakers, their natural response will be to shut the window down immediately. If you must have music, make it an option browsers can select if they want.

Don’t overuse technology just because it’s new/seems cool/you can.

Every time a new technology is introduced for the web, some designers want to abuse the new toy. It happened with Flash and is now happening with AJAX . Good designers know when to empower new technologies to specifically accomplish their desired action. For instance, Flash is great for delivering videos and multimedia but if your whole site is Flash you are at a major disadvantage. Search engines cannot read Flash at all so that means you have no placement on any engine where your potential customers are trying to find you through search, nor can you develop any Search Engine Optimization. Also, some of the most basic and most often used features are disabled by Flash: the print function, the back button (it sends you back to the last website you were on before the current one), and unique URLs to easily share specific content with others. Let’s say a visitor decides they want to come in to your office/store to make a purchase. They click on the contact us page and then hit the back button to see the product again. Instead, they are sent to Google and are looking at all your competitors. Flash is a beneficial tool, but should never be the backbone to your entire site.

Content is the most important part of your site.

Search engines index text, not graphics or fancy animations. Your home page should be text-rich and the platform your site is built on should make it easy for you to update fresh, relevant content to your site on a regular basis. A Content Management System (known as CMS ) makes it easy for you, the business owner, to have full control over your site. A solid content strategy is needed to keep your site dynamic. Start with text and then begin blogging about your industry happenings, your products or services, case studies on your clients, new trends, and valuable insights. Share with your visitors why you are the best at what you do and they will reward you with sales and referrals. Then turn your blog posts into podcasts and marketing events. Start emailing your database (yes, you should also be collecting “subscriptions” from people on your site) on a regular basis to get repeat traffic and loyal readership. The content avenues are endless if you set up your site so you can painlessly add new subject matter!

The design and experience should be the same on all browsers.

It is true that the majority of people still use Internet Explorer, but more and more savvy prospects use a slew of others like Firefox, Safari, and Camino just to name a few. Often times users on alternative browsers represent a key marketing demographic known as “early adopters.” This segment is likely to spread the viral word about your product. And savvy Internet searchers are more likely to be engaging with you online for your product or service. If this key demographic can’t view your site in its optimum setting, you are missing a critical Internet demographic. Don’t forget that more and more people are accessing sites on mobile devices as well, so make your website universally accessible.

Remember, you want prospects to have an enjoyable experience on your site so they do business with you. At Integral Impressions, we believe in designing sites with a purpose and clear focus. We eliminate the clutter to deliver your marketing messages in a clear manner with actionable results.

Authored by Heidi Hayes.