A professional-looking web site goes a long way to establishing you and your product as legitimate and trustworthy. It doesn't have to be fancy (shouldn't be, actually), but a nice, clean design is essential.1. Keep
design simple. Period!
2. Maintain a consistent style throughout so visitors always know they're on same site. This is a very basic rule that must not be ignored.
3. Make sure your design looks decent on older versions of both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Archived versions of these browsers can be downloaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.asp? http://wp.netscape.com/download/archive.html
4. Keep web pages uncluttered. White space is GOOD! Don't try to put everything on your Home page.
5. Provide "alt tags" for all images so disabled can use your site. The blind use a special "reader" when they surf web. It reads alt tags of your images. Make alt tag (description) of each image clear. "My new car," tells them almost nothing. "My 2002 silver BMW," tells them a whole lot more.
6. Forget Flash and animated GIFs. If anything moves on your site, it should be VERY subtle and visitor should be able to get away from it or turn it off. Forget scrolling marquee, mousetrails and hopping bunny. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
(However, if statistics prove that a scrolling marquee sells product, ignore this rule! Nothing is written in stone and as a marketer you have to pay attention to what's working today! Check gurus's sites and see what they're doing. Then do it!)
7. Keep graphics to a minimum. Be more concerned that your site loads quickly and contains great content or a terrific sales letter.
