3 Tips You Can Use Right Now to Improve Your Web sites Usability

Written by Jason Mann


Studies done by Jakob Nielsonrepparttar man touted as the, “King of usability” by Internet Magazine showed that people do not read onrepparttar 132326 web like they would normally read offline.

So what does this mean to you and why should you care?

Visitors to your web sites are in a rush, they wantrepparttar 132327 information you promised and they want it NOW.

If they don’t getrepparttar 132328 information they want they will leave and this means you loserepparttar 132329 sale,repparttar 132330 opt-in or whatever action you wantrepparttar 132331 visitor to take while at your site.

The following 3 tips will help you give your visitors what they want and in a way that will increase your web sites usability.

1. Concise Text

By keeping your paragraphs down to one single idea you can help speed up how your visitor absorbs your information.

For example, instead of:

“In today’s market place many people tend to become overwhelmed withrepparttar 132332 over hyped and highly charged writing that most web sites employ to gain visitors business. This causes people to be turned off byrepparttar 132333 sites language and ultimately they will clickrepparttar 132334 back button on their browser and leave.”

Why not say,

“Today more than ever people are turned off by over hyped marketing language of websites they visit and because of this frustration they will end up leaving your site.”

See how that short, torepparttar 132335 point paragraph saysrepparttar 132336 same thing but quicker?

Go through your home page first and take out long, multiple thought paragraphs and edit them down to be precise. One idea per paragraph once you finish your thought (in 3-4 lines) start another paragraph.

2. Scannable Text

Web site users do not read online text. They scan it.

Use short bold text, for example inrepparttar 132337 form of a hyperlink, to make important information stick out fromrepparttar 132338 page.

Bullet lists are an invaluable tool as well. Put your important sets of words in bullets. For example instead of,

“You will learn how to create your own web site, design pages that load faster, pickrepparttar 132339 right color scheme, and improve your sites navigation.”

Use this,

“You will learn:

How to create your own web site

Design pages that load faster

How to create a website; the do-it-yourself way

Written by Joel Strellner


So you have a product, service or information that you feelrepparttar whole world should know about. But you aren't quite sure how to tell them? Fortunately, for you it'srepparttar 132324 21st century and we haverepparttar 132325 internet.

By using this short article as a reference we will have you creating your own website in a matter of hours.

The first thing you will need is a website. There are many options for getting a website, some expensive and some are even free. Depending on whether you are selling a product, service or providing information will determine which option you should choose. Personally, I recommend that if you intend on making any profit from your website that you hire a web design company or (often far cheaper) a web design freelancer. If you just want to share some information online then you will be fine doingrepparttar 132326 design yourself.

If you are on a tight budget, then you may wish to userepparttar 132327 do-it-yourself methods described below instead of hiring a web design company. However, once you do make any profit you should investrepparttar 132328 money into a professionally created web site design.

Methods for creating a website

If you are unfamiliar with HTML, you will have to use either an online website creator or what is called a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor. The former option is available with almost all online hosting companies so I won't go too much into detail on them. However, I do recommend SiteStudio as one ofrepparttar 132329 best in this category. SiteStudio is available through nearly every web hosting company that uses H-Sphere. H-Sphere is a full featured web hosting control panel (I will go further in detail inrepparttar 132330 choosing a web hosting company section).

The later option will give you a lot more flexibility; however it will cost some money. The flexibility that you will get will far outweighrepparttar 132331 cost in some ofrepparttar 132332 software packages listed below. Some ofrepparttar 132333 largest benefits includerepparttar 132334 ability to easily modify your website, have a unique web-site tailored to your design requirements, you created it!, and if you do a good job there really isn't a need for hiring a web designer at a later date to redo your website.

Here are some ofrepparttar 132335 most popular WYSIWYG editors:

- Macromedia Dreamweaver MX - Adobe GoLive CS - Microsoft Frontpage

I recommend that you avoid Microsoft Frontpage, while it is easy to use and fairly popular, it isn't standards compliant. If you are going to learn how to create a website you should learn how to do it right.

Choosing a domain name

One ofrepparttar 132336 hardest things you will have to decide, yet almost more important than any ofrepparttar 132337 others is choosing a domain name. A domain name is what people will type inrepparttar 132338 address bar of their browser to get to your website. For example, google.com, yahoo.com, amazon.com, and ebay.com are all domain names. If you will be selling a product, service or ifrepparttar 132339 site is business related try to stick to a .com or .net top level domain (tld) extension.

When choosing a hosting company avoid choosing a company that offers free domain registration with hosting (or do not acceptrepparttar 132340 free domain registration) because what they often don't tell you is that you can't transferrepparttar 132341 domain to another hosting company or even thatrepparttar 132342 next years fee due will be a hefty one.

Domains are typically renewed yearly andrepparttar 132343 pricing ranges from around $8.00 to $35.00 each year. The cheaper domain services typically don't offer as many features asrepparttar 132344 more expensive ones.

I recommendrepparttar 132345 following companies for domain registration:

- Register.com - Expensive, but a well featured control panel. - GoDaddy.com - Cheap, yet full featured. - Enom.com - Also a cheaper alternative.

I recommend that you avoid Network Solutions, while they are large and have a big budget they are often criticized for doing shady things.

Choosing a web hosting company

Now days hosting has become a commodity item. There are literally tens of thousands of hosting companies, most offering exactlyrepparttar 132346 same features and most of them perfectly fine for your new website.

When choosing a hosting company you should try to compare features, not necessarily price. The end result is to have a website online with your product, service or information for everyone to see right? Oftenrepparttar 132347 cheaper hosting companies lackrepparttar 132348 redundancy required to ensure that your website is available 24/7. If this is a business venture you do not want to miss any potential customer due torepparttar 132349 dreaded 404 error page. However, if you are just going to be providing information you could choose a cheaper host as you don't intend on making a profit.

Some ofrepparttar 132350 features you should consider when comparing hosting companies are:

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