Websites do not need to be large to be effective, but they do need to take two things into consideration. First, they need to be responsive to visitors' expectations and give them what they expect to see. Secondly, they need to drive visitors to take desired action for which website is designed. Generally speaking you will want your visitors to take one of following five actions:

• Purchase a product or service
• Provide contact information
• Download a white paper, datasheet, or other promotional materials
• Join your newsletter
• Click on advertiser’s banners or affiliate links

There are other goals websites have, but these are primary five goals most any site has. I have built over 100 websites – everything from consumer oriented e-commerce sites to B-to-B corporate sites to municipal management systems and intranets. Regardless of size or scope, single biggest mistake I see managers make over and over is trying to make their sites do too many different kinds of things. You should establish your site’s primary purpose, and make everything on site revolve around that goal.

When a site is properly focused on it’s primary purpose, visitors understand intuitively what it’s about and are not left with feeling that they are being “gamed”, or worse that site is irrelevant to them. They are also less likely to become confused about what they are supposed to do if they are ready to take next step with your company.

That means that if you are trying to collect names and email addresses of potential clients for your consultancy, you shouldn’t waste valuable real estate on your homepage discussing your “corporate vision”, you should be concentrating on establishing your expertise and demonstrating knowledge your potential clients are looking for. Likewise, if you are supposed to be selling products on your website, then forget about trying to appeal to investors. Investors will be most impressed with a retail site that effectively converts visitors into customers, and you’ll make a lot more money in process.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t have multiple goals for your business. This simply means that your site should focus on its primary purpose, and that purpose should be directly related to revenue-generating activities.

Once you have identified your site’s purpose, you should take time to write out general path you would expect your visitors to take through your site. Think about it from their perspective. Some examples of this are:

Example 1

I recently visited a Goth site that had dark purple letters on a black background. It felt Gothie, but copy was so hard to read that I gave up after a few words. Another site had an almost fluorescent orange background. It was so bright that it hurt my eyes. I left as fast as I could hit Back button. While creators of these sites may think they looked great, in reality they chased people away. What good is having a website if people leave after just a few seconds. Whatever these people were trying to accomplish, it failed. If people leave your web page before they can read your copy or look at products or services you sell, then site is useless, no matter how great you think it looks.

The first thing you need to do is decide what colors will best fit theme of your site. You can then use these colors when you, or a website designer, create your site. A Goth site may include black, dark red and purple, while one for Renaissance Faires could use earth tones and a florist may want pinks, reds and purples.

Here are some common responses that people feel for several colors.

• Black - seriousness, darkness, mystery, secrecy, power, elegance, death, evil, formality.
• Blue - trustworthiness, success, seriousness, calmness, power, professionalism, health, tranquility, knowledge, integrity.
• Brown - earth, nature, tribal, primitive, simplicity, stability, masculine qualities.
• Green - money, nature, animals, health, healing, life, harmony, ambition, greed, jealousy.
• Grey - neutrality, indifference, reserved.
• Orange - comfort, creativity, celebration, fun, youth, affordability.
• Pink - softness, sweetness, innocence, youthfulness, tenderness, romance, love, friendship.
• Purple - royalty, justice, ambiguity, uncertainty, luxury, fantasy, dreams, romance.
• Red - love, passion, rage, anger, joy, sexuality, danger, warning, excitement, food, impulse, action, adventure.
• White - innocence, purity, cleanliness, simplicity, goodness, virginity.
• Yellow - curiosity, playfulness, cheerfulness, amusement, caution, joy.