Seven Signs of Websites that Work

Your homepage must explain who you are, what you do, and why you are better than your competitors. Then, give people leads to other pages for more details.

Establish a clear navigation scheme and stick to it. Make sure that links are recognizable as links and that visited links change color. Provide an easy way for people to return to your homepage in case they get lost.

Show photos of your products or services. Use graphs to clarify detailed information. Associate related information with basic shapes, lines, and arrows.

Provide enough context around links so people will feel confident of where they are going before they click. Explain any potential surprises like large downloads and links that don't go to another of your pages.

Text online should be about 50% of the size of the same text on paper. Remove extraneous words and phrases. Then, go over it again and cut some more. People skim sites instead of reading them.

Provide multiple ways for people to reach you if they need help. You may be able to turn an unhappy visitor into a paying customer, but only if they can contact you easily.

Explain the benefits of your organization to your visitors. Make sure the features you describe are clearly tied to real needs. People expect free content on websites. Use yours to provide extra information, compare products, and help visitors make choices.