Article
Make It Visitor Friendly!
April 19, 1999 -- You probably think that your site is visitor
friendly.
But is it friendly enough?
Think about all the sites that you have visited over the last week or
month that left you with a nice feeling of being able to go anywhere
within the site without becoming confused or just losing your patience.
Now . . . that is what I call visitor friendly sites.
And while it is very critical on how content is worded and presented
along with the use of supportive graphics to further illustrate the
intended message, poor navigation can truly make a good message site
come up considerably short of being visitor friendly.
Remember . . . never assume your target audience is made up of technical
wizards or mind readers who just love a challenge to figure out what a
site is really all about. Making it easy for visitors to find what they
are looking for is fundamental in the reinforcement of a concise and
compelling mission statement and commercial message.
Navigation buttons and text links . . . need to be very visible and
easily read with images having alt text tags that describe the purpose
of the link. They can be listed under a header or down the side
(preferably the left column). And while a pull down menu for site
navigation might be necessary when there are too many key pages, do not
forget that a site map and table of contents should be incorporated with
a noticeable link.
The bottom of each page . . . should have at least key text menu links
that allow the visitor an option to continue with your site's
presentation and possibly another reason to purchase. It makes no sense
to have anyone hit the "back" button or scroll up to locate menu links.
Don't forget . . . that a "contact" or e-mail link needs to be a part of
the menu or navigation bar including at the bottom of each page. It is
very difficult to be completely visitor friendly if one has difficulty
locating the link that allows a visitor to communicate with your
company.
Of course . . . you need to do what is necessary to attract the target
audience to your site so they can find out how visitor friendly it is!
David G. Bancroft
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