Designing A Website That Sells

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Would you buy meat from a grocery store that left the bad meat in with the good meat or wasn�t clean? Would you buy a car from a sales lot that had totaled automobiles on the front lot? I wouldn�t and neither would you. Your website is your grocery store; your car lot. You must have an atmosphere that is pleasing to buyers. One that tells that buyer that you are not an amateur, but instead a trained, seasoned professional. Your site is a direct reflection of your product and that is why that having a well
designed website can make or break your sales.
The first thing to keep in mind when designing your website, is �surfability�. Take a few minutes a look around at several web pages. What makes them appealing? Were there some that you closed out of immediately? Why? Take notes and do your research. Keep in mind that when a person visits your site they have a goal in mind. They are either seeking information or shopping for a product. Give the person what they want without having to search for it. Be sure that all the information on your site is relevant to your product. Make the buyer think that they need your product to solve their problem.
Your main page serves a very specific purpose. It should be an avenue by which the customer can shop your site. It should be easy to view and load very quickly. This is your first impression and we know that first impressions can either close the deal or loose the deal. Make it simple. It is best to have links that are easily viewable by the reader that will navigate them to where they want to be. Tables are often a great choice when deciding on a way to design the main page of your site. Your main page
should load very quickly, chances are if it takes the page more than ten seconds to load even on a 56k modem, the customer will click away to save time, hoping to find the information or product elsewhere. To increase the loading speed of your main page you should avoid large graphics or excessive graphics. To many banners or special effects can cause a page to
load slowly as well.
To make your web site more appealing to the eyes, you should stick to mild colors. If your site is a content site where the user will be doing a lot of reading, it is best to stick to black and white. Color can be added when using tables, as a way to brighten up the page, but remember to keep the overall look of the page professional and appealing to the audience that will be visiting most often. Since screen resolutions vary among monitors, it is a good idea to set the pixels to a standard 800×600. You may also choose to set the tables in your web page to span a percentage of the page rather than a set number of inches. This will be sure to accommodate all screen sizes. You should remember that a lot of Internet users will not use the same browser as you, and therefore you should be sure that your site looks as good on other browsers as it does your own. You can do this by downloading several browsers through which to look at your page.
Be aware of the fact that the overall look of your website is a way to make money. The appearance of the site, if designed properly, can be an excellent marketing strategy for your product or service.

Building Your First Web Site?

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Before doing anything on the technical side, you need some kind of basic idea to work with. I suggest first getting some paper and a pencil. Start by sketching a layout of how you would like your web page to appear. For example, a simple title at the top, the area in which you would like any content, pictures and so on. Now its time to do some programing!
Don’t let the word programing scare you. Anyone can learn and there are several sites that offer free tutorials. One such site is http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp. Although it is not necessary to be a top notch programer to build and operate your web site, you should learn the basics of html. I recommend that you thoroughly learn about tables. They are widely used and with them, you can create a professional looking layout (even as a beginner).
You can use any basic text editor, like notepad, to write, edit, and save your code (html). When saving your work for the first time, choose Text Document for type of file, then save with the extension htm (for example index.htm). Your home page (the first page people usually see) is normally saved as index.htm. To see how your page looks, double click on the file and it should automatically open up in your browser.
Now that you’ve got your web page ready to go, it’s time to find a host (a place for your web page to live). Since this is your first site, I suggest you use Free Web Hosting. Some host will put advertising, such as a banner, on your site as the cost of free hosting. Others will only charge you to register your Domain Name (www.YourSite.com). Be careful not to accidentally sign up for extras such as url protection, spam control, etc. (unless you feel you need them) as they will add to your cost. These sites will have a limit on bandwidth (how much data that can be transmitted per month), email accounts, and maybe a few other things, but are still great for first timers. If later on you feel you need more, then you usually can upgrade. To find a host, just use any search engine and the keyword phrase Free Web Hosting.
Ok! You’ve sketched a layout for your web page, learned some basic html, coded your web page, found your host with the most (couldn’t resist), and registered your URL (www.YourSite.com). Now it’s time to upload (transfer) your file (web page ) to your host. To do this you need a FTP program. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. When using this application, there are usually two windows. The left window shows your computer files, and the right window shows the files stored on your host. For a good tutorial and to download a freeware FTP program, FTP Commander, go to http://www.nexcess.net/hosting/support/tutorials/ftp/ftpcommindex.php.
Now you should be up and running. But don’t stop there. Continue to tweak, add pages, learn to link to other pages and sites, and frequently add new content. Who knows, you could eventually learn to profit from your creation.

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