If you’ve been to my web site, you’ll notice one theme… Simplicity. In fact, if you view my web design portfolio, you’ll also notice that the majority of the web sites that my company  builds are very simple.  Many employ quite a bit of white space, are not loaded with graphics or flash, but are still visually appealing. On Target Web Solutions web sites are built to typically accomplish one goal: to sell.  I firmly believe that people (prospects) do not want to be inundated with leaping frogs, twirling flowers and God awful digital music playing in the background when they are looking to buy a product or service. They don’t have that kind of free time, not to mention, it is distracting them away from what SHOULD be the ultimate goal of your corporate web site, to SELL to them.

In my next few blogs, I’m going to outline some basic essential considerations that your web site should employ to help your prospects buy your products and services on your web site.

Today, I’ll focus a bit on your web site and usability.  I’m sure you’ve seen a ton of web sites that you land on that you need to scroll, and scroll, and scroll some more.  Do you typically read all of the content? Do you typically scroll and scroll and scroll or do you leave and go on to the next web site? If you leave the site all together or do not scroll period, you are with the 77% of other Internet users.  According to Jakob Nielson’s study on scrolling (Prioritizing Web Usability), 77% of web site visitors ONLY read the content above the fold (the line on your monitor where you have to scroll down further to view the rest of the content.). Obviously, this data tells us that the most important real estate on your web site is above the fold or at the top of your web site.

So, here are three pointers on stuff that I think should be placed above the fold on your web site:

1.) If your web site sells products or services, feature your most popular or most accepted widely known product above the fold.

2.) If your web site is a lead generating web site and it exists to gather leads, place your phone number or a call to action to complete your form above the fold.

3.) Navigation: If you need to funnel people to your online store, place the navigation to lead people into that store above the fold, LEAD people to take the action that you need them to take, “Start Shopping, Contact Us, Get A Quote, etc.”

Take a look at your existing web site and ask yourself,  Is my most important product or service easy to find and see as soon as people land on my web site? Can I easily find my own phone number? Can I easily figure out what is the next step once I land on the home page? You truly need to put yourself in your clients / prospects shoes when it comes to your site.

Need an independent eyeball? Give me a call at 407-830-4550 and  I’ll gladly take a look at your web site and offer some pointers to improve the overall usability. In my next blog, I’ll explore more web site usability issues and how they can be corrected / and / or addressed.

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