Designing a client friendly website

We have all came across websites with a mass of links and never ending scroll bars of text which have frequently left us frustrated and annoyed. Being able to quickly find what you are looking for is important and websites with a clear structure who have also been properly indexed (site specific search) are a joy to visit. Unorganized sites with hidden information often cause us to give up and move on to another site, often that of a competitor.

While it is important to provide relevant and valuable information it is important not to overdo it and overwhelm your potential clients. Besides pages explaining your business and your competencies, product or service you provide you obviously need a contact page, a pricing model; maybe an option for customers to purchase your product directly on your site and that should be all for most businesses. Others could benefit from a blog or links to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Generally that should suffice for an overwhelming majority of business. There is no need to overload your site with pages about things your bill paying customers won’t care about. Remember, time is money and both your and your clients’ time is very valuable.

Items of importance:

  • get to the point
    • limit scrolling
    • curb your link count
  • explain
    • who you are
    • what you do
  • provide
    • contact info
    • pricing and order info
  • expand
    • blog
    • social networking sites
  • design, easy on the eyes