12 Characteristics of a Successful Web Site

by S. Denise Hoyle

Over 31 million domain names have been registered worldwide, with 10,000 names reportedly being registered each day. Out of all this competition, how do you make sure that your web site is one of the successful ones?

The good news is if you're building or running a business on the Internet today, its easy to determine the characteristics that make those accomplished web sites so successful because they tend to have these same characteristics in common.

1) Content is King! How many times have you heard this? Well, that's because its true. Successful sites don't use a lot of Flash, graphics, or fancy scripts that take the user's short attention span away from clicking the intended link, or "order" button. Keep your site simple, and full of useful information - this will not only bring more traffic to your site, but will help keep your visitors there and turn them into customers.

2) Keyword density. Search engines index your site using your keywords, and this is how your visitors will find you. Be sure to use keywords that are specific to your site, and use them repeatedly throughout the text on your site, as well as in your meta tags, titles and alternate text used to describe images.

3) Easy loading pages. Although DSL and cable modem connections are becoming more common, many users still have slower dial-up accounts and you can lose as many as 1/3 of your visitors if your pages don't load in 10 seconds or less.

4) Send out a newsletter. Keep in touch with your customers by sending them informative newsletters or ezines where you can also let them know about new products or information available at your site.

5) Create an affiliate program. Reward your loyal visitors and customers for helping to spread the word about your products and services. Paying a commission or referral fee to sites that recommend your products is an inexpensive way to get quality traffic to your site.

6) Contact information. Give your visitors as many ways to contact you as possible. Place your email address, phone number and mailing address on each of your pages. Some users are leery of sites that only provide online methods to contact them, and many search engines won't consider adding a link to your site if your address and phone number aren't prominently placed on your pages.

7) Post a privacy policy. Visitors want to know how their email address and other information will be used if they give it to you. Assure your visitors that you will not sell it or use the information to spam them.

8) Three click rule. Make it easy for your visitors to become customers - give them a clear invitation to buy from you, and make it take less than three clicks to checkout. Give people too many choices, or have a difficult checkout process and they may give up and leave your site for another.

9) Provide an FAQ page. Having a page of your most frequently asked questions available on your site will cut down on the time you spend dealing with email from customers, and it will help to put your customers at ease so they'll be able to buy from you right away without having to wait for answers to their questions.

10) Include an About Us section. Let your visitors know who you are and why they should buy from you.

11) Easy navigation. Make the navigation structure of your site simple and easy to understand. Visitors who can't find what they're looking for quickly and easily become frustrated and will leave your site before spending a lot of time searching it.

12) Check your traffic. If your host doesn't provide statistics on your site traffic, find a free script that will. Keep track of how many visitors you get to each of your pages so you'll know what your users are looking for and which areas of your site you need to work on or add more content to.

Implement these tips at your site to increase your chances of online sucess, and remember that in order to survive on the Internet you'll need to keep learning since electronic commerce is always changing. Therefore, you should plan a site that can be modified as new methods and techniques are created, or as your business model changes.

S. Denise Hoyle is President and co-founder of http://affiliatesifter.com, an affiliate directory site devoted to providing links, news and information of interest to webmasters and affiliate program managers. (c) Copyright 2003, S. Denise Hoyle. All Rights Reserved.

More Site Building articles: