Traditional brick and mortar stores benefit from drive by traffic. Perhaps their sign appeals to passersby, who stop in to take a look. Maybe shoppers walk by, take a peak in the window and decide to venture inside. You can think of a Web site in similar terms. The Internet is simply a big highway. The better location you have, the more visible you will be to the traffic on the Web. Instead of pedestrians or drivers, you are trying to appeal to those surfing the net.

So, how do you make sure you catch their eye? Through your Web site’s design which helps make it more visible and appealing to prospects. It is the first impression that a person gets of your business. And with the Web, you have even less time to attract visitors than a brick and mortar store does. That’s because, shoppers who enter a store or business will often spend time walking around. But in the online world, they will take only seconds to decide whether or not to stay and look around.

So when it comes to designing your Web site, be sure you take ample time to do it right. Don’t just jump in and start building. Instead, sit down and plan it out first. What are your goals? Who are you targeting? What kind of navigation are you going to have? Understand your goals and how people will interact with your site. Map it all out first; then begin your design. Just be sure that, in the end, you make it easy for people to get to where they want to go.

As you tackle your site’s design, there are some important questions you need to answer. These are the very same questions that visitors will ask themselves, in a split second, when they land on your site.

Here’s what visitors need to know, instantly:

• What am I looking at? The most important element for any user or Web site visitor to understand is “What am I looking at?” Visitors must be able to know immediately what you do or what you sell. If they have to spend any time searching for the answer, then you are at risk for losing them with one simple click.

• Why should I stay? Once a visitor knows what you do, they will want to know why they should stay and look around. This aspect has a lot to do with the aesthetic qualities of your site. Is it easy to navigate? Does it look attractive? Is it an inviting and comfortable place to be? So, while the message about what you do may be very clear, if your site is difficult to navigate or the colors are not pleasing to the eye, then it can become challenging for visitors to want to stay on the site.

As you consider various design elements, here are some common mistakes to avoid.

• Realize that bigger isn’t always better. People often believe that a message needs to be bigger and bolder in order for people to understand it. That’s simply not the case. So, don’t fall prey to using huge font sizes, blinking or odd colors. And be sure that each page is legible and easy to read. Don’t use light grey text or background colors that clash with text colors.
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• Use quality images, but not too many. People often go overboard using graphics and images on their sites. Often, the more images you use, the longer it takes for a site to load. That’s a quick way to lose visitors, because they will abandon a site if it takes too long to load. In addition, for Search Engine Optimization purposes, content and text are the keys to success not images.
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• Design your site to be compatible with different web browsers. Often, people only design a site with Internet Explorer in mind. Instead, you should make sure that your site looks the same, regardless of which browser is used to view it.
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• Limit the amount of scrolling you require users to do. And avoid horizontal scrolling at all costs! When you look at your site, be sure that the most important information resides on the top one-third to one-half of the screen. You want people to see the most important content upfront, helping them make a more informed decision to stay.

Once your site is up and running, there are two ways to evaluate whether or not your site is succeeding in attracting and keeping visitors. The first way to evaluate your site and its design is to simply ask friends, family members, and colleagues to check it out. Solicit their advice and feedback. Let them click around and watch how they use it. Even if they are not in your target market or a prime candidate for your services, they can still represent the user experience. So listen carefully to what they have to say.

The second way to evaluate your site is to implement a backend analytics program. This is perhaps the most critical tool for monitoring how users are interacting with your site. It will tell you how people navigate the site and which pages they visit. And the information can help you understand the effectiveness of your design. For example, if 99%% of the people who get to your homepage go nowhere else on your site, that tells you something. Over time, as you see trends develop, you can begin to refine your site – its design and content – so that you can better influence visitors to come on in and look around!