There are some rules about website design that should be adhered to in order to make your website as navigable and readable as possible. The scope of the internet is so vast, the attention span of the average visitor is tiny that you need to make sure it is as quick and easy as possible for your visitor to get the information they need.

This article concerns itself with website text. The words that make meaning from those pretty pictures and menus on the page.

The first rule is; No text line should be wider than 600 pixels.

Magazines and newspapers use column layouts because it makes lines short so you can easily read the text from one sentence to the next. A well designed site will have the text in a similar layout so it is easy to read and navigate. Good publishing rules when using text, whatever the medium, is plenty of white space, short paragraphs and snappy sentences. The website has limited space and limited time to get its message across to its audience. Short, engaging text will help you achieve that.

The second rule is; Make the text easy to read.

Use colors wisely. If you website has a colored background, dark or light, choose a text color that is easily read even at 16 color screen resolution. It is easy to forget that not everyone has the latest computers with LCD widescreens. When designing a site, it has to look good at different resolutions in order to work effectively. It’s hard to read light text on a light background or dark text on a dark one. Choose colors carefully and make sure the contrast between them is enough to make it readable. Never put text over an image or a textured background, it will be really difficult to read.

The third rule is; Ensure the text layout works.

Similar to rule number one, but different. The text on a web page needs to be large enough to read. It is an obvious point to make, but it is important enough that it needs making. Nobody wants to squint at their screen in order to read a page. The absolute minimum text size for any site should be 12pt for paragraph text. Use line spacing to your advantage too. Don’t necessarily plump for single line spacing, play with it a bit until it the text looks right on the page. White spaces makes the text more readable and the page more pleasurable to read.

The last rule is; Grammar and spelling.

Use a spell checker, always. Even if you have a degree in English Literature, use a spell checker. There is nothing that says “amateur” more than a site with spelling mistakes. I write for a living but still use it. Most web designers I know use it. To take this a step further, ensure you use correct grammar. Don’t use all caps, or more than one “!” in a sentence. Make sure you end a sentence with a period and use commas appropriately.

Making a Readable Website is a post from: Fort Myers Web Design

Anybody can make a sales page to sell a product or service. Not everyone can make a good sales page to sell a product or service. To sell effectively you have to create a need and then offer to satisfy it with your product. Just planting the info and order details on a page isn’t going to get many conversions. Clever use of language and structure will help your visitors become customers.

Use your title tag. Any SEO savvy people out there will already have the title tag covered. For those of you that don’t, use it to describe you, your company and service or product. This is what will be displayed in the first part of the search results. Give potential visitors enough information to make the site worthy of a visit.

Use good descriptions. The description tag will be what makes up the rest of the search result. It is here that you have to hook your potential customer. You need to sell them on the idea of visiting your site. Save the product sales pitch proper for the site. Hook the visitor into getting there first.

Once on the site your title should be interesting and compelling. You have about 5 seconds to capture your visitor before they leave, so you need to do it quickly. For example; ‘A description of identity fraud protections’ is nowhere near as interesting as ‘Stop criminals spending your money while you sleep!’ is.

Include an image or images of your product or service. Depending on your business this may be harder than it sounds. If the service you offer isn’t really depictable in an image, find some that are relevant. Images make a page, they break up the text and form associations in the mind of the reader so are invaluable as a marketing tool.

Offer something for free, preferably a sample or trial of your product. To make your visitors believe in your product you have to convince them you believe in it too. A site that tries to sell me something but won’t let me take a look at it first isn’t going to get my money. You wouldn’t buy a car without trying it first, or even a book without have a quick look at it first would you?

Add some kind of customer service. Be this via a forum or contact page. Reassure your customers that you aren’t just going to take their money and run. It doesn’t matter if you intend doing that or not, as long as you convince your buyers otherwise.

Finally if you product is important enough to you, have some kind of after sales follow up. A friendly contact to the customer will demonstrate that you care, and is also a good way of getting testimonials. Testimonials are by far the best kind of sales tool you can get. Just don’t forget to ask permission before using customer feedback in this way.

If you can follow these guidelines you will have increased your sales potential immeasurably. The rest is up to you and your product!

How to make a good sales page is a post from: Fort Myers Web Design

You may have all the visitors in the world coming through your site, but if they don’t stay and buy anything then they are worse than useless. This happens to more sites than you would believe but there are some simple tips to help keep the visitors from just bouncing out.

Teach them something. You may be trying to sell to visitors but dress it up as education and you will keep your customers interested enough to stick around. We have all seen the one pages websites selling ebooks on diet pills or whatever. Mostly we click right through them because they are a blatant sales page and we don’t want to buy. Dress the sale up in some articles on weight loss, or nestle your product within healthy eating recipes or something and you will start doing business.

Keep your site navigation simple. Don’t make the site too deep or complicated. Keeping it as simple and consistent as possible will take away many of the barriers to visitors. There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to find the page you’re looking for. More often than not a visitor will just give up and move on. Don’t assume a visitor will always arrive at you home page either. Recommendations or search results of specific terms will result in visitors arriving from all over the place. Bear this in mind with your site design and ensure navigation is easy from whatever page you happen to be on.

Provide full product descriptions and good images. This may seem like a no brainer but it is essential to give your buyers the fullest possible picture about what they are getting for their money. Describe the product here, don’t sell it. List the benefits by all means, but keep on topic.

Give the customer choice about how to order. Offer online purchasing, phone or mail. Many people are still very sceptical about buying online because of all the stories they hear in the media. Cover that one off by offering telephone sales or ordering by mail. In a similar vein, use every security precaution you can think of and advertise the fact on your site. Use SSL, Thawte or whatever to give your buyers confidence in your operation.

Encourage interaction with your visitors. Employ a blog or forum and encourage user feedback of your product. Sites like Amazon saw a big jump in conversions why they added the customer feedback piece to their pages. This is as good as a testimonial. An example of a real life person telling the world that your product does what you say it can do.

Keep the tone light. When you write your pages, keep it conversational, and if replying to forum posts or blogs keep it the same. Talk to and engage your audience. Avoid geek speak at all costs. Jargon just turns people off, keep the language positive and accessible to all. You don’t want to limit your potential market.

How to Keep Visitors on Your Site is a post from: Fort Myers Web Design

New site design is almost done is a post from: Fort Myers Web Design

There are many different services we can offer, from web design and programming to SEO and PPC management. If you’re interested in our services feel free to call and request a free quote, if you would rather stop by our office you can do that too. Refer to our contact page for more information.

Cape Coral Web Design is a post from: Fort Myers Web Design

I’ll definitely be posting on here more in the coming weeks. Cape Coral is a big area and we definitely offer web design for your area, stay tuned!

First Post is a post from: Fort Myers Web Design

I’ll add another theme soon but I don’t know if it will be custom or just a publically available one. I’, also waiting for fortmyerswebdesign.org to snap out of it’s bad streak as well. I did the same thing with that site as I did with this, so now it’s just a waiting game. I’m happy to be back at #2 though. I know #1 is coming, it’s not a matter of if but when.

Removing the Untiled Project links worked. is a post from: Fort Myers Web Design