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When it comes to getting the design of your website right, it is important to realise that there is more to successful design than making it look good. If you are using your website for business, particularly retail, then getting the layout of your site correct can make the difference between sales and no sales and between having a successful online presence and one that no one pays any attention to. This article will point out five areas that people are often let down by the design of their website:

(1) Don’t Force Your Customers to Spend Time Looking for the ‘Buy’ Button: Always give your customers the quickest possible route to making a purchase – never give them the chance to get bored and click away. Make sure that the ‘buy’ button is prominently displayed next to the item for sale and that you have an e-commerce system in place that is simple, secure and only involves one or two steps at the most between clicking ‘buy’ and paying.

(2) Make Sure that Your Contact Info is Always on Display: Despite the ubiquity of shopping online and the fact that people nowadays feel completely comfortable buying stuff off the internet, most people still need the security of a phone number and the ability to connect with real people. If they are to trust your website and feel comfortable enough making a purchase from it, then you should make sure that you have both your business phone number and your business email on display (preferably at the top in the right hand corner) on every single page.

(3) Broken Links = Broken trust: Nothing says cheap and unreliable site like a broken link. Broken links will both cause your visitor frustration as well as most likely make them decide to leave the site completely. Plus they just look really bad. Make sure that you test out all of your links every week and check that they are all heading where they are supposed to.

(4) Avoid Visitor Counters: Visitor Counters are the online equivalent of owning an Alanis Morissette album. Cool in 1995 but something you really wouldn’t want to do now. Nothing makes a site look dated like a visible visitor counter. Sure, you need to know the analytics of your site visitors, but no one else does.

(5) Don’t Rush the Content: A lot of webmasters and site owners will go to a lot of trouble to get their keywords right, plan their SEO strategy and to design the site perfectly. But they then let themselves down with the content. If you can’t write, pay someone who can, but the point is to fill the site with interesting and engaging content that encourages your customers to click through. If you are reviewing an item, be brief and to the point, list its best features, quote from some other reviews and make sure everything is concise and to the point.

Esther is a freelance writer and journalist. She blogs about living and working online covering everything from social media to SEO. She also writes a blog for  the Bedouin Group.

Related article: Why Businesses Need Professional Web Design