Websites That Work - Part 2

Good morning and welcome back to the Bride Booker Blog.

We're going to talk more about making your website work today, but before we start I'd like to let everyone know that today is the last day of the 50% launch discount on membership to the Evolution Programme. If you are interested in joining and receiving all the benefits of the programme, I'd highly recommend that you act now and save yourself £££s.

So on with the post.

Today we're going to talk about your home page, maximising its appeal and minimising the chance of people bouncing off.

First of all, take a look at your home page and analyse it from a brides point of view. How quickly does it load? How does it look? Can you see exactly what it is you are looking for? All these aspects are potential stumbling blocks and could mean that one of your valuable visitors leaves your site without actually looking at anything!!!

Make sure your landing page loads quickly by minimising the number of files and pictures on the page, ensure all pictures are the minimum file size to maintain the quality your desire. This is one of the sections that Flash sites fall down, many of them take in excess of a minute (simetimes even longer) to load, the site may look great once it has loaded, but I guarantee you'll lose a significant percentage of visitors before they have ever seen it!!!

Make sure you site looks clean, crisp and professional. I see sites every day that look awful and speak to their owners who say that web site enquiries are very rare but don't know why!!! Would you book the services of a company whose website looked amateurish? I know I wouldn't, I'd keep looking until I found a site that looked professional. Do you think a bride would risk it for her wedding day?

Your home page is the gateway to your site so not only should it be immediately obvious what it is you are all about, it should be easy for a visitor to be able to navigate quickly to the information they require, if they can't see it quickly - or even worse, can't find it at all - then be sure they will find a site where they can find it!!!

A big mistake a lot of people make on their sites is having their home page as an entry page with a picture and a click here to enter link - THIS IS A BIG MISTAKE! A page like this serves absolutely no purpose but to increase your bounce rate so if you have an entry page on your site make sure you get rid of it quick!!!

So thats it for today, hopefully you have enough information to go away and analyse your own home page and start directing more of your visitors to the real information on your site.

Before I leave, remember to take advantage of the last day of the Evolution Programme launch offer today!!!

Until next time.



Edward