In order to have an incredible website, it has to be easy to navigate and read. Within this article your will find tips on how to do just that.

Readability

Visitors to your website should be able to read information quickly and easily. Choose your background, text font and text color carefully. Don?t use background and text that blend together. This makes reading the information that?s presented almost impossible. Visitors will leave immediately, never to return.

Color

Use dark colored text on light backgrounds and vice versa. Though it?s said that dark text on a light background is best, visitors with certain visual impairments, such as macular degeneration and glaucoma find it easier to read white text on a black, navy or other dark background because the lines of text are easily defined. Do not use glaring backgrounds or text. This will cause your visitors to leave immediately.

Text Size

Never use anything smaller than 12 point cap. Smaller caps are too hard to read. Anything over 14 point cap is too large. All caps make visitors feel like you are shouting at them. Make a nice page with contrasting background and text in regular caps.

Page Alignment

Align your page to the left unless you are displaying poetry, when it is fine to center it. Center align headlines and titles only. This will make visitors to your website feel at home and if they are comfortable, they will come back.

Navigation

Be sure to make your website easy to navigate. Make hyperlinks stand out. Label buttons and tabs for ease of reading. Never use flashy effects. Simple is the key to success. Make your website flow.

Link Color

Stick to tradition in this area. Links that haven?t been visited should be blue. Visited links turn purple or maroon to let visitors know that they?ve already been to those pages

The text for links should never appear the same as the other text on your site. The best way to identify links is to underline them or place them between lines. It?s best if you use a different size cap; ten works well.

Everything on your website should be easily accessible and within three clicks of a mouse. Visitors who have to click more than three times will become discouraged. Remember, they can leave your site in one easy click.

Easy Accessibility

If you don?t promote your website, visitors will not find it. You should promote your site both on and offline for easy accessibility. Use award sites, banner advertising, e-zines, directories and search engines to point visitors in your direction. Google is one of the best search engines on the Internet today. If the terms I?ve used here are not something you are familiar with, consider hiring a webmaster or a marketing professional who knows how to promote your site.

Offline promotion consists of brochures, print ads, radio and word of mouth. Believe it or not, word of mouth is the best advertising you can get. Good news spreads fast, but so does bad. Do all you can within your power to make visitors rate your website as incredible.

Make up business cards, envelopes, letterheads and, if possible, paint the URL of your website on your vehicle or have a magnetic logo made for it. This is a great way to get advertising for free.

Contact Information

Be sure your contact information is easily accessible by visitors. There?s nothing more annoying that having to search every page of a website in order to find the contact information. This will cause visitors to leave your site and not come back. Many websites make tabs or links at the top or bottom of their homepage for contact information and company history.

Contact information is an integral part of your website. Why? Because visitors may want to contact you to ask questions and receive information that is not posted on your site. They may also want to report broken links or other technical problems. If you have submitted your website to search engines and directories, the staff may want to contact you to notify you of modifications needed to ensure your website is listed in the correct category. By giving all information that pertains to contact, you will be assuring visitors that you have an open door policy if they need information or have problems.

Download Time

If your pages don?t download within 15 seconds, it?s probably that visitors will leave. Animated graphics tend to take longer to download. They may look great, but if no one sees them what does it matter? The same goes for animated and flash headers. If you add animated graphics or flash headers to your site, test them before you publish the page. If they don?t download within 15 seconds, remove them.

Leave personal preferences out of the picture if they don?t follow these guidelines in this article. Choose nice colors, not glaring, be certain text can be read easily and create links that are easy to use. Keeping things simple and promoting your site will encourage visitors to return time after time because your website is easily navigated and simple to use.