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Do you know the three top in business web design today?  Even large corporations?

Know your abilities?                       Know the basics of good web design?

The art of selling on the internet is getting your products and services to people on the web. How? Search Engines! That's findability. Your business web site success depends on it. They will not remember your internet address (URL) from the radio, TV, cut it out of the newspaper, fish your business card out of their wallets or purses. When people sit down to their computers they go straight to their favorite search engine. Each and every page of your web site needs to be "optimized" for the search engines with good content (text, text, and more text). Can you afford NOT to BE THERE?

A business web site must be user friendly. Simplicity of design, easy and mulitiple means of navigation to all the sections and pages of your web site and minimal graphics. That's usability. FLASH pages or animation that take longer than 30 seconds to download on a 56K modem are not a good idea. Over 68% of internet searchers click past "splash pages" and pages heavily loaded with graphics.

Above all . . . usability means your customers and clients can find what they are looking for within 20 seconds. Usability and findability equal salability. Whether your business is selling goods and services or offering information on the internet people want to find what they are looking for and make a decision quickly and easily. They must be able to either contact you or make the purchase within two or three clicks. The BENIK Corporation web site is a good example.Good business web design incorporates all three critical elements. You are in business to make money. We are in business to help your web site do just that.

We encourage you to read THE STAGES OF WEB DESIGN to understand the process of planning, designing, building, promoting and maintaining a business web site.

BASICS

• Navigation: Keep it simple and clean. Make it easy to find pertinent information from the home page. 
• Flash is out: Flash intros are rarely viewed because they are pure hype. It's better to have a home page load quickly and get to the point.

Clean is in: Keep the design uncluttered and minimal. Use clearly readable fonts. 
• Have models: find 5 web sites that serve as a model for design and/or content. In the case of web sites, it's much better not innovate, but rather use formulas that are already successful.
• Update: keep press release current, as well as offers for discounts, white papers, and other valuable items.
• Press page: nothing speaks for your company like the press section. We go immediately to the press section to check out press releases and coverage, which says more about the company than any other single page. 
• Customer page: this is the second most important page - display your customer list with pride. Include customer logos and quotes.

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Top Three Business Web Site Design Mistakes
1st	Lack of text! TEXT is CONTENT. Visitors, potential customers, and cients want to know who you are and what you have to offer. Clean is in: Keep the design uncluttered and minimal. Use clearly readable fonts. Most adults do not like to read and will not read tiny fonts or blurry text. If you are reading this with the Netscape browser, please switch to MS Explorer, which over 88% of internet users prefer. The font will be larger.
2nd	Too many graphics! Search Engine food is text! They cannot "read" graphics, FLASH animation, and wade through heavy Java Scripts or other programming languages.  The text has to be where they can and WILL find it. We know you paid your graphic designer big bucks for the gorgeous, slick brochure. Do we have to say it, "content is KING".
3rd	Navigation nightmares! If people get lost on your web site, they will leave. They don't have to stay. They won't stay. You've lost sales and consistent customers/clients. Text links (usually found at the bottom of the page) are critical to both the search engines and visitors. This aspect must be thought through thoroughly before launching your web site. Search engines love text links because they can find all the pages on your web site. If they can then, so can visitors.
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