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The look and feel of your website plays a large part in determining the success of your company.

Have you ever been to one of those sites that just seems to take forever to load? Even with high-speed Internet access, I still come across those sites and it frustrates me to no end as it probably does many of you. I also happen upon sites that are so simple and plain that I just plain get bored and move on. Although some people may think that creating a website is a simple process where the design and feel of the site are secondary to the content make a huge mistake because people will never read that content if they are disgusted with the site itself.

Fifteen secondsor less!is all the time you have to capture a surfer's attention. If your page loads too slow or if the site appears poorly made, there are tons of other sites for that person to look atand believe me, they will move on! The fact is that people are impatient and there are too many other options out there for them to waste their time on poorly designed websites. Here are some basics of website design that, if followed, will greatly increase your chances of keeping the surfers at your site and maybe, just maybe, buying something!

Clear Navigation Tools

A surfer should always be able to return to your home page from any page on your site. If they get lost in the maze of pages you have on your site then chances are that they will get frustrated and just leave. You also want to have links to the other main sections of your website so that people need not always return to the home page in order to go to another important section on your site. The easier you make it for people to navigate your site, the more chance you have of them staying around long enough to purchase something.

Simple and Consistent Page Layout

If you want people to stay at your site, then don't ask them to relearn how to use your site every time they link to another page. The links and layout should be consistent and easy to use so that people spend more time looking at what you have on your site and less time searching for ways to get around on it.

Plus, while you do not want a simplistic site that looks unprofessional, you do not want a graphic-intensive site that takes a lot of time to load. One or two pictures per page is fine but you risk losing visitors if they have to wait longer than a few seconds for your site to load. And remember, there are still a lot of dial-up surfers out there so don't design your site just for people with high-speed

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