Let me begin by emphasising the importance of planning first, design second. The reason is that you need to be 100% certain of what your customers need from you and which method you will use to get them buying from you.

Rather than simply deciding you need a website to tell everyone about your business, you need to think about what your customers want to see and hear. There are 7 million new documents put onto the Work Wide Web every day. It's easy to become a redundant website, so dont make the following mistakes!

1. It's all about your Customers
Customers visit your website not only to read about you. More importantly they have needs to be filled, that is why they go on your website to look for answers. So plan your website by focusing on what they need and describing to them the solutions.

2. Make contact with EVERY Customer
Provide customers instant solutions that make them want to contact you, Too often websites let potential customers pass through without being mentally registered by the customer. These site become invisible because they do not provide incentives for customers to revisit, nor do they offer useful information for customers to want to keep in touch.

3. Long Term Investment Returns
Your wesbite is a long term investment. Many website are simply designed without consideration of how it fits into the business marketing and sales strategy. Your website should be part of a streamlined step in your sales and marketing strategy. Do you need it to generate customer enquiries? Or will it be an added sales avenue? Or will it be a post-sales reinforcement point?
Don't let your website become unproductive.

4. Keep it Simple
Although planning is vital, the next step is to create a functional, appealing website that is easy to use. Studies have show that websites which stray from the standard navigation layouts lose customers because it takes too long for customers to work out how to find the answers they need. The most successful sales sites are ones that are easiest to navigate and take the least time to load for viewing.

How do you ensure the above are achieved? Click here to keep reading.

This article has been written for other entrepreneurs, to help them succeed.

By Tina Kao
Founder, My Design Doctor

Copyright 2009 My Design Doctor