10 ways to help me really like your website

I have been away for the last week in Germany at an international trade convention. It has been an interesting time where you get to meet all sorts of interesting people from different cultures.

It is amazing how many people have referred me to their website at the show. It makes sense - suppliers from all over the world use a website when promoting to an international market.

But as I sit here in my hotel room and finally plucked up the courage to pay the high costs of internet access - I have used my final minutes of airtime to browse a few of these sites. Here are some tips for those website owners:

1. Never ever use just flash for your website! Add static and flash content, and then give me the choice on which one I want to view. Don't make it my only option.
2. Make information easy to find! Add a site map, make your menus and navigation obvious - please! I hate it when you have to hunt for information.
3. Ignore your designer and listen to your copywriter. What do I mean by this? Well, it is great that you site looks great - but please make the content interesting and compelling to read. I hate being bored by meaningless text on websites.
4. Make your text easy to read...please! Add headlines, break up the text. Add a few pictures, maybe even humour. But make it easy to find the bit of text I want - I don't have hours to read through everything.
5. Put your contact details on every page. Put your phone number and your email address in a place where I can easily find it without having to click through to the contact page unless of course, you don't want me to contact you - in which case hide them away and let me get frustrated!
6. I don't care about your company logo. You may care, but I don't. It doesn't need to take up a large part of your website page. It is irrelevant (unless your website is about creating logos).
7. Please remember the law of accessibility. It is now law. Don't be put off by the term accessibility - embrace it. You will benefit in the long run. My laptop has a high screen resolution which is great for DVDs but difficult to read small text - therefore make it easy for me to increase the size of the text! Simple really.
8. When I have to fill in your contact form - please test it with Autofill from the Google toolbar before making it live. I hate filling in forms so I love Google's AutoFill feature - so do 1000's of others. Let me use Google AutoFill!
9. Assume that I want to leave your site quickly and make your site grab my attention and give me what I want ASAP.
10. Be consistent. You have invested £'000s into the trade show. You have worked on your stand, your brochures. You have staff there and biscuits for me to eat. Well done! But when I come to your website it looks awful. It looks like you have thrown something together in a rush and is nothing like the rest of your marketing literature. Be consistent. Don't confuse me - I am, after all, a simple being.