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5 Critical Success Factors for Websites to Drive Sales and LeadsBy Hillary Bressler, CEO Good Usability = Good User-Friendliness = Online SuccessWhat are the keys to generate higher sales and win new customers from your website? If these are questions you ask about your e-business, then this article is a must-read.Millions of dollars' worth of revenue is lost every year because of poorly-designed websites that are difficult to use and make it hard for customers and prospects to find what they want. Your website's usability really affects all aspects of the customer experience and influences whether you make the sale or not. Over the past 10 years in the Internet marketing business, I have seen companies hire web developers that just didn't get it; these same companies end up with terrible, unusable websites that hurt their brand. Current best practices call for spending about ten percent of a design project's budget on usability; I have outlined the top five best practices that you can apply to your website to ensure success. 1) Ensure your content is legible Use a font that is easy to read, neither too big nor too small. DON'T WRITE PARAGRAPHS USING ALL UPPERCASE (that's shouting), don't overuse bold text, use italicized typefaces, or otherwise hard to read fonts. Ensure that your pages have good visual contrast - there's a reason why most print publications use black text on a white background. 2) Skip the Skip Intro Splash pages were an early sin of abusive web design. Luckily, almost all professional websites have removed this usability barrier. However, we're now seeing the rise of Flash intros that have the same obnoxious effect: they delay users' ability to get what they came for. Users, especially business owners, want to get to information - they're not looking to be entertained by inappropriate animation. 3) Label your links clearly and consistently Make clickable objects and links clearly identifiable. The text for links should also be descriptive to help your visitors develop a mental image of your site's information. If you develop a naming system for your website's hyperlinks, use them consistently. And if a hyperlink takes the user to a PDF rather than a web page, let them know what's going on before they click on it: label the link, and include some indication of the size of the file to be downloaded - users on slower connections, or in an office environment where downloads are not permitted, will appreciate the warning. 4) Break up long pages of textual information If website content is poorly written or structured, your users will experience difficulties. Although over seventy percent of people scan rather than read online text, you can still maximize the impact of copy by breaking up sections into shorter paragraphs. Add informative subheadings and use bullet points to lead the visitor into your content; think about your own eye patterns as you view web pages and get into the habit of "chunking" information in this way. 5) Provide a contact telephone number at the top right of every page Make it easy for people to contact you directly. Do not bury contact information deep in the site. We see this problem time and time again - people don't always enter your site on a home page, and will choose for themselves what path they take through the site. Making your primary contact details available on every page ensures that people don't have to search for that information, and demonstrates that you respect your visitors' time. 
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