Most people know what they like, BUT — and it’s a big BUT—they rarely know what works when it comes to web design. As a marketing speaker I’ve seen it all.here are some important secrets to getting the most from your website’s design.

You always need to choose functionality, ease of use, and substance and of the website over how good it looks! This does not mean your site cannot be fashionable, but do not let style destroy usability and effectiveness.

Forget intro pages where you make people wait for a Flash show before they get into your site. Those pages are frustrating and a great way to get a visitor to hit the back button.

Make sure your site loads fast!

Put the main navigation menu at the top or on the left, never at the right or at the bottom. Depending on peoples’ screen sizes, the menu may disappear from view.

Make your flash-show large enough to be impressive and showcase your business in pictures.

Design your home page in such a way that keeps all of your upcoming events, products, and offers right in front of your visitors. This can either be a banner ad that changes itself with each new offer or scrolling news if more suitable for your industry. Do not make your website visitors log in to the website and go look for this information!

You can also use hover pages for this but don’t overuse them. Change the featured product often.

If you want new customers, make sure you have a prominent box on your home page that collects data and offers a quick and prominent route to more information about your products and services.

Have enough copy on your home page to provide a decent overview of your business and help aid your placement in search engine rankings. This means, in general at least 150–200 words minimum; 400 words are better. Most web designers act as if they are afraid of words or feel that words pollute their beautiful designs. IGNORE them; you need text to sell your web traffic and to help generate better search engine rankings. Always err on the side of too much information and you will hardly ever go wrong. People will decide for themselves what information is important to them and what is too much!

Make your copy large enough to read, in a simple typeface with no background color. Over sixty percent of all websites are illegible because they are created by teenagers with amazing eyesight. Anything less than 10-point Times is unacceptable and bigger is always better. Not from a design viewpoint, but from a RESULTS perspective!

The same holds true for reverse type or any graphical element that makes reading your site harder; JUST DO NOT DO IT!

Make sure all your key pages have complete sales presentations, not just bullet points. This is a marketing 101 error made by 99% of all websites!

Make the login area for clients, partners, customers, or website members extremely easy to locate and on the home page if possible.

Make sure the visitor’s “eye path” is simple and basic. People usually read from top to bottom and left to right. Too many distractions cause a pinball effect — that never helps your website produce results.

Put a call to action at the bottom of every single web page.

Put customer testimonials at the top of every page.

Make all icons or thumbnails clickable. Don’t make visitors work to find the word to click on; make it easy.

Your graphic designer, website company, and ad agency will not like following these web principles, but your company’s accountant will when he sees how much more effective your site is at generating business!

The closer you stick to these design guidelines, the more efficient your website will be.