A poorly conceived approach to website navigation will ultimately confuse and frustrate users, which is obviously bad news for business. The biggest challenge when putting together a website's navigation is finding a way to avoid using a lot of links.

Although more links may be added as the site is further developed, keeping it simple is truly the way to go. On the other hand, websites can also outgrow their initial navigation plan and a redesign may be in order.

One of the easiest ways to promote user-friendly navigation is through the use of color coding. A wesbite's navigation should be easily distinguished and separated from the site's content. If everything seems mixed together it will look a messy and confuse readers.

Next, businesses should avoid an overload of internal links. If the number of links offered on the site cannot be diminished, use multiple navigation bars, separated into logical groups.

For example, core links such as the site's home page, blog, and about us links can be placed at the top; functional links such as a user dashboard, account history, and user settings can be placed down the side; and legal or privacy links can be placed along the bottom. This will keep the website looking neat and make it easier for users to find the links that they need.

Other ways to offer user-friendly navigation is by using icons or graphical aids to bring a website's navigation bar to life, being consistent with all of the navigation areas of a website, and being sure to separate all non-navigational content.

Most importantly, the website design must be flexible enough so that additional navigation links can be added in the future. Where possible, a website should be future-proofed to ensure a fluid design now and as the business grows.

Copyright 2010 dzine it, inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Too often, companies do not design their website for their customers. Instead, most companies take an egocentric approach to website design, and spend most of their time talking about themselves and their products, rather than serving the needs of their customers.

If a business's website does not serve its prospects and customers, then it is not serving the business either.

The best way to create a consumer-focused website is by first figuring out who the business's most profitable customers are and target that niche audience. The smaller the business's market, the more profitable it will be.

Next the business must understand its customers' needs and motivations and cater to those needs through the content of the business website.

Customers are typically not visiting a business website to kill time. They are there to solve a problem, find a specific product or hire someone to perform a specific service.

A website's home page is not the cover a best-selling novel. If it is static, devoid of useful, clear and concise information, it will spell failure for the website.

A business's website home page should clearly communicate what the company has to offer. Businesses should focus on their customers' needs and guide them through the website toward the information that can best help them.

Last but not least, business websites should be an educational tool for visitors.

A business should complement its product and service information with valuable educational content that helps customers to make more informed decisions through 'how-to' articles, best practices guides, training videos and other educational content. This type of content can turn a website into a resource center that customers will visit regularly, because it is so helpful.

Copyright 2010 dzine it, inc. All rights reserved. Website Marketing This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Once you know the requirements of a successful ecommerce website, you almost never fail on the basics. The rest is about having the creativity to attract and engage the visitor.

The ground rules used to create a good ecommerce website design are universal, because every ecommerce site has the same goal — to increase sales.

One of the most important universal rules in designing an ecommerce website is creating a design that is appealing to visitors. In order to be successful, an ecommerce website design needs to make a great first impression on visitors.

In addition to having a design that is visually appealing to audiences, an ecommerce website's layout should be simple and easy to navigate.

It is the layout and navigation of an ecommerce website that matters the most. A great ecommerce website design will certainly attract visitors, but its uncomplicated layout and simple navigation will bring success.

One design practice that is essential specifically to ecommerce websites is the need for detailed product information.

It is imperative that users have the opportunity to learn every aspect of the products offered on the ecommerce website so that they have the opportunity to make informed purchases. Detailed product descriptions are the best way to ensure that users are being given all of the information they need.

In addition, a good ecommerce website will feature strong product images, effective calls to action, clear contact information, an easy checkout process, and, of course, easy checkout.

An ecommerce business that keeps these general principals in mind will certainly have a better chance at success.

Copyright 2010 dzine it, inc. website Marketing All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The use of video as an online marketing tool is the latest and greatest way for a business to get noticed. However, he notes that the best platform for video marketing may surprise you.

If we are talking about video marketing by itself, there are nearly 100 reasons why YouTube is a more valuable platform for video marketing than Facebook. As an overall marketing platform, however, Facebook is definitely more valuable than YouTube for many businesses.

In other words, online marketers would never treat Facebook video as if it had an equivalent business value to YouTube, but it should be a place where businesses upload videos.

Uploading videos on Facebook is just as important as uploading them to YouTube simply because of the sheer volume of users that Facebook draws each day. According to reports, Facebook is the second largest website in the world, with more than 500 million active users and Facebook is also the second largest referral source for online video behind Google.

However, Facebook has a long way to go before truly dominating the online video market.

Video is currently integrated directly into the Facebook interface. When you update Facebook, there's an option to click and record a video from your computer's webcam. Unfortunately, most people don't use it, and those who do find that it results in very poor technical quality.

Additionally, many people have trouble deciding whether to use YouTube links on their page or actually upload video directly into Facebook.

If you embed a link to YouTube, it will embed the player directly into the Facebook feed. When you upload a video directly to Facebook, however, you can support more formats and the videos posted can be significantly longer.

Like everything else on Facebook, the best part of using Facebook as a video marketing platform is the fact that other users can easily share the videos you post.

Copyright 2010 dzine it, inc. Internet Marketing All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.