What's New and How to Design Your Website's Front Page

 To go to the MrBead store click MrBead.com  or  MrBead.co.uk    

Click a picture below to see one of this month's new beads.   Follow Nigel at his new site at NigelHayMckay.com

For Free Shipping enter "AMBER" (without the commas) in the box at checkout, and click "Redeem Coupon".  Use NOW - as expires Friday 14th September 2012.  No minimum order, but can only for used at MrBead.com  or MrBead.co.uk and cannot be used with any other discount or eBay.

MiMi and Nigel are off to the UK on 18th September. Collect your free gift and see us there during October - for dates click here. First bead show at Luton on Saturday 6th Oct (details here), then Uxbridge Sunday 7th Oct - Edinburgh is cancelled.  If you're in the East of England, come to see our own bead fair at Norwich on 21st October (details here).

If you would like us to call at your bead society in Britain, please e-mail nigel. None are too small!

For all What's New click MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk

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Follow us on Twitter at MrBead@UKMrBead and follow Nigel at Nigel@NigelMckay

How to Design Your Website Front Page 

In the last mid-month newsletter we covered How to Build a Website with an Online Store to Sell Jewelry, see here - now you will learn how to design and build your front page to take customers to the site.  This is important as it’s the first thing a potential customer sees, and you only have a few seconds to convince them to stay before they click away to the next site.  With your front page:

1.    The user must be able to understand what the site is about in under two seconds.

2.    Design everything so it can be scanned by the eye quickly.

3.    Keep it very simple – no fancy or small type, music or flash.  It must load fast.

4.    Make it easy for the visitor to e-mail or contact you.

5.    Use a simple navigation structure with limited choice – less is more.

6.    Avoid long sentences, paragraphs or pages.

7.    No spelling or grammatical mistakes and only good quality pictures.

8.    Include a call for action.  Like “To Buy Click Here” or “E-mail Now!”

9.    Use similar colors and type styles for harmony.

10. Design a nice logo – this can be an image.

How to physically construct your front page will depend on your web building confidence.  If you have no idea, then you can either pay someone to design and make for you, or you can start with a pre-built template supplied by most web hosts.  One company that designs good sites is WebArtDesign, click the link for details.

Template
A template for your whole site will ensure each page is linked professionally, and that every page keeps the same design, logo, and other sections.  It saves you a lot of time.  Free templates are also available within the program Front Page. 

Keep in simple
Less is more, but it’s hard to design clear and simple.  One example is the front page I designed below at http://www.MrBead.com:

Structure links
Rather than clutter your front page, build links leading to other pages to expand a choice.  For instance on the front page above, I placed a picture and link for Stand Beads - click this and it goes to another page with a list of all the different types of strands.  To include all on the front page would be obstructive. 

Logo
Design your own logo - it looks professional and gives trust.  There are various programs that make logos, some are free, Google search.  Or experiment with different fonts and colors with your word processing program. 

My favorite is WebStyle from Xara (click for details).  However, if you choose to use a non-image logo, bear in mind that it may look different to viewers depending on their browser and settings.

Sell words
For headings, item descriptions, or copy, use words that sell.  For example see the list I wrote for myself to use at www.mrbead.com/words.html.  Make descriptions and photographs as detailed, accurate, and interesting as possible.  Photographs should all be sharp, cropped and contrast boosted.  Edit everything you write, and use the spell check and thesaurus on your word processing program.

NigelHayMckay.com

Read about the man behind MrBead and watch him make a fool of himself. Read about his new site at  NigelHayMckay.com and his resent trip to Burma and what he eats in China!  Much from these newsletters on beads is already on the site + a lot more with photos - but I'm still working on the site and there will be a lot more to add in the future. 

My blog is now fully functional at NigelHayMckay.com/blog - so please join in & comment!

For all What's New click MrBead.com or MrBed.co.uk                      top of page

From our new book How to Make a Killing Selling Bead Jewelry - to buy at a 33% discount to listed price click: US Version or UK Version

To view all are old newsletters click here    To go to our MrBead store click MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk