This list shows some of the factors that will influence your visitors, when they first visit your site. It is by no means exhaustive many other factors can influence a visitor’s view of your site but it’s a good start.

1. Content – While content may not have an instant impact like some of the factors that relate to the design of the site, it will have a significant impact on visitors that stick around for a minute or so. This is a big factor especially for ecommerce or service based sites. A first-time visitor that finds really great content will remember their visit in a positive light.

2. Spelling – All content on your site should be spelt correctly, the quality of your content gives an impression to the visitor, bad spelling will influence what the user thinks of your company. Tools are available to check your spelling even when entering data online such as Google bar and many others

3. Colours – The colours you choose for your website can have a huge impact on the overall attractiveness of the site. Choosing the right colour combinations can be difficult, but fortunately there are a number of online tools that can help. For a list of resources and links to some articles on the psychology of colours, see our colour guide. Also a great tool which we use is Adobe® Kuler™

4. Logo/Branding – Another factor in the overall look of your website is the logo and branding. Most importantly, the logo should help to brand your business in the way that you want visitors and customers to think of you.

5. Typography – A somewhat subtle influence is the typography and fonts. A change in the typography may not be a drastic change, but it can make all the difference.

6. Layout – One of the most important design elements is the layout. Whatever layout you use should draw the reader’s attention to those items that are most important. Layout can be used not only to create an attractive design, but also to make the site easy for visitors to use. While most websites use a fairly standard design, a good way to make your site stand out is to use a more creative layout. Of course, you’ll want to make sure that your creative layout adds to the effectiveness of the website rather than detracting from it.

7. Advertisements – One of the easiest ways to make a bad first impression is to have a website that is full of advertisements. Most of today’s Internet users have come to expect advertisements to be present on most websites, but too many ads, the wrong type of ads, and poor ad placement can be a big turn off for visitors.

As a general rule you should avoid placing ads in places that will interfere with visitors being able to read your content, unless the goal of your site is to make money through ad clicks. Animated ads are also a touchy subject as they can also easily distract and annoy readers.

If you use advertisements that are relevant to visitors and are kept out of the flow of your content, visitors generally will not mind.

8. Ease of Navigation – Your site should be easy to navigate this goes without saying, however there is a widely held belief that all content should be reachable within 3 or more clicks, with the acceleration of rich content on the net it is not always possible, but in our opinion it’s not always a rule that should be adhered to. As long as your navigation is simple, and draws the user into your site, why not have a few stops on the way.

9. Clarity of Purpose – New visitors should be able to very quickly determine the purpose of a website. Many sites effectively incorporate this into their branding by using a descriptive tag line that sums up the site’s purpose. About Us pages are also helpful for communicating purpose.

10. Image Quality – Some items like low-quality animated GIFs and hit counters can give a negative first impression. Generally anything that makes your site look like it was designed 10 years ago should be avoided. It’s amazing how much impact a high-quality photo or graphic can have on a design. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources online for getting high-quality, low-cost photos, and some are even free. Icoms tend to use istockphoto for their designs this library is extensive and is also very attractively priced.

11. Accessibility – Accessibility is a big buzzword in web design. The reality is that not all of your visitors will fall into the mould of the average visitor. Some will have handicaps, some will use older browsers, some will have slower connections, etc. If your website is not accessible to a visitor it’s almost guaranteed to create a bad impression.

12. Popups and Pop-unders – Most Internet surfers now have some sort of popup blocker, but some websites are still using them. Most visitors don’t appreciate popups that aren’t blocked, and this can create a bad impression. Some sites, however, still use popups effectively, so it’s something that you will have to weigh the pros and cons.

13. Load Time – Most of us are very impatient and slow loading pages will not make us want to return. On the other hand, pages that load quickly will encourage visitors to navigate through your site knowing that they won’t have to wait very long for each page to load.

14. Flash Headers– This is another of those Internet myths which say Flash is Evil, this comes from the overuse of flash in its early days when broadband was not even heard of and we all had 14.4 modems and search engines didn’t know what to do with flash so it was overlooked. Flash today however is a way of delivering rich content and the search engines are starting to index flash content. And let’s face it without flash there would be no YouTube. Not so evil after all.

15. Error Messages – If new visitors to your site are getting error messages and are unable to access your site, they’re not going to be impressed and they won’t be back. There are a number of different errors that can occur. Make sure you at least design a 404 page which will display if a page has been removed from your site