Affiliate Marketing Monday – Designing User Friendly Site

In this week’s edition of Affiliate Marketing Monday, we are going to focus on the design of your site and the importance of it.  As discussed in the past, it is all about content, content, content.  Not just for the search engines, but also for your readers.  However, once your readers are on the site, is it easy for them?  Are they directed to a call to action?  Here are a few design questions to ask yourself to make sure that you are getting the most out of your design.

Is my font easy to read?

You would think that this would be an easy answer, but sometimes it’s not.  You may need to experiment with different colors or background colors and find what works best for your site.  Send a link to your blog or website to family members and ask them if they can read it easily.  I tend to show things to my older brother because he always will find something wrong with it, but it just makes things better that way.  If people can’t read your font, then what’s the point of having a website?

Do you have too many images / flash?

Sure, those flash banners you have on the side look cool, but are they distracting as well?  I am not telling you not to have any flash banners because I think that they are fine to have, in fact, I have them on the side of my site as well.  However, static banners will do just fine as well.  If your website starts to become a photo gallery of banners, then you are going to make it more and more difficult for your readers.  Keep it simple, keep it useful.

Is there a clear call to action?

This is not just about affiliate marketing, this is every marketing piece that you have ever created or provided to people.  Once you drive all these people to your site, what do you want them to do?  One thing that you may want to do is capture their e-mail addresses.  If that is the case, then make sure that your e-mail sign-up is very clear on every page.  Some of the banners that you may have up on your site were most likely not created by you, but some graphic designer for the merchant company.  If their banners do not have a clear call to action, then you can ask them to create one that does, or it may be time to look for a new merchant to promote.

These are just 3 quick, simple questions to ask yourself to make your site easier for viewers.  Like I always say, this is simple stuff.  Simple is much more effective then difficult and flashy websites.

What easy design tips do you have?
photo credit: Patrick Haney via photopin cc