Top website tips

We asked our experts for their top tips for creating the perfect online presence. From choosing a domain name and hosting provider to designing and driving more traffic to your site, here's their best advice:

Domain Names

Keep it Short

Good domain names are short. As a guide try to go below 12 letters and never exceed 20. And avoid using hyphens, as they can create confusion.

Use Keywords in Domain Name

Try to embed the most relevant keyword/s into your domain name. Register all variations of a word such as ‘auslighting.com.au’ and ‘ozlighting.com.au’ to avoid competitors getting a hold of it.

Dot What?

Australians tend to trust businesses with .au domain extensions. Australian search engines will also give preference to these domains over the traditional .com extension. You can even register a few domain names that point to the same site.

Avoid Trademarked Names

A person who is not the trademark owner and registers the trademark as a domain name engages in trademark infringement—even a domain name as innocent as sonytvsales.com would be in violation.

Already Registered?

You can use ‘whois lookups’, to search for the registration information on domain names, including owners email addresses and expiry dates. You can contact the owner to pass it on or wait for it to expire so you can register it. And remember, creative names can be very effective and memorable.

 —Andrew Koloadin, director, Digital Pacific Web Hosting (www.digitalpacific.com.au)

Web design

Keep one topic per page. A general guideline is to have no more than two ‘screenfuls’ on a page so people aren’t scrolling downwards forever. If you do have more than this on your page, add a ‘back to top’ or another menu at the bottom of the page.

Limit the menu size to seven options or less—any more than that is hard to take in and gets confusing. Use a crumb-trail where possible. It just shows the path to the current page, with links to go back when desired.

Use up-to-date photos wherever you can. Paint a picture. If you don’t have a content management system, ask for one that’s basic to use. If you can use email, you can use a CMS.

Avoid excessive flash or javascript. It looks great the first time but sites like this are rarely updated and can take a long time to load.

As a guideline, limit width of paragraphs to less than 700 pixels and avoid scrolling sideways at all costs. It’s easier to read plus those using smaller screens can see everything.

—Sorna Devadas, owner, 5 Pages (www.5pages.com.au)