When planning and designing your website, you want to make sure that you create a website that performs optimally and serves its purpose. Here are five important rules of thumb to observe to maximize your website’s performance:

1) Splash pages are a “no-no”

Splash pages are usually the first page that you see when you arrive at a website. They contain a very beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. They serve no other purpose other than to look good. Splash pages can be another barrier between your visitors and the meat of your website. If your visitors click on the “back” button, they will miss the value of your site.

2) Avoid excessive use of banner advertisements

Even the least net savvy people have been trained to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valuable content and weave relevant affiliate links into it. Let your visitors feel that they want to buy rather than being pushed to buy.

3) Make your website navigation simple and clear

Provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don’t know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

4) Provide a clear indication of where your user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, make sure they can easily find out which part of the site they are in at that moment. This allows them to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Avoid confusing your visitors because confusion can cause them to leave your website.

5) Avoid adding background audio on your website

To encourage your visitor to stay longer at your site to read your content, you will want to make sure they are not annoyed by some continuously playing audio. If you do add audio, make sure your visitor has some control over it, such as volume or muting controls.