Do you believe in first impressions?

We are often advised to not judge a book by it's cover but how often is this true when you need to make a snap decision.  In business, if you don't give a great first impression then it could mean that the door to a potential sale will be shut. Your brand and website are major factors in building trust.

“Researchers found that the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage. They were surprised as they believed it would take at least 10 times longer to form an opinion.” ^[1]

So what makes a good first impression?
First is the design:

• colours
• layout
• shapes
• images

The above have an instant visual impact. The user will continue their visit if the site is laid out well and not too confusing. The colours and shapes do not clash and there’s not an over use of the both. And images, if there are too many it takes the users focus away from what the site is supposed to communicate. Keeping the balance right is important.

Then the content:

• amount
• font size
• font style
• grammar/spelling
• relevancy

Content is king, it is the way you communicate with your users and instil in them a trust. With content you can express and inspire users to continually visit and also refer your site to others. So make your content easy on the eye, keep waffle to a minimum, make sure you spell check all your content and finally stick to the point.

^[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4616700.stm