The way you design your web site affects your visitors' online experience. As each visitor to your site is a potential customer, the easier they find your web site to use and the more they enjoy being on it, the higher the chance that they will make a purchase.

Therefore, a well designed web site really CAN boost your sales!

In this article I'll share my five favorite web design tips to help you increase your online sales.

Tip 1: Choose Your Colors Carefully

The colors that you use will determine how your web site comes across to your visitors. Dull colors will make your site seem plain and boring whilst overly bright colors can make it seem chaotic and unprofessional.

Red and Yellow draws the eye in. Therefore it can be a good idea to use these colors for banners and adverts that you want your visitors to focus on. However, use these colors sparingly because they cause eye strain which means that visitors won't want to look at your web site for long periods of time.

Tip 2: Avoid Slow Loading Web Pages

The amount of time that your site takes to download is critical. If it takes too long to download, you'll lose potential customers who can't be bothered to wait.

There are things you can do to speed up how long your site takes to download. Images and media are the worst culprits when it comes to slowing down your loading time. I advise you to avoid using any kind of multimedia on your web site and if you want to use images, try and keep them small and to a minimum.

You should also define height and width in all tables and graphics as this aids download time.

Tip 3: Make It Easy For People To Find Their Way Around Your Site

Your site's navigation should be as simple and as straight-forward as possible so that people can find what they're looking for easily. Don't lose sales because people can't find what they want.

Put a link to your homepage on each page on your web site. This will help visitors who didn't enter your web site via your homepage to find their way around.

You can simplify your navigation by making every page accessible via two links from your homepage and no more than three links from any other page.

Tip 4: Make It Easy For Visitors To Contact You

Place your email address, or at least a "Contact us" link, clearly on every page. If people have to hunt around to find your contact details, chances are they'll get fed up and leave your site without buying anything.

Tip 5: Make Your Sales Copy Easy To Read

Chunks of text are off putting and are therefore unlikely to get read. This means that if your well-worded sales pitch is written in long unbroken paragraphs, it will go un-noticed.

Use space and bullet points to break up text in order to encourage people to read it.

Andy Best is the author of the "Definitive Guide To Starting & Promoting An Internet Business". This is a step-by-step guide full of advice and strategies to help you start an Internet business from scratch and promote your web site.