There are websites that make you want to stay and visit for awhile and there are websites that you don’t. We’ve all visited both, but have you thought about why some websites just seem to work better than others?

Cookbooks may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they make a good example of how to design a good website versus a bad one. Let’s take a look at a couple of sites and see what makes one stand out from the other.

While cookbooks are a special niche, they are still a very broad niche. Even a small site might have thousands of books in its catalog. There will be books about the cuisines of dozens of countries, books about different diets, BBQ books and vegan books. The first-time visitor isn’t going to feel like wading through all those books.

A good webmaster knows this. His homepage is going to be light on text. It is going to get to the point within a couple of short paragraphs. He wants the readers to be drawn immediately to the cookbook they’re looking for, so the emphasis on the homepage will be on the index.

His index will be clearly marked, so that within one or two clicks of the mouse, the reader can find what they’re looking for. One visitor will be looking for Mexican food, while another will be looking for cake decorating books. On the homepage, any visitor knows that if they are looking for regional cuisine, they will find it on a tab that says, ‘World Cuisine.’ If they are looking for books about cakes, they’ll find them under a tab that directs them to ‘Mouthwatering Desserts’.

The website that you run from will make you scroll down the page while they explain in detail why their website is so wonderful. When you want to know how to decorate cake, you don’t want to have to scroll down a sidebar that lists each title in alphabetical order and hope to find one that sounds like it might be about what you’re looking for. On the homepage, this is a very bad idea. Keep it short and categorize your offerings.

Both a good and a bad website will probably have a search bar. This is a good idea, but it has its drawbacks. For one thing, the viewer has already done a search and doesn’t particularly want to do a second one. Also, if they type in ‘cake decorating designs‘, they will be directed to a limited number of books. Part of the art of making a good web-store is making your visitors want to explore, while still not making it difficult for them to navigate your site.

In a nutshell, there are three elements to a winning homepage. Make an eye-catching, themed design, keep your content to a minimum and make your site easy to navigate.