You can increase your sales website’s rate of website conversion with the following 3 simple-to-apply methods.

1. Your website should load in under 10 seconds.

Use the online tools provided at http://www.iwebtool.com/speed_test or a straightforward dial-up service to check your website’s load time. You should be able to clock how long it takes for your website to load on a high-speed internet connection (i.e. broadband) in the United States.

If your results tell you that your website is too slow, then you must find the source of the latency. The two most common reasons for slow-loading websites are graphics and tables. Try scaling down your images so that the file sizes are small, but the quality of each image is maintained.

You might have noticed yourself that websites which are slow to load can materialize suddenly as a whole following a 20-second period where you didn’t see anything at all. The reason for this phenomenon is usually because all of a site’s sales pitch is housed in just a single table on the site.

Instead of using tables for layout, use cascading style sheets (CSS). Use at least two or three smaller, quick-loading layout areas, so that a visitor to your website will have something to view while the remainder of your page loads.

2. Your website should look consistent on all display resolutions and sizes.

Not every web surfer has a 21-inch monitor with 1280 by 1024 resolution. Always keep the “little guy” in mind, since some people still have 15-inch monitors set at 800 by 600.

If your website is designed with fixed pixels, those surfers having smaller monitors must scroll across just to see your entire page. This is annoying and that’s the last thing that you want to do to your visitors.

3. Make your site easy on the eyes.

Material on computer screens is harder on the eyes than traditional printed information. For this reason, it is important to design your website with more commonly-used and clear sizes and types of fonts.

Here, much can be learned from direct mail marketers. They almost exclusively use 12 point courier font because it’s easy to read. As far as font availability, if you use a font that’s not available on the reader’s computer, the default font will be substituted and it may not look like you want it to.

Keep in mind when designing your website that if you have a signature made using script font, it may not appear correctly to a shopper whose computer does not have that particular font. You can ensure a more consistent appearance of your signature on your website if you scan it and use the resulting image file instead of script font.

Use smaller paragraphs and sentences to break up the text on your website and increase the ‘white space’ to make your website easier to read. Avoid using fine print except for in less pleasant material, such as legal content.

Simply use these three techniques on your website, and the time visitors spend on your site will increase, as will your sales.