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This is the Internet ... this is the place were people come when they don't want to think ... this is the place where people come when they want to be entertained ... this is the place where people come when they want to find information ... this is the place where busy people don't want to waste time and this is the place where you don't want to waste money.

I think that just about covers everything that we need to think about when we're thinking of what is ... or isn't ... going on in the minds of people who are using the Net. You know those people ... the ones that you're trying to reach out to in an effort to sell them something.

When you look at all those points you may think that that's quite a wide range of things that really have very little in common with each other but there is one thing that ties them all together. That one thing is the absolute need for simplicity. Every time you sit down to build a site or gallery or add something to an existing site the need for simplicity should be deeply etched in your brain.

The people who come to your sites and who don't want to think need everything to be very simple ... navigation, page flow and even the text you use needs to be simple. But that doesn't mean that you can't get them thinking about signing up with your sponsor ... it just means that you need to use simple attention grabbing words to get them interested.

The people who come to your site to be entertained need simplicity too. If you want to hold them long enough to see your marketing message ... or if you're a sponsor and you want people to rebill ... then you need to keep things simple. If your navigation or page layout is complex then it won't be entertaining and people will leave.

The people who are hunting for information also need simplicity. They want the information they're looking for in places that are easy to find and they want it clearly labeled so that they can spot it almost instantly.

And above all, people don't want to waste their time. They want what they're looking for right now and they don't want to jump through too many hoops to find it. If they land on your site and they can't easily, and almost immediately, locate what they're looking for ... whether it be information or entertainment ... then they know that the back button is the easy way to find a site that will be easy to use.

Now of course you can't make things too simple for people ... that's just impossible. People will need to click on links and they will need to spend a little time looking at the page because you can't make everything jump right off the page at every person who hits your site If you want them to sign up for something or buy something straight off your site you will have to get them to fill in a form and provide some details ... but you can still make it all a lot less complex than you might think.

The fewer steps a surfer has to take from your index page to find the information or entertainment they're looking for the simpler your site is for them to use. If they're buying something then the quicker they can get to the checkout page the easier it is for them and the more chance you have of actually making a sale.

So it's important to keep things simple with the sites that you design ... but is it possible to go too far? You bet it is and today I found a site that took simplicity to the point where it became downright frustrating and they definitely lost a sale.

I followed a recommendation to a site that provided banner rotation for blogs and ordinary websites and it looked really good and was just what I wanted for a couple of my mainstream sites. The information on the index page was a bit light but there was an FAQ page that explained most things you would need to know before you could make an informed decision about signing up or moving on.

There was enough information there for me so I registered for an account. Before jumping into the paid service I decided to have a little play with the basic plan just to see if the site really did deliver what I wanted and I'm glad I did. When I went to add the first banner to my account I had to complete a form ... it was so light on information that I had no idea what some of the fields were for.

So I went to the FAQ section of the members' area to see if there was some further information there. Unfortunately it was the same FAQ that I had already seen before I joined and there was nothing there about how to complete the form. I scratched around the site a bit more but found absolutely nothing that could tell me what information I had to add to some of the fields in that form.

I suppose I could tried contacting the site owners for help but I didn't have time to fiddle around writing emails and I didn't have time to experiment ... I was in a hurry ... I needed information and I needed it now ... and when I couldn't get it frustration set in and I left and they didn't get a sale.

So the moral of the story is that if you want to succeed online then you have to keep things simple ... but not so simple that people don't know what to do when they reach your site.