Monday, January 24, 2011

Effective Website Design and Layout



So you got to build a website because you’ve learned that the net is a great medium to boost you business. You may actually start now. A simple HTML will do. Anyway, you just want to inform to the world you got a business, you have a product to sell.

It is however will not be as simple as that. Your website is running for a month already, only to find out no one is visiting your site. No one is buying your product and no one knows about you. And you say, “Well that’s just a try. I’m giving it another month”. But still, you cannot reach your quota or at least the minimum.

You’ve just come to the right place. I’ve got some tips for you to follow. Just remember, these are the basic of web design that help make your site a success.

Provide essential information to your users – Your website must provide an ‘About Us’ or ‘Contact Us’ link. Visitors may find it awkward for a business website not providing any information about your business. When the website loads, it usually displays the header first so it is very ideal to put your contacts at the header. Provide FAQ’s so that visitors will have their initial troubleshooting. Usually, if you provide good content to your website, they may scroll it up to the bottom of the site, so it is also good to provide your contacts at the footer of your site.

Text must be readable - Who the hell would be interested in a website that is unreadable and ugly? Give accent to those keywords that really reflect what you want to convey. Chose the right font size because too large or too small will just irritate the readers. Make use of the ‘Justify’ in aligning your text that way it will look very professional. Use different font colors for different keywords but don’t overdo it.

Website navigation should be easy – Your site must be very easy to navigate. The name of the link or the button should reflect the landing page. Usually, the navigation stays on top or the left side of the website, whichever you prefer. At least differentiate the visited links to the unvisited links to inform the user better. You can do this by using CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) for it to look better.

Avoid using elements which take a long time to download – Flash is good however if it is not needed, do not use it. Use JavaScript instead but not so much. CSS will do as long as you know how to maximize it. Visitors like website that load fast and look very professional. Do not add components to your website that takes long time to download. Just make your site very frank and very straight.

Use a consistent design for all the pages of your website – Visitors may think they are pointed to a different site if you are not consistent with your layout, as much as possible use one theme for all your pages. It should be noted to do the same with your footer and your header. Use the same format too. Get to develop a very interesting site but very consistent to all the elements you included in the website.

Learn More:

No comments:

Post a Comment