Tips on How to Design a Great Site
Have you ever walked pass a shop that, for some reason, you just felt that you had to go in? Maybe it was the décor, or the window display, or the pretty girl, or a combination of all those but something in the shop called out to you, "Come in" and you just had to obey. In the online world, won't it be nice to have a site that buyers just had to buy from, despite themselves? Surfers will be drawn to the "Add to Cart" button that squealed, "Click me!" to them. They found that they just had to click the button and buy the item. While I can assure you I can't design such a site, and I certainly am not going to reveal how to design it in a free article even if I can, there are many ways to make your site more friendly to your visitor. The following tips will make your site load more faster, easier to use and more pleasing to your visitor. While they won't guarantee you a sale, a happier and more satisfied surfer should greatly increase your chances of a sale. DON'T REINVENT THE WHEEL Probably the first thing you want to do is to visit some of your competitor's sites. It will give you an idea of what your site could look like, what features you want for your own site and serve as a starting point for the design of your own site. Perhaps the best advice I can give you here is to look at the sites from a customer's point of view. As a customer, what do you like or dislike about the sites? Would you buy from them, and why? Are you going to revisit again, and why? EASE OF NAVIGATION In many cases, you don't read a web site like you would a novel. You don't start from page 1, continue to page 2, and so on. You would probably "read" a site like you would a reference book. Maybe you will read the introduction to get an idea of what the book is about, and then you will skip to the table of contents to look for the location of the information that you need. In some cases, you may turn to the index at the back of the book to see what on what pages the information you want is referred to. Notice the navigation aids - the table of contents and the index. The first will be found at the beginning while the second, if available, at the end of the book. This is a standard observed by all books. Your site should be as easy to navigate. - Main Menu. You should have a menu, located either at the top, left or right, that directs users to the various sections of your site. This menu should be available from every page of your site, and at the same location. - Site Map. If your site is relatively large, and you feel that users may have a problem locating the information they want even with a main menu, consider including a site map. Site maps give much more detail than the main menu and users will have an easier time locating the information they want. - Search Engine. If your site is a very large site, including a search engine is a good idea. FAST LOADING PAGES Many webmasters will have broadband or cable connections and they tend to forget about the poor souls still struggling with dialup. It is best that you keep the size of your pages as small as possible to accommodate users with slow connections. A general guideline is to keep the size of your pages below 100k. GRAPHICS Pretty graphics are nice to look at. But unless your site is about graphics, it's probably best to keep it to a minimum. It distracts users the information you want to convey, and increases the load time for your pages. Don't forget to optimize the graphics that you use. The jpeg graphic format is a compressed format. You can choose to compress it as much or as little as you want. The more you compress it, the smaller it becomes, but the image is of a lower quality. To optimize your jpeg's, start with a jpeg of acceptable quality. Save the jpeg with more compression and view it. If you find the quality acceptable, save it again with even more compression. Keep doing it until you get an image with unacceptable quality. The image before that will be your optimized image. Note that you cannot go from a low quality image back to a high quality image. So remember to save your high quality images into a separate directory before trying any optimization. CONSISTENCY We discussed consistency regarding the location of your main menu. This consistency should extend to all areas of your site. In other words, your fonts, color scheme, buttons, etc, should be the same for all pages of your site. TESTING The computer on your desk is called a PC, or personal computer. Whenever I am asked why a particular computer behaves in a strange way, I will invariably remark that the computer is called a "personal computer", and thus will exhibit its own personality. :) Similarly, surfers viewing your site will also have their own personal computer, with their own particular combination of software and hardware. Therefore, it is best to test your site under as many different types and versions of hardware and software as possible. - Browsers. Although IE is the dominant browser, some of your users may be running other browsers like Netscape or Firefox. Test your site in as many different browsers as you can. Also, don't forget to test it under different versions of the same browser. - Screen Resolutions. Don't forget to test your site under different screen resolutions. - Java and ActiveX. Many sites depend on Java or ActiveX to display properly. If your site needs a Java enabled browser, try it with Java disabled and see how it looks. If possible, it is best that your site will function correctly even if the users have Java or ActiveX disabled. David Lim is the webmaster of http://QuittingYourJob.com, a site offering information, advice and resources for a newbie looking to start an online home-based business. Probably the best thing about this site is that it tells it like it is, without any of the hype that is so typical in other similar sites.
MORE RESOURCES: Rock Archives - RETROPOP RETROPOP 25 Awesome About Us Page Examples For Web Design Inspiration Search Engine Journal Adobe Dreamweaver (2024) review TechRadar 30 Best Web Design Agencies To Partner With in 2024 Influencer Marketing Hub Are you up to build the next best website? Get started with one of these 5 web design courses Fortune Jeremy McGilvrey, A Houston Web Design Agency, Inks Long-Term Lease In Prestigious Williams Tower Office Space Yahoo Finance Why (and How) I Learned Web Development as a Data Scientist Towards Data Science We Need to Decarbonize Software IEEE Spectrum BFA in Art - Graphic Design | Undergraduate Programs | Visual TWU Texas Woman's University 18 Free Web Design Tools, Winter 2024 Practical Ecommerce Moving Your Website into the Web Design System (WDS) Washington State University Web Design Companies & Agencies In Austin To Know Built In Austin TSTC Marshall spotlights online web design and development program Marshall News Messenger Best web design software in 2024 TechRadar Top Web Design Trends 2024 Designmodo Why isn't Adobe doing web design better? Creative Bloq How to design a website: A beginner's guide CNN Underscored 9 Chicago Web Design and Development Agencies To Know Built In Chicago Jessica Sorden's Transformation from Corporate Burnout to Web Design Maestro - by Carly Winchell The Ark Valley Voice Valve and Picnik vets Hatch new idea — a no-code web design platform for 'tech curious creators' GeekWire Information technology students delve into web design with capstone project University of Missouri College of Engineering Valpo Web Design supports NWI No Child Hungry in fight against food insecurity with new website Valpo.Life Best Web Design Software in 2024 USA TODAY Valpo Web Design & Marketing helps businesses through intentional design and forward thinking Valpo.Life 5 Top-Rated AI Website Builder Tools Software Advice Sweb CEO puts AI to work for small business web design San Antonio Report Website Design Services of Pop Machine Agency: Leading Wichita's Charge in Global Web Design Trends Yahoo Finance 5 seriously useful AI web design tools Creative Bloq Revolutionizing Web Presence: Webness Studios Launch Specialist Website Design Services Yahoo Finance Valpo Web Design & Marketing | Partners Valpo.Life 6 ways AI is changing web design Creative Bloq Best web development tool of 2024 TechRadar 17 Free Web Design Tools, Fall 2023 Practical Ecommerce The best free blog websites Creative Bloq Grand Cayman Web Design Expert & SEO Qamar Zaman Book Build Google Knowledge Panel Offers Grand Cayman ... Yahoo Finance Design Studies (Minor) | College of Liberal Arts UNH's College of Liberal Arts How web design trends have evolved Creative Bloq Mizzou alumna uses web design expertise to give back to engineering, community University of Missouri College of Engineering In LGBTQ rights case, Supreme Court rules for wedding website designer The Washington Post Top 13 Custom Web Design Agencies Specializing in Education Influencer Marketing Hub Regulator: “Harmful” Web Design Could Break Data Protection Laws Infosecurity Magazine 12 Top-Ranked Shopify Web Design Agencies Influencer Marketing Hub How Google perfected the web The Verge 7 Reasons Why Web Development Is Important for All Types of Businesses Business MattersBusiness Matters 19 Free Web Design Tools from Summer 2023 Practical Ecommerce Faculty Profile: Libby Perry (Editing for the Web, Web Design - Media Communications bachelor's) Full Sail News The 7 Best Shopify Web Design Techniques for Increased Conversion Influencer Marketing Hub Revolutionizing Web Design with Appy Pie: The Impact of AI in Website Development Robotics and Automation News 6 great tools for testing responsive design for websites Creative Bloq |
RELATED ARTICLES
User Experience and Search Engines: If Your Home Page Could Only Talk Dear web site visitor.I can't tell you how glad I am that you found my website. How To Rescue Your Graphic Design Project When All Else Fails Whether you're giving a critical sales presentation to a client, producing visuals for a meeting, event, trade show or seminar, or unveiling the new company logo before an audience of shareholders, top-notch graphics will help ensure that you, your products, and your message receive the attention they deserve.Yet when you decide to do the graphics in-house to reduce turnaround time or cut expenses, those logos, photos, charts, graphs, pictures, timelines, illustrations, etc. How to Convince Your Visitors to Return Often One visit does not make a sale. Be sure to make your Web site attractive to your visitors so that they want to come back. Tips On Effectively Organizing Your Navigation Not all links are created equal.While all of your links may be important, you must sort and prioritize to come up with an effective navigation scheme. Web Design - 7 Key Things to Avoid A search for "web design" on Google returns more than 325 million results. So how do we start eliminating all these so called designers? Here are a few of the most common shortcomings. Create Favorite Icon Favorite icon appears to the left of your link in either address bar or in favorites menu of your browser. It gives your website more personality, better visibility in favorites menu and is easy to create. Do You Make These Common (But Deadly) Website Design Mistakes? Building a website can be overwhelming, here are some design tips to help keep you on the right path (or is that web?)--- Designing a Frames-based web siteFrames may make the job of maintaining a big web site easy, but search engines hate them. Most search engines cannot find their way through them and end up indexing only the home page. How To Write An Effective FAQ Page Websites that have multiple pages usually have a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. There are several good reasons why you should have one. Nine Effective Tips For Improving Your Website's Usability Web usability is perhaps the most important factor in any web design. This is the driving factor that keeps your visitors coming back to your website. Web Design: Use it to Showcase the Message If you are designing a web site for which the achievement of high conversion rates is a priority, focus your design efforts on showcasing and highlighting the content and copy.For sites where conversion rates are a priority, the primary purpose of design should be to present the message in such a way that it delivers the maximum impact. Save Time and Boost Profits with Free Content Public domain gives you a head start creating ebooks, ecourses, newsletters, teleconferences, website content and email registration incentives you need to keep in constant touch with clients and prospects.Public domain refers to information free from copyright protection. Website Design For Small Businesses There are many different website design companies, offering different facilities such as flash design, however what should a small business look for when seeking an internet prescence?When choosing which company you would like to build your website, there are many factors which you need to take into consideration.Firstly how much is the website going to cost to build and host. Website Woes: Top Five Offenders I see a lot of mistakes, but here are the top five offenders you need to correct to give your site a boost. Bad Title. To Hire or Not to Hire a Website Designer In the early years of the internet the actual design of a website was either very basic or had to be done using a software package that needed a specialist to use it. Not surprisingly, website designers were in short supply and could command huge fees for their services. 4 Things That Make A Web Site Great First you need original content. Content is the heart beat of any exceptional Web site. Increasing Conversions Through Action-Oriented Copywriting I do site reviews. Needless to say, I see a lot of Web copy. Effective Website Design In this era of ultra-sophisticated internet marketing and web design, there is no excuse for an e-business to suffer with an ineffective website. Whether your goal is to present a basic business website that briefly introduces and describes your company and product, or you endeavor to develop a fully-functioning cash-cow storefront, there is a wide array of design choices to cater to all of your needs. How to Build Your Own Website - More Steps To build a website, there are four methods to choose from:First method: Get a professional designer to build the site for you:It is expensive in creation process, site maintenance and development.Second method:Designing the site with free website hosting:In this case, just sign in the website that offers this service, and start building your own website. Website Redesign for Existing Websites Does your website need a re-design? Here are some questions to ask yourself when you are looking for investing in your website redesign.1) Is your website fresh - Having a website fresh helps your visitors to stay on your website rather than skipping your website? When I mean fresh, fresh with content, Every website owner should have their website updated with latest content, Search engine spiders index new content and in turn your website will rank high on search engines. If Content is King who is Queen? It's been said again and again, when it comes to getting people to visit your site (and stay there for more than 5 seconds), the quality of your content rules supreme. But once you've bowed to interest, saluted relevance and kow-towed to originality, who else must you pay homage to for recognition in the court of website stickiness?The two jewels in the crown of Presentation, for it is of course Presentation who is Queen, are structure and graphical design. |
home | site map |
Webdesign-box © 2006 |