|
| |
Web Site Design - The
Basics
|
Whether you are planning to ask us to design your web site, or if you are going to get another website designer or website design company to do it for you,
there are a few basics you need to consider before you begin. Take a look at the sections below and you'll get a clear understanding of the basics of website design.
 |
General
design.
Try not to make this too complex. Stick to short
pages with simple navigation. No one likes scrolling down line after line of long web pages,
it's hard work and not easy to quickly navigate back to the top. 5 or 6
short pages that leap onto the screen with accurate links between them are
better than 2 or 3 long and complex pages and they load faster too. As far as possible try to keep pages the same design and length. |
|
|
Layout.
Keep this neat and simple, either with sufficient buttons across the top or down the side, to link to main pages with
definitive information. Also, don't be tempted to clutter your web page with too many pictures, buttons, headings etc. |
|
|
Pictures.
A picture speaks a thousand words, but in
web design, the more pictures, the more overhead and the longer pages take
to load up on a users screen. Two or three images a page is more than enough.
Any more and your user will get bored waiting for pages to load up. And
remember - less than 60% of the UK currently has access to high speed
broadband internet (in Lincolnshire, its only about 37%) so on dial up
internet, pages load even more slowly. Also, make sure you take the best
quality digital photo's you can and use pictures that show or
explain what your site and products are all about. To incorporate them in
your web, web designers will reduce the quality and compact the images for
quicker loading, so provide them with good quality, original digitally
photographed images. |
|
|
Moving
images & Logo's. Many
people love to over-use Macromedia Flash moving images, spinning logo's
and all sorts of other things. Generally, these only serve to make pages
load very slowly, and eventually irritate the living daylights out of
most users. Take a look at the web sites of the top 100 UK company's and
you won't find any of this - just fast loading, concise web pages -
by far the best and easiest thing for a customer to use. If these high-profile companies keep things simple, shouldn't you?
Also, web search engines don't like macromedia flash moving images and they
certainly can't use them to crawl and index your web. Using Flash can
actually harm your web rankings over time. Ask yourself what use a 'cool'
looking website is if no one can find it in the search engines? Text is best along
with text based links where possible. Keep it simple. |
|
|
Colour.
Choose 2 or
3 colours for your web page, get them as close to your corporate colours
as possible and use them as a theme. With text, it's always easier for
people to read dark colours on a white background, rather than white text
on a black background. |
|
|
Text.
Unlike press
advertising, you need to be both clear and concise with web based text and
carefully consider which key words and key phrases to use in headlines,
headings, body text and top or bottom borders. Having chosen the keywords
and phrases you think your customers are going to punch into a search
engine like Google when they look for your product or service, you need to
repeat them as often as possible on each page without making the end
result sound repetitive, or making your site look badly worded. If you are
in any doubt about which keywords to choose, look at your competitors web
sites and if they are highly ranked, copy what they have done. Also,
only use keywords or phrases in your meta-tags that tie up with identical
keywords in your page body text. |
|
|
Contact Information. Always provide phone, fax numbers, email addresses and your business address. People generally don't trust web sites that leave out this
information and you will lose out on potential business and sales if you 'hide' your operating address and/or contact numbers. |
|
|
Site Maps. Even if your website is only 4, 5, or 6 pages long, you MUST
include a sitemap page. If not for the customers, to make it easier for them to navigate your site, then for the search engines to assist with them crawling your
website. |
|
|
