Website Design – Follow Top 20 Dos And Don’ts To Build Successful Sites
Excellent website design is vital to your website’s success. An effective design can expand your client base and increase earnings. On the other hand, a bad design can hinder website usage despite excellent products and service.
Keep in mind the following points while you design your site if you want it to be successful:
Top 10 Dos of Website Design
1. Do simplify onsite search and navigation. Your website design should facilitate quick and easy search of required information. All pages also need to have the important links to information that would boost the user experience. As a rule of thumb, it should take less than two to three clicks for customers to access desired information. You would ensure repeat visits from your customers if you save them time by providing fast navigation and quick access to information they are looking for.
2. Do keep your website content simple and easy to understand. All content on the site must be clear and easy to comprehend else you risk losing the user’s attention. Your content should address customer problems and provide competent solutions for them.
3. Do give your site a consistent look and feel. If you want your site to look professional, it is necessary to be consistent in fonts, colors and layout of pages. Linked pages especially should use consistent font styles, graphics and colors.
4. Do make your site accessible on multiple browsers. Users may visit your website using many different web browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome. If you plan to make your site available on mobile phones then include testing on mobile browsers to your test plan.
5. Do put your contact information on every page. List your physical address including other contact information like phone and email on the ‘Contact Us’ page. It is also crucial to list phone and email at the bottom of each page for easy availability.
6. Do put essential information near the heading of each page to allow customers to conveniently see it and not wait to scroll down to find it.
7. Do use high-quality pictures and graphics. Images on your website, including your logo, should be of high-quality to draw in the customer and generate interest but should not take too much time to load.
8. Do use bullets, icons, boldface and italicized words, color and headline to attract customer attention to significant segments of your content.
9. Do understand that security of the web site is important and builds confidence Make your website secure for visitors. Privacy policy also needs to be easily accessible to the users.
10. Do use clear and concise page titles. Customers see web page title in search results and clear effective titles can significantly increase the traffic coming to your website.
Top 10 Don’ts of Website Design
1. Don’t clutter your website. Unorganized web pages are tough to read and navigate. Limit the amount of information you present on each page. Build a new page for each separate topic, product or product category. Any advertisement on the web pages must be non intrusive else the website visitors would leave and most likely not return for a repeat visit.
2. Don’t make unnecessary use of bandwidth consuming audio and video features, such as graphics, animations and photos. These can make your pages slow to load, irritating the customers and deterring website usage.
3. Don’t use text and color combination that makes content difficult to read. Additionally, don’t include distracting visuals on your web pages.
4. Don’t add any information or features to the site that do not serve the intended purpose. Adding content and features on your website that don’t carry any meaning for visitors is a waste of time and bandwidth.
5. Don’t let the content of the links get stale. Content should be regularly refreshed and links monitored. Outdated links are annoying and can seriously affect your business reputation.
6. Don’t use jargon or overly technical terms on your pages unless your website is designed to address the needs of a small segment of technical people. Moreover, do not use conflicting information in your site. In addition to confusing customers, such information gives a highly negative and unprofessional image to your website.
7. Don’t use flashing icons and text as that can distract browsers and could be detrimental to the popularity of your website.
8. Don’t stuff up your web pages with advertisements. Also, limit pop-ups as they can annoy customers.
9. Don’t include introductory advertisements on the first page before your web content appears. Such advertisements put customers in a sore mood even before they see your content.
10. Don’t just brag about your company’s achievements. Offer your users easy to consume information and back it up with references and customer success stories to allow them to judge your performance.
Follow the dos and stay away from the don’ts to build an effective website, and greatly boost the chances of successful web entrepreneurship.
Daljeet Sidhu. Website design quote, Professional website design blog.