It is very important to get your customers and visitors to remember you for the right reasons. In general people think that web site design is not the most important factor when you design your own website, poor website layout, when you are building a web page, can sometimes make or break your website success.
DESIGN YOUR OWN WEBSITEWeb design is very important if your aim is to get customers and visitors to remember you for the right reasons. In general it is not the most important factor when you design your own website,
but do not be fooled, poor website layout, when you are building a web page, can sometimes make or break website success.
First of all, your overall look needs to look clean. Clean, simple and well structured sites gain visitors easier, because people like things to be clear and laid out well for them to read, and read fast too! People use the internet to find information all the time, so the best web design has to include content that is informative, laid out simply, easy to navigate around with fast loading graphics. By doing this, users are allowed to search for, and locate what they are looking for quickly and efficiently. However, it is important that when you design your own website it does not look like it was designed by a novice! The key to building a web page is knowing when to stop. Sometimes, when you are creating something, you can often be filled with the desire to keep adding and adding and adding, so it is important that you learn when enough is enough!
WEB BROWSERS AND PLATFORMSOf course, another key to web site creating is to make it accessible to all kinds of web browsers and platforms. On the most part, this does not often matter too much, although sometimes, it might cause a few problems! Especially if platforms have web settings that interfere with the login to your site. The platform issue, however, is often much less of a concern than the browsers issues you might face.
When it comes to internet browsers, both the version of the software and the brand are very important. Different browsers can display exactly the same page, in a completely different way. Some will not even display the page at all. Older browsers tend to ignore things, such as tags and attributes that they may not recognise. It is important to test your web site creating on the most widely used browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox. By doing this you can fine tune different things ensuring that your site looks well presented and professional on all browsers.
ARE YOU MAKING NAVIGATION EASY?Navigation is very important when it comes to having an effective website. Even if you have the best content, if people can not get to it with ease, then it is all worth nothing. Make sure navigation is easy, simple and clear to use. Always test that links go where they should do, and that all links to everywhere are present on every page to ensure optimum navigation.
WHICH FONTS TO USEWhen it comes to which fonts to use on your site, you might hit a few snags. As if it is not hard enough to find a font that suits your site best, what do you do when people can not even see the fancy font you have chosen to use? The problem is that most users only have standard fonts installed on their computers, so whatever font you use, it might end up coming up as a standard font on other computers. The best thing to do is just stick to widely used fonts. There are sites all over the internet with lists that all computers can see, so do not be disheartened if you can not have something fancy, a lot of the time, there is a more professional looking equivalent available that everyone can see.
HAVE YOU SEEN THE HORIZONTAL SCROLL BAR?Have you even been on a website, and as it loads, you notice a horizontal scroll bar appear. Ever been really annoyed that you have to scroll all the way across and all over the place just to read a bit of text? To avoid this, you need to make sure your resolution settings are correct. Horizontal scroll bars are widely loathed! And you will most likely receive many complaints from people if your resolution is too high and the horizontal scroll bar appears, (yet many do not realise they actually have the ability to raise their resolution). These days, 1024x768 is most widely used, however when designing your site, it might be best to design your entire page as 800x600, ensuring your text width is within 640 pixels. By doing this you are ensuring that almost everyone can use your site and read it effectively.
And of course, one of the best ways to have a great web design is by looking at other sites and learning from what you see. By no means copy other websites exactly, but there is no harm in looking and learning different techniques, and studying what works and what does not. This kind of information is priceless, because not only are you gaining information on other sites and layouts, but you are acquiring valuable knowledge on what works on websites and what seriously does not by pretty much placing yourself in the shoes of a visitor.
