Excellent web design is important to your website’s success. An effective design can expand your client base and increase earnings. On the other hand, if the design is poor, it would repel the users even if you have terrific 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 provide effortless search and navigation capabilities. Your website design should promote quick and easy search of required information. All pages also need to have the key links to information that would boost the user experience. Any useful information should not be more that two or three clicks away else you risk losing the user. You would ensure repeat visits from your customers if you save them time by offering fast navigation and speedy access to information they are looking for.
2. Do keep your website content simple and easy to understand. Develop clear, effective and to-the-point content to capture customer attention and help them grasp better what you have to offer. Your content should address customer problems and deliver efficient solutions for them.
3. Do give your site a consistent look and feel. If you want your site to look professional, it is crucial to be consistent in fonts, colors and layout of pages. Linked pages especially should use consistent font styles, graphics and colors.
4. Do make sure your website works well on multiple browsers such as Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer, for greatest impact. If you plan to make your site accessible on mobile phones then add testing on mobile browsers to your test plan.
5. Do display 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 accessibility.
6. Do put essential information near the heading of each page to allow customers to easily see it and not wait to scroll down to find it.
7. Do use high-quality graphics and pictures. Images on your website, including your logo, should be of high-quality to draw in the customer and create interest but should not take too much time to load.
8. Do use headlines, italicized words, bold face, pleasant colors, bullet points and icons to draw customer attention to most important segments of your content.
9. Do understand that security of the web site is important and develops confidence Make your website secure for visitors. Privacy policy also needs to be readily available to the users.
10. Do use clear and concise page titles. Customers see web page title in search results and clear effective titles can appreciably increase the traffic coming to your website.
Top 10 Don’ts of Website Design
1. Don’t clutter your website. Don’t clutter up your web pages with too much information or they become difficult to read and navigate. Each page should preferably deal with only one topic, product or category. Any advertisement on the web pages must be non intrusive else the prospects would leave and most likely not return for a repeat visit.
2. Don’t go overboard while using audio and video features that use high bandwidth. These may be slow to download and are irritating if the customer has to wait too long for them.
3. Don’t use text and color combination that makes content hard to read. Also restrict the number of distracting visual on the site.
4. Don’t add any information or features to the site that do not serve the intended purpose. It would be a waste of time for your visitors to use features or browse information that does not carry any meaning for them.
5. Don’t let the content and links on your website become out-of-date. Periodically refresh the content and update the links to relevant information. Out-of-date links are annoying and can seriously affect your business reputation.
6. Don’t stuff the site with technical terms or jargon 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 may be detrimental to the popularity of your website.
8. Don’t stuff up your web pages with advertisements. Also, keep a check on pop-ups as they can irritate prospects.
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 clients easy to digest information and back it up with references and customer reviews to enable them to judge your performance.
Follow the dos and stay clear of the don’ts of website design to design an effective site, and greatly improve the chances of successful web entrepreneurship. Daljeet Sidhu is the author of this article.