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Web Design Tips
Do's and Don'ts for
a Great Website
Looking for some web design tips for your new website?
That's very smart because so many people make dumb web design mistakes
that end up costing them visitors and sales. No one purposefully
makes a bad website yet a lot of people do without realizing it.
Here are some do's and don'ts to help you make a great
website.
Web Design Tips for a Great Website
DO keep your website simple. This applies to
both your text and design.
For text, the shorter, the better. Don't take two
paragraphs to say what you could say in two words. These days many
people have the attention span of a fruit fly and don't read a lot of
text.
For design, get rid of the clutter. The simpler and
'cleaner' your website page looks the more your visitor will focus on
what you want them to. Try to keep at least 1/5 of your page as
'white' or open space.
DO make sure your website's purpose is IMMEDIATELY
clear to visitors. Your visitors should know at a glance what
your website is about. You have just over 1 second to grab their
attention. If they don't see that you have what they want in that
time, they leave.
This is SUPER important because so many websites fail on
this one and it's absolutely critical to your website's success.
If you are selling something make sure a visitor can IMMEDIATELY tell
what you are selling. Don't put a bunch of text above the items
for sale thinking that people will read the text and then see the
images. Some will but most won't bother scrolling down the page.
Those visitors are gone forever.
A way to test this on your own website is to pull up your
website and just glance at it. Don't scroll down the page.
Is it obvious what you are selling? Does your headline show what
you sell (good) or does it tell the name of your company instead (not
good)?
DON'T have music or videos play automatically when a
visitor arrives to your site. A lot of people surf the net at
work (I know, shocking!) and if they arrive on a site that blasts out
music or a video they quickly hit the back button and leave.
That's a visitor that won't be back. Give them the option of
turning on the music or video.
DO be consistent with fonts and colors.
Don't mix and match fonts and colors. Use the same font throughout
your website and use the same color scheme.
DO avoid crazy colors. Different computer
monitors show colors differently. What may look like a beautiful
'golden yellow' on your monitor may look like ugly brown-yellow or
day-glow neon yellow on other people's monitor. Just stick with
one of the basic colors for your website and you will be fine.
DON'T use a Black Background. Studies
show that a black background is the absolute worst to have because
visitors stay the shortest times on those sites that have black
backgrounds with white or colored text. The best background color
to have in the body of your website is white with black text (like this
site! Hmmm. How about that?!)
DON'T use flash except for small items on your
website. If you absolutely must use flash programming on your
website limit it to small items like your header or navigation bar.
Some people use it for an intro page because it looks
'cool' and 'expensive' but it really deters visitors which is the main
point of any website. People don't have the patience for those any
more. They were a short-lived fad, like disco.
Some web designers build entire sites in flash.
That's just crazy. It is hard to change the text on those and it
hurts you with the search engines.
If you follow these simple web design tips your site will
be better than most websites out there and will encourage your visitors
to remain on your website.
Related Articles:
How do I
make my own website? This tutorial shows you how to create you
own website without a lot of hassle or expense.
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