Web Design - Top Five Basic Tips For A Great Site

By Author: Daljeet Sidhu
Total Articles: 4717
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One of the biggest blunder by business owners in planning out a website is to imagine it will work by itself if it is out there. Websites need careful deliberation and perpetual attention similar to any ongoing marketing venture. A website boosts a business' online presence and promotes its brand name. It is important to enhance the website constantly and correct potential pain points that stop customers from sticking around.

The following tips can make your site more attractive to customers:

Use legible font size and type

A web page that requires customers to zoom in to read text easily is disastrous. The font size is a vital factor in good website design. Well spaced words in the right font size make the content legible, thus encouraging users to read through the page till the end. Using dark colored text on a light background is good web design practice that is suggested and adopted by most designers.

Make navigation simple

No customer will waste time on a site that cannot be navigated easily. Tabs, links, buttons and graphics should be displayed clearly and easy to reach. The choice of ...
... design elements included in the website should match the expertise and ability of the target audience to use them. A new web design element will not be appreciated if it confuses site visitors. Also test the website across popular internet browsers to make sure that all design elements are visible as anticipated.

Prominently display contact information

A website that highlights contact information earns the customer's trust. By including address, telephone, fax and email, a business underlines its credibility and conveys to the customer "We are a legit organization."

Promote the website

Customers will not not know about a website unless you tell them about it. Businesses should publicize the website using various marketing vehicles such as:

* email advertisements
* direct mail
* newsletters
* newspaper and magazine advertisements (on paper and internet)
* social media networks
* search engine marketing (SEM)
* search engine optimization
* PPC advertisements
* registration in directory services
* billboards
* links from other websites

Maintaining consistency in web design

The importance of consistent theme, colors, content writing style, font size, and use of graphics across the site is often undervalued. Abrupt changes distract the customers' attention while consistency keeps them engaged. You don’t want to sidetrack a customer when she is in the process of completing a purchase. Avoid using numerous colors as it creates confusion. Good quality web design has just about four colors across the site.

Building a search engine friendly site

Search engines employ software agents called bots that crawl tens of millions of website pages and index them for page rankings. A website that does not load quickly, has broken links, is difficult to navigate or has not been updated recently loses points with search engines. Use animation and graphics cautiously and only where needed to add to the meaning of text. Slow websites are not crawled as deeply or as frequently by bots. Do not let this happen to your site.

Planning and launching a website involves comprehensive effort. You can be sure your hard work will show high returns as customers will certainly come back repeatedly and recommend a website that is sophisticated, has high usability, and the best fit for their needs.
About Author:
Daljeet Sidhu is at TradeSeam B2B Marketplace.