50 Surefire Web Design Tips

Tips to brand your website

• Include your logo in all pages. Position it at the top left or each page.

• Complement your logo with a tagline or catchy sentence that summarizes your business purpose. For example "Always low prices" is the tagline for Wal-Mart.

• Create a favicon. A favicon is that small graphic that appears next to the URL in the address bar.

• Have a consistent look and feel in all your pages. Use a color scheme and layout that are clearly recognized across your site.

• Have an About Us section, that includes all relevant information about you and your business.

• Include a copyright statement at the bottom of each page.

Tips on website navigation

• Design your pages to load in less than 10 seconds (50Kb maximum size, including pictures).

• Group your navigational options in relevant categories.

• Use common names for your menu options: Home, About Us, Contact Us, Help, Products. Avoid "clever" or "trendy" alternatives.

• If your site uses Flash, provide also an HTML version for users who prefer a less fancy, faster site.

• Provide simple text navigation links at the bottom of long pages, so users don't need to scroll back up.

• Link your logo to your homepage, except in the homepage itself. Put a link to your homepage on all your internal pages.

• Display a "breadcrumb trail"; it is basically the path from the homepage to the page where you are. A breadcrumb trail looks like this: Home > Section > Sub-Section > Page, and it greatly facilitates navigation.

• If your site is too big, provide Search capabilities. Include a search box in the upper right corner of your homepage, and a link to a Search page from your interior pages. Freefind ( ) offers you a free and powerful search engine for your site.

• Set your search box to search your site, not to search the web.

• Create a custom error page that displays a simple site map with links to the main sections of your site. That way, you will not lose visitors that have followed a bad link to your site or who have misspelled your URL.

Tips on Layout and Content Presentation

• Save the top of your page for your most important content. Remember: good content must flow to the top.

• Lay out your page with tables, and set the width in percentage terms instead of a fixed number of pixels. That way, your page will always fit the screen, without the need to scroll horizontally.

• Optimize your page to be viewed best at 800x600 (the most popular resolution at the time of this writing).

• Use high contrast for the body of your page: black text on white background, or white text on black background work best.

• Don't use too many different fonts in one page. Also, avoid using small serif fonts (like Times Roman): they are difficult to read from a computer screen. Verdana is the most web-friendly font, since it is wide, clean and easy to read.

• Avoid long blocks of text. Use tools that facilitate scanability, like bullets, subtitles, highlighted keywords, hyperlinks, etc.

• Avoid amateurish features like: numeric page counters, wholesale use of exclamation points, all caps, center justified blocks of text, excessive animated gifs, busy backgrounds, etc.

• Don't use pop-up windows. They distract your visitors and are immediately dismissed as ads.

• Test your site so that it looks good in different browsers and resolutions.

Tips on Writing for the Web

• Write in layman's terms so that everybody can understand your content, unless you're running a technical site for technical people.

• Reading from a screen is painful: use 50% less words than you would use on print.

• If a page is too long, break it into several pages and link to them.

• Don't use font sizes smaller than 10pt. for the body of your page. Specify your fonts in percentage terms instead of pixels, to let users set their own size preferences using their browser's text view options.

• Use a spell checker. Spelling mistakes are embarrassing and hurt credibility.

Tips to Know Your Customers

• Ask for feedback: include a feedback form in your Contact Us page.

• Publish an ezine and include a subscription form in your homepage. Give your customers valuable information and encourage them to contact you.

• Include polls and other tools to gather market intelligence.

Tips on Linking

• Make your links descriptive. They should indicate what the user will be linking to, as opposed to just saying "click here".

• Don't underline anything that is not a link.

• Underline your links and use a consistent color for them across your site (preferably blue).

• Use a different color for visited links, so that your visitors know where they've been (preferably purple or a more subdued tone of the unvisited links color).

• When linking to a non-HTML file, such as Excel, Word or Acrobat, make it evident, by including a small icon next to the link.

• Don't link to "under construction" pages.

• Make sure that your links work and that you don't have broken links. There are free online tools that can help you with this.

• If you use graphic links, don't forget to use the ALT attribute. The ALT attribute should describe what are you linking to.

Tips on how to use graphics

• Optimize your graphics. Use only .gif and .jpg formats. Make your image files as small as possible while maintaining acceptable quality. Use a free online graphics optimization tool.

• Use thumbnails (miniature versions of a picture) and make them clickable to the actual size picture.

• Avoid graphics that look like ads. People ignore them.

• Use the ALT attribute on pictures, even the image is not a link. It helps users with disabilities and people who have turned off graphics.

Tips to optimize your site for the search engines:

• Create short, descriptive page titles, to entice search engine users to click on your links.

• Create a site map containing all your pages, and link to it directly from your homepage. Search engine robots will follow the link to your site map and will most likely add all your pages to the index.

• Decide what the two or three main keywords are for each page (the words you believe search engine users will type to find your page) and repeat them often in your page title, description meta tag and page body.

• Create a Links page and call it Resources. In it, place links to those sites that have agreed to place a reciprocal link to your page. The more inbound links you have from quality sites with a topic related to your site, the better your site will rank with the search engines.

• Use more text than graphics, and minimize the use of Flash and JavaScript. Search engines heavily favor text and will crawl and index your site faster.

For more details on these tips, or for more tips, visit http://www.theinternetdigest.net .

About The Author

Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ), a collection of web design and Internet marketing tips and resources to help you design a better website and market it more effectively.

---

How to Create a Favicon for Your Web Site

One of the simplest things you can do to give... Read More

How To Use Unsafe Web Colors With Minimum And Safety And Maximum And Profit

Do you want to use unsafe web colors without offending... Read More

The Key to Getting More Magic Shows Booked Online

This article is the result of a conversation I had... Read More

12 Essential Web Site Design Tips

1. What's the purpose?The most fundamental thing to do before... Read More

Quality Graphics for your Web Site

For most people graphic design does not come easy. Unfortunately... Read More

Attention Grabbing Web Design Will Kill Your Sale!

In the of-line marketing world it is all about trying... Read More

E-covers for Your Niche Market

When creating an e-cover the what's the first thought that... Read More

4 Things That Make A Web Site Great

First you need original content. Content is the heart beat... Read More

Tips For An Effective Website

A successful website is something that everyone venturing into the... Read More

Effective Web Design Usability Principles

Website Design Usability Tips1. Getting to know about audience membersYou... Read More

HTML - A Website Language Explained - For Over 35s

This is a very perfunctory look at the website code... Read More

The Seven Deadly Sins of Web Business Design

Before you take a road trip it is usually a... Read More

Hiring The Right Webmaster

The Questions You Should Be Asking ? The Answers You... Read More

Ten Basic Steps For Building A Web Site That Works

1. Assemble a web site development plan that is integrated... Read More

How to Create an Enjoyable Web Page Design

Novice and professional designers alike ? you may probably be... Read More

How To Attract People To Your Web Site and Leave Their Contact

If you have a website, you want your visitors to... Read More

Understanding How HTML Color Codes Work

Ever wonder how HTML color codes are put together? For... Read More

Creating a Basic Web Design Template

A "template" is simply a design format which you can... Read More

Why Dot-Coms Fail - a Webmasters Perspective

Everyday we hear that another company goes out of business.When... Read More

Ten Fatal Mistakes That Make Web Sites Stink

Since you'll spend lots of time and money to create... Read More

What Drives Repeat Visitors To Your Site?

There can be zillions of reasons why your visitors return... Read More

Questions to Ask When Designing a Website for Clients

Questions to ask when designing a Web Site for your... Read More

Cheap Website Design In Birmingham

Due to the large number of people offering website design... Read More

Color Scheme for Your Website?

Yes, in a world that is obsessed with makeover madness,... Read More

How Important is Content to a Successful Website

Content is the most important part of any website.The Internet... Read More

3 Tips For Writing Content That Will Make You Sales

Content is king. Without content your website is an empty... Read More

Cheap Web Design In London

Due to the large number of people offering web design... Read More

Why is a Logo so Important to Your Business?

Well, a logo for your business. Why is it important?... Read More

Banner Enchancement - Designing Your Banner

A well designed web site is great to have, but... Read More

5 Ways To Automate Your Site

Automating your online business is one of the most important... Read More

Is a Web Site Builder Right for You?

A web site builder can be a real life saver... Read More

Create Favorite Icon

Favorite icon appears to the left of your link in... Read More

How To Boost Your Sales Dramatically Using Dynamic Back-end Strategies

Getting a customer is not easy.Getting a visitor to decide... Read More