Good Website Design Tips

You may have great content on your site, but if people become frustrated using it, they are not likely to return. These are basic design tips to help you while you build your site and once the website is live.

1. Use contact information - Visitors may want more information. Make sure your contact information is found easily.

2. Keep navigation menus same place - Keep the navigation menu the same place on each page. If some pages have it on the right and some on the left this can be very confusing to your visitors.

3. Easy to read font - Do not use small font on your site. Which is easier to read this size font (10pt) or this size font (12pt font)? If there is a lot of information on the page, don't make the font smaller, break the page into multiple ones.

4. Check spelling and grammar - Before you upload to the Internet, check it for spelling and grammar problems. Better yet, find someone to proof read the pages or try reading the page out loud to see if the content flows.

5. Scanable text - A majority of your visitors will not read the page word for word, they only scan it. Bold or highlight areas of interest or create lists to help your visitors find information quickly.

6. View on other browser - If you use IE (Internet Explorer), view your pages on a few other browers. A few different types of browers are Firefox, Safari, Mozilla, Netscape and Opera. If you do not have that capability, use a forum and ask for a site review.

7. View on other monitor sizes - Not everyone has a 22" flat screen. Try to look at your site on other monitors to make sure items are not overlaping or that your visitor don't need to scroll side to side to see the whole page.

8. Hyperlinks are underlined - It is easier for your visitors to see it. Keep this same format throughout your entire site. If you need to highlight a point, it is better to bold or highlight the text because if you underline it, visitors may think it is a hyperlink and try to click on it.

9. Images have alt tag - This helps with search engine optimization and people using software to "read" the page for them. Even though visitors can see the image, the search engine spiders do not. By using the alt tag, it helps the spider "see" the image. Also name the alt tag to what the picture is.

10. Pages load quickly - If a soon-to-be visitor is trying to get into your website, but there are big images or flash being used, it may take a long time for the page to load. Most people will not wait over 15-20 seconds to have a website load. They will just go find another site.

11. Search box for website (not just search engines) - Large website should have a search box to help visitors look for pages or content of interest.

12. Each page set up the same - This is helpful to your visitors, if each page is different they may get frustrated with trying to find what they are looking for or they may accidently click on an ad that would take them to another site.

13. Add sitemap - Sitemaps are very easily generated. If your software does not automatically generate a sitemap, see my website traffic page to learn where you can generate one free.

14. Use 3 or 4 colors for your web design - Using to bold of colors or too many colors can turn your visitors off of the site. Because of the different monitors, the colors you see may not what your visitor sees. Check the colors scheme out on a few different monitors if possible.

15. Use pop-ups sparingly - People surfing the Internet are getting used to pop-ups, but when they continue to pop up it can be very annoying to your visitors.

16. User friendly for dial-up - With more and more people getting high speed internet, there are many that still use dial-up. Keep your images smaller to help with the loading speed for these visitors.

17. Images that have to do with website information - Pictures are worth a thousand words, but keep the images to what the site is about and to a minimum.

18. Animated images will turn off - Allow your visitors to turn off any animated images. This is geared especially to sites that have sitepal or something similar. These are great to use to guide your visitors, but allow them the option to shut them off.

19. Scrolling up and down or back and forth to a minimum - Keep the width of your page to 800 so your visitors do not need to scroll back and forth to see the site. If you have a very long page, you may want to create two pages (or more) so your visitors do not have to scroll much to get to the bottom of the page.

20. All links work - Test every link that you have on your site, not only when you first upload the site, but continue to test them occassionally.

21. Have friends, family or forums review your site - This can really help you make a visitor friendly site.

22. Remove useless images - If you have images that give no value to the contents or site theme. Remove them as you may be able to use that space to benefit your pocketbook.

Another way to find some good design ideas for your own website, is go to the sites you like and see how they are set up.

Also check out your competition, see how their sites are set up. Can you make the layout more user friendly?