Home Page
Home page should clearly indicate what the site is about. Provide top level navigation on the first page, your logo, and tell to the visitor what he can found on your web site. Your home page should be informative, and should call your visitor on action. Home page is the place where the visitor decides what he will do, click on some of your links, or leave the site. If you have a discount, or if you offer some free service in attempt to make a contact with potential customers, make sure to provide link to that service on your home page.
If you decide to implement flash intro on your first page, make sure to give the user possibility to skip the flash intro. The link "skip intro" should be outside of the flash, because you will force the visitor to wait until the Flash movie is loaded.
Navigation structure
Place the navigation on the place where the people are used too look for it. Don't experiment with the navigation! I can't stress enough this. Keep the navigation system same on ALL pages. Visitors are not ready to learn your site navigation system. Consistency is the most important thing here. You should focus your effort on building consistent rhythm across all pages of your site.
Font size
Your font size should be enough big so your text can be read without effort. There are many people who will not bother to read very small letters. Don't loose your visitors because of font size. Optimal size seems to be 12-13 points. Visitors should be able to read your text easy, without any effort. Broke big chunks of texts in paragraphs and make them easy to follow.
Line Length
The length of a line of type should be comfortable to read. The optimal line length for printed materials seems to be about 10 to 12 words, or 60 to 70 characters. Somewhat shorter lines of about 40 to 50 characters may be more appropriate for larger displays. If the line is too long the reader must search for the beginning of it; if it is too short it will break up words or phrases awkwardly.
Creating emphasis
Creating emphasis is an important and integral part of designing and typesetting. Handled with taste and good judgment it can help direct and inform the reader. When these qualities are lacking, or someone feels that every word is important and must be emphasized in some way then your web page starts to look like a battlefield and becomes difficult to read!
Graphics
It's well known that one picture worth more than million words. This rule applies on Internet too. Do your best to show clear, attractive photo of your product. If you offer a service, find a photo which will best describe him. However, be careful about file size. Don't compress your photo to that level to not be clear, but also don't leave the photo on full quality. That will make file size too big, and will increase download time.
Gif vs. JPEG
Less experienced web designers many times use wrong format to store their picture. Here are few guidelines which will help mistakes to be avoided. If your photo has small number of colors (less then 64) GIF will be better choice. Make sure however to reduce the palette size too. That is, if your image have10-15 colors only, reduce your palette on 16 or 32 colors.
Also, if your image contains text, GIF format should be your choice. JPEG use loosy compression method and will cause text and edges to become blurry.
If you are saving a photograph ? save it as JPEG
JPEG images can contain over 32 million different colours. That is much more than the human eye can see.
If you want to incorporate large text into a photographic image, JPEG may be a good format to use. While the edges may still get blurred, danger of it becoming unreadable is slim. If you think your image is more important than the text, go ahead and use the JPEG format.
Speed
Do your best to reduce the download time. We live in a busy world and people are not will to wait long time. Try to reduce size of your graphics as much as possible without to destroy the image. Image must look good, but size (in KB) should be as small as possible.
Test before publishing
Do your homework, and do it well. Your visitors will not bother to send you an E-Mail that some of your links does not work or that some of your images does not appear. Even if someone do so, it is quite embarrassing. Perform spell and grammar checking. Remember that in many cases visitor will build his opinion about you or your company on base on your web site. When published, site should not contain any "under construction" or "coming soon" messages.
About The Author
Zoran Makrevski is founder and CEO of SEO.Goto.gr.
Since 1998 has focused on E-Commerce and attempts to bring more traffic to the customer sites bring him in the SEO industry, and he is running his own company today.
Search Engine Positioning Firm
The time it takes to load your site can make... Read More
Favorite icon appears to the left of your link in... Read More
Learning how to convert visitors to your web site into... Read More
To explain my point I need to first confuse the... Read More
1. Size does not equate to competencePeople sometimes assume a... Read More
To create your own great banner, you only need five... Read More
As of September, Smartads went through what so many have... Read More
Mechanical spiders have to eat. In fact, they usually have... Read More
Websites, there are literally billions of them out there in... Read More
Customers will form an opinion of your business as soon... Read More
I'm not a professional web site designer and openly admit... Read More
Geometric designs come in all shapes and sizes? and lines.... Read More
You can create a website that attracts customers, not repels... Read More
How often, men, have you come home to find the... Read More
Everybody talks about the importance of testing your sales copy... Read More
This is a very perfunctory look at the website code... Read More
Does your website make you any money? Does it SAVE... Read More
For those not familiar with CSS Hacks, they are ways... Read More
From my personal experience of around two year as home... Read More
The importance of choosing your website keywords carefully is very... Read More
Designing your website means you have to be creative, plan... Read More
Wether you design your business brochures, flyers, web page, or... Read More
Public domain gives you a head start creating ebooks, ecourses,... Read More
Well, a logo for your business. Why is it important?... Read More
The trend today to overuse animation in a website's opening... Read More
Gone are the days when you had to rely on... Read More
Website Design Usability Tips1. Getting to know about audience membersYou... Read More
Persons engaged in website design, here's a scoop for you!... Read More
If you'd like to create/maintain a website, having some HTML... Read More
Creating your own website is great fun! But how is... Read More
Home PageHome page should clearly indicate what the site is... Read More
Then it was a choice among crayons, paints and palettes... Read More
Studies done by Jakob Nielson the man touted as the,... Read More
Does your website make a good first impression? Is the... Read More
Building your first website can be very frustrating. It looks... Read More
The internet is full of web design companies pleading for... Read More
You have probably viewed many Flash-based components while surfing the... Read More
I want to give you a free web page template... Read More
Almost everything is available on the web? products, services, e-books,... Read More
Square buttons, round buttons, flashy buttons ? will they match... Read More
Creating a web site takes thought, planning and execution. Unfortunately,... Read More
No, that's not the real question. The real question is... Read More
10 Basic Things Your Website Should Have ...__ all short... Read More
You've made your website, added a great title and keywords... Read More
If you need a web designer, but have no clue... Read More
Due to the large number of people offering web design... Read More
The problem with designing your site as a graphic, is... Read More
One of the challenges of moving a web site up... Read More
Remember the day that you got your new computer (or... Read More
Copyright 2005 Robert EvansSetting yourself up to earn a steady... Read More
The internet is filled with sites and they are good... Read More
When creating an e-cover the what's the first thought that... Read More
Have you put a lot of effort, time, and money... Read More
As search engine marketers, we spend an enormous amount of... Read More
Website design firms come in all shapes and sizes.When choosing... Read More
Building a website that is exactly what you want and... Read More
Don't mess with those links! When you're designing your site,... Read More
Web sites that feature products ? especially furniture or other... Read More
Your web site is like your car. Both are significant... Read More
CSS or Cascading Style Sheets has opened up tremendous possibilities... Read More
The trend today to overuse animation in a website's opening... Read More
As part of your event planning you should seriously consider... Read More
This is the second part of a two-part article about... Read More
Your web site is the key to your success on... Read More
Getting traffic to your website is not the only factor... Read More
New Web sites are springing up online by the millions.... Read More
Web Design |