Website Designing - Top 20 Dos And Don'ts To Build Effective Sites
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Excellent web site design is critical to your website's success. An effective design can expand your client base and increase earnings. Conversely, if the design is poor, it would repel the users even if you have wonderful products and service.
Consider the following dos and don'ts when designing your website to turn it into a profit center for your business:
Top 10 Dos of Website Design
1. Do simplify onsite search and navigation. Your website design should enable quick and easy search of required information. All pages also need to have the essential links to information that would enhance the user experience. As a rule of thumb, it should take less than two to three clicks for customers to access desired information. You would ensure repeat visits from your customers if you save them time by providing fast navigation and quick access to information they are looking for.
2. Do keep your website content simple and easy to understand. All content on the site must be clear and easy to comprehend else you risk losing the user's attention. Your content should address customer problems and deliver competent solutions for them.
3. Do give your site a consistent look and feel. Creating a consistent look and feel for your whole website through the use of similar fonts, colors and layouts is a must to give it a professional look. Linked pages especially should use consistent font styles, graphics and colors.
4. Do make sure your website works effectively on multiple browsers such as Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer, for greatest impact. If you plan to make your site accessible on mobile phones then add testing on mobile browsers to your test plan.
5. Do display your contact information on every page. List your physical address including other contact information like phone and email on the 'Contact Us' page. It is also crucial to list phone and email at the bottom of each page for easy accessibility.
6. Do put essential information near the heading of each page to allow customers to easily see it and not wait to scroll down to find it.
7. Do use high-quality pictures and graphics. Images on your website, including your logo, should be of high-quality to draw in the customer and create interest but should not take too much time to load.
8. Do use bullets, icons, boldface and italicized words, color and headline to attract customer attention to vital segments of your content.
9. Do make sure that your security and privacy policy are easily visible to customers and stated in clear terms. Take all necessary steps to make your website secure for customers.
10. Do use clear and concise page titles. Visitors see web page title in search results and clear effective titles can considerably increase the traffic coming to your website.
Top 10 Don'ts of Website Design
1. Don't clutter your website. Don't clutter up your web pages with too much information or they become hard to read and navigate. Create a new page for each separate topic, product or product category. If you plan to place advertisement on the site, make sure it is not intrusive or you would lose the visitors.
2. Don't make unnecessary use of bandwidth consuming audio and video features, such as graphics, animations and photos. These can make your pages slow to load, irritating the customers and deterring website usage.
3. Don't use text and color combination that makes content tough to read . Additionally, don't include distracting visuals on your web pages.
4. Don't add unnecessary irrelevant information or features to your website. It would be a waste of time for your visitors to use features or browse information that does not carry any meaning for them.
5. Don't let the content and links on your website become out-of-date. Regularly refresh the content and update the links to pertinent information. Outdated links are annoying and can seriously affect your business reputation.
6. Don't use jargon or overly technical terms on your pages unless your website is designed to address the needs of a small segment of technical people. Moreover, do not use conflicting information in your site. In addition to confusing customers, such information gives a highly negative and unprofessional image to your website.
7. Don't use flashing icons and text as that can distract browsers and might be detrimental to the popularity of your website.
8. Don't fill up your web pages with advertisements. Also, limit pop-ups as they can annoy buyers.
9. Don't include introductory advertisements on the first page before your web content is displayed. Such advertisements put customers in a sore mood even before they look at your content.
10. Don't just brag about your company's achievements. Offer your customers easy to digest information and back it up with references and customer success stories to allow them to judge your performance.
Follow the dos and avoid the don'ts to design an effective website, and greatly improve the chances of successful web entrepreneurship.
Article Source: Articlelogy.com
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