PR Web Elite

Good web site design is central to your website’s success. An effective design can expand your client base and increase profitability. On the other hand, if the design is poor, it would drive away the users even if you have great 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 provide uncomplicated search and navigation capabilities. Your website design should facilitate quick and easy search of required information. All pages also need to have the key links to information that would enhance the user experience. Any useful information should not be more that two or three clicks away else you risk losing the user. You would ensure repeat visits from your customers if you save them time by providing fast navigation and swift access to information they are looking for.

2. Do keep your website content simple and easy to understand. Develop clear, effective and to-the-point content to capture customer attention and help them understand better what you have to offer. Your content should address customer problems and provide competent solutions for them.

3. Do give your site a consistent look and feel. Creating a consistent look and feel for your entire 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 your site accessible on multiple browsers. Users may visit your website using many different web browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome. Increasingly large number of users are accessing web sites on the mobile phones. It may make sense to test the site for access on mobile web browsers.

5. Do put your contact information on every page.
Though you can put your address, email and phone on the ‘Contact Us’ page, be sure to also put your phone number and email address on every page to give a mature and professional look to your site.

6. Do put essential information near the heading of each page to allow customers to conveniently see it and not wait to scroll down to find it.

7. Do use high-quality graphics and pictures. Keep a good balance between the image resolution and time to load them. High quality graphics will appeal to users but would be a turn off if they take too long to load.

8. Do use bullets, icons, boldface and italicized words, color and headline to draw customer attention to most important segments of your content.

9. Do make sure that your security and privacy policy are easily accessible 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. Users see web page title in search results and clear effective titles can significantly increase the traffic coming to your website.

Top 10 Don’ts of Website Design

1. Don’t clutter your website. Cluttered web pages are difficult to read and navigate. Limit the amount of information you provide on each page. Build a new page for each separate topic, product or product category. Any advertisement on the web pages must be non intrusive else the prospects would leave and most likely not come back for a repeat visit.

2. Don’t make excessive use of bandwidth consuming audio and video features, such as graphics, animations and photos.          These can make your pages slow to load, annoying the customers and deterring website usage.

3. Don’t make content difficult to read by using offbeat text fonts or color combination. Additionally, don’t include distracting visuals on your web pages.

4. Don’t add any information or features to the site that do not serve the intended purpose. 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 relevant information. Outdated links are annoying and can seriously affect your business reputation.

6. Don’t stuff the site with technical terms or jargon 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 could 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 irritate buyers.

9. Don’t include introductory advertisements on the first page before your web content appears. 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 clients easy to consume information and back it up with references and customer success stories to permit them to judge your performance.

Follow the dos and avoid the don’ts of website design to develop an effective site, and greatly boost the probability of successful web entrepreneurship. Daljeet Sidhu is the author of this article.

For many people designing and building their own web site is a key component in establishing their online business. For others however the very idea of having to create and run a website fills them with dread and so their first job is to get a website designer. If you fall into this 2nd category then here are five tips that could help to steer you in the correct direction:

1. Ask for recommendations. There’s no better advice for any service than that from a family member, friend or business colleague you trust and so, if you can, start by asking the people around you if there is any person they know and would be pleased to suggest to you.

2. Interview possible designers. once you have a list of six possible designers treat them in the same way as anybody else that you could hire to work for you and interview them. Now you may not be in a position to do this ‘face to face’ but you must certainly ’see’ them and ‘talk’ to them. With technology today this is not too difficult and you can ask them to send you a video resume, interview them using Skype or, at the very least, talk with them by phonephone.

3. Inspect live examples of any prospective designer’s work. Request a listing of recent web sites which any potential designer has developed and which he continues to maintain and then make an effort to look at each of the sites. Are the sites attractive? Do the sites look professional? Are they well structured and straightforward to navigate? Put yourself in the position of a future client for each site and ask whether you would purchase a product from the site.

4. Compare the work of several designers. Once you have narrowed your choice down to maybe just two or three designers compare their work side by side and place them in order of preference on your short-list.

5. Ask for a written quote. Before making your final choice ask those web site designers on your short-list to offer you a detailed estimate in writing for the job including the details of any continuing upkeep which you would wish to see and details of how issues arising with the web site would get handled.

Remember too that if you see a design you like there’s little wrong with tracking down the designer yourself. Often you’ll find details of the designer somewhere on the internet site, routinely in the footer of the site or on the ‘About Us’ page. If you cannot find any details about the site’s designer then contact the owner of the internet site, complement him on his site and ask him if he would be nice enough to let you have details of his web site designer.

James Wright has been creating articles on a range of subjects for many years now. Come and visit his most recent internet site which gives important info for everyone buying an antique desk lamp or brass desk lamp.

For many people designing and building their own web site is a key component in establishing their online business. For others however the very idea of having to create and run a website fills them with dread and so their first job is to get a website designer. If you fall into this 2nd category then here are five tips that could help to steer you in the correct direction :

1. Ask for recommendations. There’s no better advice for any service than that from a family member, friend or business colleague you trust and so, if you can, start by asking the people around you if there is any person they know and would be pleased to suggest to you.

2. Interview possible designers. once you have a list of six possible designers treat them in the same way as anybody else that you could hire to work for you and interview them. Now you may not be in a position to do this ‘face to face’ but you must certainly ’see’ them and ‘talk’ to them. With technology today this is not too difficult and you can ask them to send you a video resume, interview them using Skype or, at the very least, talk with them by phonephone.

3. Inspect live examples of any prospective designer’s work. Request a listing of recent web sites which any potential designer has developed and which he continues to maintain and then make an effort to look at each of the sites. Are the sites attractive? Do the sites look professional? Are they well structured and straightforward to navigate? Put yourself in the position of a future client for each site and ask whether you would purchase a product from the site.

4. Compare the work of several designers. Once you have narrowed your choice down to maybe just two or three designers compare their work side by side and place them in order of preference on your short-list.

5. Ask for a written quote. Before making your final choice ask those web site designers on your short-list to offer you a detailed estimate in writing for the job including the details of any continuing upkeep which you would wish to see and details of how issues arising with the web site would get handled.

Remember too that if you see a design you like there’s little wrong with tracking down the designer yourself. Often you’ll find details of the designer somewhere on the internet site, routinely in the footer of the site or on the ‘About Us’ page. If you cannot find any details about the site’s designer then contact the owner of the internet site, complement him on his site and ask him if he would be nice enough to let you have details of his web site designer.

James Wright has been creating articles on a range of subjects for many years now. Come and visit his most recent internet site which gives important info for everyone buying an antique desk lamp or brass desk lamp.

Good  website  design just isn’t  rocket science.  There are a few  overriding key facts  of which  you need to  stick to  so that you can  make sure  you can  build  a superb  website.  Some of the best website design software can actually be very cheap and might be worth having a more detailed review. If you wish  your web site  to become a  shining  example of  everything that  is good  related to  internet advertising, you should think about  the below ideas.

Enable It To Be Uncomplicated

Make simple to use for your users.  The best way to make it happen is to setup your webpages so that it is really easy to navigate.  First thing you will want to establish is the fact that the webpages loads very quickly.  Consumers can be flighty and possess small concentration spans - they’ll travel to the next website prior to your internet site even loads in case your efforts are not fast enough.  The ideal method to guantee that your website loads quickly is to stick to a top-notch domain host - for example Google - and includes compressed graphics all through your webpages.  The shortcuts have to be clear and blindingly obvious - nothing frustrates a end user even more than having to hunt around for information or products.

Ensure It Is Interesting

You have about 5 mere seconds to grab the searcher’s interest.  How you do this is up to you, however perhaps keep away from overly packed subject material stuffed with corny sales patter.  The most effective web sites tend to be nice and clean, simple not to mention clearly creative.  You can use snappy slogans, intriquing, notable and free offers and the usual good content and writing to capture your user’s interest.  Flash animation could be a smart way of offerring facts.  Users also like audio and sound weaved throughout the webpages to causes the navigational experience as stimulating as possible.

Colour And Design

To acquire a great looking website, you may wish to consider finding a professional style and design application to obtain a number of high end effects.  Shapes and colours can focus on a psychological level, consequently consider this when you design your website.  As an example, many people associate red together with overdue bills (not good) and black with death.  The use of colour must be strongly related the kind of products or services you might be selling.  One easy way to design the colour and style should be to choose a few websites that you believe perform really nicely and use them as ideas for your own colour pattern.

Remember…

Remember to keep it simple, keep it intriquing, notable and keep it inventive and you should be on your journey to designing a fantastic webpages.

The Internet has now become a very crowded place. Few years back the number of websites on the World Wide Web was not as huge as it is today. Today the number of websites on the Internet is in millions. In this situation it is very difficult for any website to stand out of the crowd. No website today can survive without proper promotional efforts to make your website a well visited one. To ensure a regular flow of traffic towards your website you need to get it search engine optimized. Search Engine Optimization is a must nowadays. No website can survive today without search engine optimization. Search engine optimization helps you in getting your website noticed. Your page ranking can be improved and this can be your key to online success.

The biggest advantage of search engine optimization is that your page ranking improves through search engine optimization. Whenever somebody enters a keyword in the search bar of a search engine, he or she gets the result in few seconds. The websites that appear towards the top of this result page get more chances of getting more visitors. The earning of a website is very much dependent on the number of visitors a website gets.  If a website gets more visitors, the chances of increase in the volume of business are more. If this is not the case, you will not be able to make sales. Getting more web traffic through search engine optimization not only helps you in increasing your sales, it also helps in making money through lending promotional support to other websites.

Search engine optimization is important. You can become search engine optimized by submitting your website to the search engines. You need to rearrange the content of your website as well. Also, you can place the links of your website on some places on the web; this will help you in getting more visitors. Search engine optimization will help you in making more money online in this way. A case in point is someone who used to deal with deck waterproofing, after search engine optimization, now his business in day spa and cosmetics has tripled.

When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1) Do not use splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. In fact, they are just that — pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the “back” button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements

Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valueable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

3) Have a simple and clear navigation

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don’t know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

4) Have a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means “abandon ship”!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they’re not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it — volume or muting controls would work fine.

A lot of successful websites depend on returning visitors to account for a major part of their traffic. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The credibility issue just melts away. Hence, keep your visitors coming back to your site with the following methods:

1) Start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers — all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.

2) Start a web log (blog)

Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results.

4) Hold puzzles, quizzes and games

Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!

No matter how brilliant your website design is, if it is hard to reach the content of your site then your site is as useful as an empty shell. Here are some tips to improve the usability of your website to ensure it serves its functions optimally.

The first method is to make sure the typography of your content is suitable. If you have large blocks of text, make sure to use CSS to space out the lines accordingly. The longer a single line of text is, the greater the line-height of each line should be. Also, make sure the font size of your text is big enough to read easily. Some sites have 10-pixel-tall text in Verdana font; while that may look neat and tidy, you have to really strain your eyes to read the actual text.

Make it easy for visitors to find content that they want on your site. If you have thousands of articles on your site and a certain visitor wants to find one single article from that pile, you have to provide a feasible means to enable visitors to do that without hassle. Be it an SQL-driven database search engine or just a glossary or index of articles that you have, providing such a feature will make sure your visitors can use your site with ease.

Ensure that your site loads fast if you do not want to lose visitors. Most internet users will leave a website if it doesn’t load completely within 15 seconds, so make sure the crème de la crème of your website is delivered to the visitors as soon as possible to retain their attention.

Last of all, test each and every link on your site before it goes online. There is nothing more effective in tarnishing your professional image than broken links, so be very careful about that.

A sitemap is often considered redundant in the process of building a website, and that is indeed the fact if you made a sitemap for the sake of having one. By highlighting the importance of having a well constructed sitemap, you will be able to tailor your own sitemap to suit your own needs.

1) Navigation purposes

A sitemap literally acts as a map of your site. If your visitors browses your site and gets lost between the thousands of pages on your site, they can always refer to your sitemap to see where they are, and navigate through your pages with the utmost ease.

2) Conveying your site’s theme

When your visitors load up your sitemap, they will get the gist of your site within a very short amount of time. There is no need to get the “big picture” of your site by reading through each page, and by doing that you will be saving your visitors’ time.

3) Site optimization purposes

When you create a sitemap, you are actually creating a single page which contains links to every single page on your site. Imagine what happens when search engine robots hit this page — they will follow the links on the sitemap and naturally every single page of your site gets indexed by search engines! It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap has to be placed prominently on the front page of your website.

4) Organization and relevance

A sitemap enables you to have a complete bird’s eye view of your site structure, and whenever you need to add new content or new sections, you will be able to take the existing hierarchy into consideration just by glancing at the sitemap. As a result, you will have a perfectly organized site with everything sorted according to their relevance.

From the above reasons, it is most important to implement a sitemap for website projects with a considerable size. Through this way, you will be able to keep your website easily accesible and neatly organized for everyone.

Normally, if you want to have professional designers custom build your site, you must be prepared to dish out at least a few hundred dollars. All this can change if you know where to find the best deals, the best designs for the lowest price. Here’s a rough guide:

First, you must understand that it is a rip off to get companies to design websites for you. Have you ever seen those advertisements in newspaper classified ad sections that offer a 5-page website at $500? These companies are established companies with physical locations, therefore they have to increase the amount they charge to pay off some overheads: office rent, designer’s wages, advertising costs and so on.

Therefore, it would be wise to find freelance designers who work from home. These people are often working from home so they do not have a high operation cost like that of a company. On the other hand, they will be able to design images with quality similar to those of designers from big companies, so it’s a “no-brainer” choice.

However, choose freelancers with care. The best way to do this would be to go to elance.com. There, you can post the abstract of your project and get thousands of freelancers to bid on your project, so you will surely get the best deal. On top of that, you will be able to choose the designers based on their experience, past transactions and ratings, so your value for money is secured.

Another route you can take is to design your website yourself. Think about it, if you only need 5 simple pages to present some simple information, why waste hundreds of dollars for it? Just spend a little time to sit down and do it yourself. You’ll be able to design your own sites even if you do not know a single line of HTML code with the help of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) programs such as Microsoft Frontpage, Macromedia Dreamweaver and so on.