Important Website Design Techniques

The most important thing in a website design is to ensure that it does what it was designed to do. Many new webmasters feel the need to entertain their visitor by adding expensive, fancy flash works that can actually hamper the optimal performance of their site.

Let sneak a view into the elements that makes up a good website design. 1) For whatever reasons you may have, resist the temptation to include splash pages

The splash pages are the fancy pages you see when you enter a website. Made up of pretty designs, they are usually lavish images and graphics with accompanying words such as “welcome to our site” or “click here to enter”. The unfortunate thing is splash pages actually takes away attention from the real purpose of the website, and often frustrates users with their slow loading time. The most important thing is not to allow any room for users to think about leaving your site, and this is almost impossible if you are using fancy splash pages with slow loading times.

2) Try using less banner advertisement if you can

The most common place for these large advertising banners to be placed is close to the page header but the bottom of the page is also quite popular too. Adding banner ads are actually futile efforts to maximize the use of your website as space research shows that people tend to ignore such advertisements. Instead, provide more valuable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being coerced.

3) Keep the navigation simple

Navigation must be simple so that even a small child can use. It is good to leave out any fancy flash menus or even multi-tiered drop down menus, they only serve to make navigating the site harder. Remember, if users find it hard to navigate, they will leave very soon after landing on your home page. Your website design should include the construction a sitemap that will make it easy for them to find what they want.

4) A clear indication of where the user is at the moment is good to assist navigation

Give them a clear view of where they are now and how to get to where they want to be. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. This can easily be achieved by ensuring each page has a title and a textual ‘breadcrumb trail’ that clearly shows the links they have made to get where they are now. Remember, any form of ambiguity or confusion will drive your hard earned visitors away.

5) Where possible, do not use audio

To make your visitors stay longer, avoid the use of excessive music. A sound file should not be played continuously it can be irritating on the user. Using audios may not always be a good idea, if you have to include them be sure to allow for some form of user control such as volume or muting ability. If you wish for the visitors to return to your site, learn to apply all these website design rules and you can reap the benefits of long term traffic.