Web design can be confusing, frustrating and even a little scary. Setting up your unique online identity can be difficult, but that’s where we come in. Blending together our knowledge of web design and your expert knowledge of your business delivers a great result!
It can be tempting to make your site look cutting edge by including every new web design option out there, but it can end up turning people off. Avoid trying to add every new gadget to your website; be guided by your web designer. Simple always works better!
An important aspect of “Simple” is that websites need to look good across a variety of devices these days, from wide screen desktop computers to small mobile phones. If you go to www.seemywebsiteonmobile.com you can see existing websites across a range of devices – we use these to ensure you look good, no matter what device users have. Many web designers do NOT factor in various device types, so you need to be careful on this.
Make sure all of your webpages actually have titles, and ensure they have helpful descriptions. A surprising number of webpages out there are called “untitled document” or “new document” or “home page”. Titles and descriptions are important to guide both human visitors and the Google bot to navigate your site easily and improve your search engine rankings. The titles and descriptions are generally what shows up in Google search results and they need to be helpful to your visitors.
Avoid using too many graphics. While graphics are important to give your website a professional, cohesive and well-designed look, it is easily overdone. You should never use graphics simply to decorate your site; they are used to improve your site. Also, go Pro – amateur graphics can destroy your site. Even worse, “borrowing” graphics can destroy your finances – do not use copyright images without permission; it can be very expensive!
Learn how to use web design colors to influence your readers. Every color has a certain feeling that it can induce. Read up on the psychology of colours and match it to your likely audience. This article by Kendra Cherry is a great read on how colours inflence us. Most of us know that blue is the “trust” colour, and that red excites, but Kendra goes deep into the psychology of colours.
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Make sure you provide a Navigation Menu on every page of your site. While this menu does not have to link every single page of your site – this could be an exhaustive list if you have a very large site – it should provide links to the main pages. This ensures that your visitors do not have to return to the home page and start over again when it is not necessary. A Site Map is a great idea for helping people find their way around your website. To help your website function as intended, make sure all your links are working.
While it might free up some funds to use elsewhere in your business, hosting your own website is a bad idea. You should have input into the design of your website, but let Your web designer worry about the technical issues of web design – you need to spend your time focused on building your business. As far as design goes, it should be a combination of your business expertise and your web designers expertise; listen to your web designer, particularly on technical issues, but ensure the website reflects your vision too.
Learn as much as you can about the basics of html, as it is crucial to web design. Designing your site in WordPress ensures you can work in “visual” or “text / html” mode but is useful to have basics of html. When you learn about html go ahead and make a couple of pages that are sort of filled with the information that you want to add to any of the sites you plan on working on.
As time goes by, try to update the content of older sites. Make sure that any of the sites you build are up to date with modern technology – avoid a site that looks dated.
Have your web designer test your website to ensure that it works with the different types of browser, especially the main one like Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc. Make sure that, having built your website, viewers have a good experience when they get there.
Write content for your page with literacy levels in mind. Not everyone viewing your page will have graduated Harvard with an advanced degree, and some may have not even learned to read longer than a year or two ago. If you wish to expand your audience, you must first produce content that they can comprehend.