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Website Design Guidelines

Posted on February 22, 2008
Filed Under Websites, design |

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The more time I spend updating my website/blog, the more I am aware of how important design is. Bad design alone can turn away a visitor. You will be surprise how visitors react to good design. Apart from good content, I think design is the next most important aspect of a website.

Here are some website design pointers that I think should be considered when choosing a good design for your website.

1. Do not use splash pages

What are splash pages? They are the first page you see when you arrive at a website. Splash pages usually contain beautiful images or a Flash animation. It is nothing more than an introduction page. Splash pages are pretty vases with no real purpose.

Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the back button. It is best to give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2. Do not use excessive banner advertisements

How would it make you feel if you go to a website that has excessive banner advertisements place all over the website? I would be put off and ignore the advertisements. If I arrived at the website from a search engine, I would be expecting to find relevant content relating to my search.

If I don’t find what I am looking for I would click the back button and go to another website. Having too many banner advertisements also limit the space available for content. Bear in mind, content is king in a blog or website. To put it another way, by having excessive banner advertisements you are wasting valuable website real estate.

Instead you should provide more valuable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead or being pushed to buy.

3. Have a simple and clear navigation

I am a great fan of simple and clear website design. This should also apply to navigation. If your website visitors don’t know how to navigate around your website, they will leave.

I personally would rather not have complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. Just keep it simple. It is also beneficial to include a sitemap on your website.

A sitemap is a map of your website and visitors can use the sitemap to get around your website if they find it difficult to use your website navigation. Don’t give your visitors an excuse to leave your website just because your website navigation sucks.

4. Avoid using audio on your blog

I find this most annoying especially if I am going to be spending a long time on a website but some website owners like to have audio on their website. If you insist on having audio, remember not to enable audio looping or give your website visitors the option to turn off or mute the audio on your website.

Let me know if you have other good suggestions on website design besides what I have listed above.

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    Comments

    3 Responses to “Website Design Guidelines”

    1. Emarketscout on February 23rd, 2008 8:57 am

      Hi Ash,

      Michael here from Germany.

      I absolutely agree with you about the improtance of design - for communicating your messages to your inteded audience.

      That’S why i’m using the Neoclassical Theme by Chris Pearson on my blog.

      Regards,

      Michael

      Emarketscout’s last blog post..Would you like to get to the Top on Google and Yahoo?

    2. Jayce on February 25th, 2008 5:48 am

      Am http://JayceOoi.com has too much of advertisement? :P
      Jayce’s last blog post..J-Links plugin - Outputs your blogroll links to a page or post

    3. Michelle on February 28th, 2008 8:16 pm

      Granted, I am rather new to design myself, but I do have a comment–watch the colors on the site. I have clicked away from lots of sites because of glaring color schemes, either too bright or the colors simply clash horribly. Fancy, flashing text should be kept to a minimum as well–too much of that is irritating to most people, I think.

      Just my two cents. Great article, by the way! :)
      Michelle’s last blog post..So Mom IS right sometimes, then?

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