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There is a lot more that goes into sound website design than merely a flashy entrance or a showy site. While all the bells and whistles in the world may make you look great, there are a great many things going on in the background that will have a large say in whether or not your site actually does what you want and need it to do: be a good representative of you and your business or offerings. Let’s look at some of the essentials when it comes to website design that works.
Web Standards Compliant — This refers to a set of standards that were created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and helps to make sure that your site will render the same across a number of different browsers and platforms. This is becoming even more important as more and more web-enabled devices hit the market.
A Current Sitemap — This is becoming an item that you can no longer do without. A good XML sitemap will help the search engines properly index and rank your content, and make it far easier for your visitors to get around your site.
Navigation and Usability — Having clearly thought-out navigation on your site is extremely important. If you visitors can’t get around, through, and back to where they want to be with ease of access and logical processes, you will soon find yourself with a number of visitors who frustrated, abandon their tour through your site without ever accomplishing what it is you’d like them to do. Put yourself in their shoes, and make sure the site’s navigation and usability are what you’d like to see.
Images and Colors — Make sure your images are optimized, both in terms of SEO as well as graphics. A poorly conceived plan here could cause your site to take an interminable amount of time to load, and by the time it does your visitor will have given up. Also, make sure to not go too wild on your color scheme. People searching the Web have certain expectations: they expect sites not to strain their eyes, they expect if they have to read content it be represented in a manner that enable them to do so easily, and they expect links to be blue. Enough said.
Site Linking Structure — Make sure that your site is properly linked both internally and externally. This means making sure you can get to your home page from any page on your site, and that besides the obligatory navigational links in a menu there are text links that lead to other pages on your site within the content where it makes sense. Make sure you have some outgoing links, particularly to useful resources for your visitors or authority sites in your market, but not too many!
Your Contact Information — Including a way to contact you and your business should go without saying, particularly if you are trying to do any sort of name branding. People love it when they can actually reach you, and if they get quick helpful answers to their needs. You will find that in the end the Web makes you far more accessible to your customers, rather than promoting anonymity.
These are a few items to consider, and making sure that they are taken care of will go a long way toward helping your already gorgeous site useful as well!
