Fundamentals of Website Design

All the businesses are now realizing that they should have an online presence besides their physical existence. And thus the importance & needs for the efficient and professional web designers are increasing day by day.

To start the design for the websites you must keep some important things. The first thing that you should always keep in mind that web design differs from print design. So, you must plan on "WHAT TO INCLUDE" and "WHAT NOT TO INCLUDE" on your website.

So how do you build up a great website that sells? Let's find it out.                   

The Foundation

Before building a house, it is necessary to build a proper foundation. Likewise, before design a website you should keep in mind these basic things.

a) Remember that you are designing your site for the impatient online reader. They do not have the patience to read the whole contents. Instead they scan through .So you should learn to apply features and techniques that catch the attention of the viewers. b) Uniformity is also important, while designing a web site. You should use features to which people are accustomed. c) The web site should be user friendly. It should use web-optimized graphics.

The Superstructure

Now we move on to the super structure that is the house itself or the website concerned. Just remember these tips and go on to create a great website.

1) The web site should load quickly and be easy to scan. These are the essential prerequisites of web designing.

2) While designing a web site, you should keep in mind the needs of the potential customers. People visit the web site with a specific purpose, to get a solution to their problems. So you should focus on providing people with the specific information. You should also ensure that no information is more than a few click away.

3) The graphics should be so styled as to fit the content and not vice-versa. Often web designers complain that the content is not suitable to the web design. But you should remember that it is also important for people to read the content. The content provides information about the services and products. So attention must not be diverted from the content at any cost.

4) You should choose a font style and color that can be easily read. Frequent use of bold fonts makes the page difficult to read. The background color should also be kept light. Otherwise the viewers will have difficulty in viewing the pages.

5) You should use customized graphics to make your website attractive. But the graphics should not divert the attention of the readers from the content. The graphics should serve as an appendage to the content, which should be the primary focus.

6) Blinking images are to be avoided. They distract the attention of the readers from the content. Some viewers also consider them to be a nuisance and cover up these flashing images in order to concentrate on the content.

7) Avoid broken links. Make sure that they do not occur on your website. Concentrate on the link architecture.

8) Use contrasting elements on your web site. Placing contrasting elements side by side will easily attract the attention of the visitors. It is in fact one of the basic elements of web designing.

9) You should remember that the content should be aesthetically pleasing. Yet it should have powerful functionality at the same time. The website should be capable of giving out the relevant information in the least possible time. That is what readers are most interested in.

10) Don't concentrate all your attention on attractive graphics. Give an equal focus on page layout, error handling and structure.

11) Don't repeat your titles and page headings. Page headings are instrumental in focusing viewer's attention. Using the same headings will make them think that the information being provided is the same. This will decrease viewer retention.

12) You should make sure that the content and the page headings are grammatically correct. Incorrect grammar and syntax will reflect badly on the web site.

13) Lay stress on the keywords. Use of keywords help viewer's to ascertain whether the site is important to them or not. Most visitors flick through a website. So infrequent use of keywords will make visitors skip over a web site, even though it might contain relevant information. Here the need of Web design with proper search engine optimization (SEO) grows up and up.

14) Pay attention to your homepage. That is what the viewers will first see. The home page should be attractive and provide useful information. If it doesn't satisfy the mentioned criteria then the readers will move on.

You must remember that the primary aim of website designing services is to focus on visitor's needs. Design your web site in such a way as to direct the eye towards the important features. The less important ones should recede into the background. Web page designing is extremely challenging. Viewers take only a fraction of a second to decide whether a particular site will be useful to them or not. So you should hit the nail on the head immediately. The web site should be attractive, easy to read and easy to navigate. Adhering to the above guidelines will help you to build up a website that sells.

Design a web site means you must make a convincing presentation. You should not include too many graphics, pop-ups, and flashing gifs in your web design. These take a lot of time to load. Your website should be easy to navigate. You must remember that the attention span of the average viewer is very low. You have to grab the attention of the viewer immediately otherwise they will wander to other sites.