Principles for better Web design

You need to pay attention to ensure every minute detail in your web design is observed to ensure peak performance of your site. The biggest mistake one can make when designing a website is to include too many fancy graphic works and flash files that needs endless minutes loading them for display.

To help you remember the rules for effective website design, here are five basic rules.

1) Splash pages are a bad idea.

Splash pages are dazzling fancy pages you often see when you first arrive at 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”. They are merely fancy additions without any real functions at all. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the back button!

2) Do not use too many banner if you want to keep your visitors

When banners are displayed on a web page, they are usually right at the top but can frequently be seen located elsewhere, including the foot of the page also. Adding banner ads are actually futile efforts to maximise the use of your website as space research, people tend to ignore such advertisements. A better solution would be to add useful web contents and weave affiliate links artfully into them.

3) Keep navigation simple

Navigation must be simple so that even a small child can use it. Leave out any form of complicated menu that is flash based or the use of multi-tiered menu: they only add to complicate the layout. When navigation becomes hard and frustrating, they will leave your site for good and you will probably never get them back. Your website design should include the construction a sitemap that will make it easy for them to find what they want.

4) Make it easy for the user to know exactly where he is on the site

When you have successfully captured their attention and enjoying the whole experience perusing your website, you will want to make them know where they are at the moment without feeling lost. 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 clicked to get where they are now. Remember, any form of ambiguity or confusion will drive your hard earned visitors away.

5) Use less audio

Avoid the use of music if you can. While some music can enhance the experience, even the most beautiful of sounds becomes irritating if it is played continuously. It may be a cool thing to include some music but do give your users some form of control such as muting ability or volume control.

By applying all these website design tips we share, you can expect to reap long term benefits from continuous traffic from returning visitors to your website.