Web Design Guidelines
Following some basic web design guidelines will assist you in developing a successful website. Your product or service will literally be judged by the appearance of your website.
Poor web design is one of the leading causes of small business failure. There are literally thousands of home-based Internet businesses struggling to make a living online. Most, make very little or no money and end up closing their site in defeat.
If you really want to succeed, you must take the required time to educate yourself.
Creating a Web Page Template
When you begin designing your website, your goal should be to create a template that you can use to create each page of your website. This will give your entire site the same look
and feel.
A template is simply a web page “shell” that contains your entire page design, logo, images, navigational links and a specific area for your content. However, your template won’t contain any content, as each time you create a page with your template, you’ll save it with a different page name.
Website Design Layouts
Using CSS to format your web pages is highly recommended. When you design a website, there are basically four types of layouts to consider:
Fixed: A fixed website design uses a specific width that doesn’t change when viewed with different screen sizes and devices. And, although this is a simple and easy way to get a website up, it isn’t recommended as it doesn’t display well when viewed through smaller screen sizes.
Adaptive: An adaptive website design uses media queries to detect and display a website according to the device size (monitor, cell phone, tablet, etc.). This type of design requires you to create different versions of a website.
Fluid: A fluid website design uses percentages for widths which enables a website to scale up or down according to the screen size.
Responsive: A responsive website design enables a website to display properly in a variety of different screen sizes by resizing and adjusting the layout according to the browser or device. This is the preferred design layout by many including Google.
Your Web Page Storefront
Your main page is the storefront for your business and should specifically let your visitors know exactly what you’re offering. If your potential customer can’t find your product or service, they definitely won’t waste a lot of time looking for it. They’ll go on to the next site and probably never return. They’re visiting your site for a specific purpose. They want something your site offers. Provide them with what they’re looking for and you’ll reap the benefits.
Branding will play a major role in your success. Make sure you place your company logo and slogan in the top left corner of each page. This will not only assist your visitors in remembering your site, but it will also give your pages the same look and feel.
Instead of trying to cram all your content into your main page, consider creating sections. These sections can contain highlights of your information with a link to further information. You can set your sections up with colored heading sections using HTML Tables and CSS for information such as articles, products or whatever you’d like.
It’s much better to keep your main page down to the most essential elements and link to the detailed informational pages.
A good rule of thumb is “less is more.” In other words, keep your main page as small as possible and include your most important elements.
Web Page Navigation
When you begin designing your pages, keep in mind, your visitors may enter your site from pages other than your main. Make sure you include good navigational links on every page. Place your navigational links together at the top, bottom left or right side of the page. Use tables to neatly align your links and maintain a nicely organized and uniform appearance throughout.
Try to keep the number of clicks required to get from your main page to any other page on your site down to three or four.
Web Page Fonts
One of the most important parts of a web page is text. The way in which you display the text on your web page will have a great impact on your success. It can make your page look very professional or very unprofessional.
When placing text within your web page, always be consistent with your fonts. In other words, don’t use different fonts throughout your pages. The standard fonts used on the Internet are Arial and Verdana. The standard text size is 2. Arial and Verdana are the standards simply because they are the easiest to read on a computer screen.
Headlines, which require a larger font size, are a bit different. A popular headline font used is Georgia, as it displays nicely in the slightly larger font size.
Web Page Background and Text Colors
Use caution when selecting your background and text colors. Busy backgrounds make text difficult to read and draw the attention away from the text. In addition, always be consistent with your background theme on each page of your site.
Select your colors very carefully, as colors affect your mood and will have an effect on your visitors as well.
Bright colors, such as yellow and orange, cause you to become more cheerful or happy. Colors such as blue and purple have a calming effect. Dark colors, such as brown and black, have a depressing effect.
A good rule of thumb is to use colors based on the type of effect you’re trying to achieve. However, it’s always best for your text areas to have a white background with black text.
Above all else, you must take the time to educate yourself before you begin. I can’t stress this point enough. If you don’t, you’re honestly just wasting your time. Although it may take a little longer, it will be well worth it in the long run.