What is the best website design for your company? In fact, designing the best website may be entirely different from what others choose. You will, however, want to consider some design elements which are common to many websites.
You want people to be able to find your website, so it is important to learn how to make them search engine friendly. Use some of these suggestions to bring more visitors to your website.
Search Engine Friendliness
Search engines only read text, so having videos, graphics, or other non text files won’t help your page ranking. This doesn’t mean you don’t want to include them on your website, but you will want to embed text within the graphic or write text to describe each one. Use “alt” text for each image or graphic on your website. If you’re unfamiliar with HTML coding, you may ask for help or use the following:
Search engines may not be able to view your graphics, but they’ll be able to read the “alt” text. You can use the same trick with videos, Flash files or anything else that isn’t text. Using “alt” text will also make your website accessible to people with vision problems as well as making your website become search engine friendly.
User Friendly Navigation
Tabs at the top or buttons or links down the side of each page will enable visitors to get from one page to another within your website. Easy navigation will also make it possible for a visitor to get back to a page they were on without having to start from the first page again. You may want to use simple HTML links for navigation rather than using JavaScript code or Flash files.
Adding a site map to your website is another way to make navigation easier. There would be a link to the main page of your website which would enable visitors without JavaScript or Flash installed, as well as search engines, to find their way around your website.
Avoid Duplicate Content
Many websites owners use free articles or private label rights content. While these may be a great jumping off point for new rewritten content, using them as content, as they are, might lead to duplicate content. This can result in lower page rankings on some search engines, so it is helpful to avoid it if possible.
Use Standard Fonts or Typefaces
There are a wide variety of fonts or typefaces available today with new ones being created each year. The standard size is 12 point with larger type being used for headlines or emphasis. Black text on a light color background is also standard.
Make the Website Visually Appealing
While your website might look fine using Internet Explorer, how does it look in Firefox, Opera, or Safari for the Macintosh? Do all of the design elements look the same in each browser or do they look distorted? After spending time, and maybe money, creating a website you’ll want to ensure it looks the same in all of the major browsers. Try testing your completed website in each browser to find changes to be corrected.
Keep It Simple
Too many bells and whistles can distract your customer and slow loading time. You can still use videos or Flash files to spruce your website up, but you may want to consider how much each element adds to the load time.
In this age of technology, having a website is almost a necessity, especially if you do any business online. A website is important to bring in potential customers, attract customers outside of your local area and offer 24 hour access to your services or products.
The best website doesn’t have to be elaborate or complicated. It can be simple and yet still allow you to make the most of the internet’s opportunities. When designing the best website for your company, don’t forget to provide contact information such as a telephone number and address if you have a physical store.
Author Resource:-
Andrew Perkins is a professional web site and graphic designer providing visually appealing, user friendly, search engine optimized web sites, graphic design, logo design and corporate identity. Visit him for a free, no obligation quote at http://www.andrews-custom-web-design.com/