The key to creating a good website is to create one that keeps people longer. The funny fact is that there are two polar reasons that keep individuals from staying on your website. If your website is way too simple, chances are that it’ll bore your readers and keep them away.
Another reason that keeps individuals from staying on your website is too many graphics. Websites flooded with graphics are a pull on internet, meaning they take longer time to load. In addition, most cell phones can’t even load most of these websites.
Along with these considerations, there are few others that we will cover today in this article.
1. Stick with Your Design
Put yourself in the mindset of some of the most classic designs out there. When you think about them, you usually have the same memory as you did 5 years ago. This is due to the fact that most website designs don’t change frequently. Logos shouldn’t change at all, or at least should only have a minor refresh.
When you stick to the same design, you allow people to remember your brand and allow users to immediately recognize it when they see it.
2. Keep Navigation Simple
Scavenger hunts are fun, but not for websites. One tip to a great website design is to keep the website simple to navigate. It is almost essential to have a site map and tabs on the front page. This allows users to find what they want to see, or see the site as a whole.
3. Consider the Experience of Diverse Readers
It is always easy to just think about the majority of our readers. If you have a lot of readers who view on personal computers, you may find yourself only focusing on that. However, it is great to prepare your website for the visit of users on mobile phones and slower connections.
4. Have a Mobile Version
Investing time in creating a good mobile version of your site is a plus and will increase quality traffic. If you are outside of the start-up mode, even consider an iPhone/Android application!
5. Get Professional Help
You can’t go at this alone if you want an advanced website. It is always great to seek help from professional web designers. While the designing aspect is the larger picture, the performance and experience are also things to take into consideration because a slow, confusing website will turn people off.
Another great post!
Keeping people on a website can be a real challenge.
It’s about giving quality information (as you have done here). Optimizing the graphics, so as to reduce load times.
Also, the navigation is very important. The navigation has to be tested. Even if it means inviting someone to view the site while you stand over their shoulder. Ask them to find this page or that. See where the place their mouse and where the don’t.
I’ve been on the phone with people that tell me to ‘click here’, then I have to say “I never would have seen that if you weren’t on the phone with me”, LOL
So, the site map idea seems very valid in this case.
Thanks again for the great article & keep up the good work.
The only thing i would add to this list of good tips is this; when creating your design try to keep SEO in mind. When search engines crawl your page they topically don’t like too many images and too little content. The key to a successful design is to find the balance between the two.
I agree with this post. A website should be user friendly and does not bore any viewers that visits the site.
I always confused with static and dynamic site.I think static sites are good as they have the html coding and search engine love it.I think an elegant site design should be simple and having good navigation between pages.Nice post here.
Another point that I believe goes along with design is having a good memorable website name and making sure your logos and design flow go along with that name 😉
It’s obvious you practice what you preach as I see you have a very clean site here with a strong Google pagerank of 4…way to go!
Well, in my personal opinion, one should focus more on reducing the size of the website so that the page load speed increases and will effect positively on the search engine rankings and visitors mind.
Numbers 1 and 2 really resonate with me.
Like most people over the age of 20 (when you have a lot more to think about than what tune you are going to use next) I don’t want to mess with having to remember all the new little changes and suffer through gadgets people want to use to feel like they are staying up-to-date. Give me your brand, give me your jingle, make it good, and let it stay with me for the rest of my life so I don’t have something else to try to remember.
The second, navigation, is another pet peeve. I like to give people chances, but I really want to be able to quickly get to what I need. If I have to spend much time figuring out how to achieve something on a website, I’m going to move on. Not only am I frustrated by the time spent, but I also immediately wonder if handling my order will be just as difficult.
Good article. Thank you.
I like the look and design of this site. I have to agree that too simple is boring and too much going on is a quick way for me to want to leave your blog. The worst for me is pop up newsletter forms followed in a close second by black or very dark backgrounds.
What theme are you using for this blog?
take care…
Thanks for this post! Im web designer but i need more experience, actually i work in joomla and wordpress but i cant doing movil version :0( I need learn it! Thanks
The web itself provide a huge collection of a website that we would like to choose a designed one and modifying it … there are many open source websites available in the Web