Have you ever been haunted by the feeling that you have missed out something while making your website live? This is quite common with webmasters. Soon after completing a project and rushing to another, we often realize though it was too late then, that the design does not look that much impressive or something has gone horribly wrong in the process.
May be the color scheme does not suit at all or you have forgotten to add contact form in the contact us page. Sometimes things can go extreme and you may end up forgetting to change the demo images.
So if you do not want to belong to this league, here are the top #5 design practices that you can follow religiously if you are to shine as a successful webmaster.
1. Do Not Use Large Images: It is hard to resist the temptation of using large and fancy background images as a webmaster. True is it that a large image can help you make your website stand apart from the rest of the others but it has its own share of shortcomings. It can increase the loading time of the website horribly and that means, you website will run the risk of being overlooked by search engines.
2. Color Combination: Different colors have different connotation. You cannot use Pink color while designing a gaming website. In the same way, use of black color is prohibited in social networking sites. Green is somewhat de facto color in case of finance website and black is quite common in gaming and websites that are targeting sophisticated visitors.
You should not mess up with the color combination at any cost.
3. Above the Fold: Now, a debate is already raging whether or not you should add all the crucial elements in the above the fold section. Now, I personally believe that if it is a blog, you should distribute all the important elements throughout the website rather than concentrating on above the fold section.
But if it is a service website, it is perfect sane to add as many important elements like quick contact form, pricing button, social media icons etc in the above the fold section.
4. Cross Browsers Compatibility: You cannot expect all your visitors will be using IE 9. They can use almost any browsers and therefore, it is your moral responsibility to offer all of them similar browsing experience. Cross browser compatibility is certainly a major issue that deserves to be on your check list if you are to shine as a webmaster.
Now with the smartphone and tablets, it’s not only the desktop browsers, your website should also look good on the small screens. Though there are many plugin which can do the job for you like WPTouch.
5. Keep It Simple: You should shun every attempt at jazzing up things or adding fluffy elements. It is just sheer wastage of time and effort. Try to keep things as simple and straightforward as possible and you will have the last laugh at the end of the day. Try semantic coding and upgrade your skills with CSS 3 and HTML 5 and you are done.
And here is the bonus tip, while designing new websites a well designed logo can make a difference. You should use a logo rather than regular text for your website. There are many companies which can do the work for you and it can be as low as $27. Check the services of LogoNerds who has designed the logo for Makewebworld.
What else you look while designing your websites, share your thoughts through comment section.
[Image Source: Salvatore Vuono]
The thing about page rank is that it goes up exponentially. For example, a rough estimate for your page to achieve a PR3 rank, would require only 18 PR3 blog backlinks BUT if you were getting only PR1 backlinks you would need 555 of them! This gives you an idea of how much more powerful the higher quality links are. (I know that PR has little to do with your rank in the SERPS because there are so many other factors that go into ranking a page, but PR does have a lot to do with how authoritative google thinks your page is so if all the other SEO elements are in place a higher PR will help greatly in your ranking for a particular keyword that you are optimizing for.
Color combination is very important when it comes to webdesign. More site visitors find it very attractive if they see fantastic design of their site. I wonder what site owners’ criteria.
Very nice tips. This post will serve as a reminder to people that are making websites because sometimes designer might overwhelm in putting some huge images or anything that is too much. Thanks for these tips.
Another things to consider is a clear call to action, this is especially true if your selling something, but even a blog could use that effectively.
Yes, a blog can have a good call to action for subscriptions and it helps. I still have to set it up for this blog.
Colours are generally a problem for me cos i seem not to know how to use colours apart from blue. but i’m gradually getting the hang of it. cross browser compatibility is really something people have to look out for. i’ve had elements on some of my pages changing positions just like that. its quite crazy
Yes, Cross browser compatibility and multiple screen resolution are few things which needs to be checked, I have had issues with lower resolutions few times and its get crazy when it happen as readers say they are having issue and you see your blog is fine…hard to find things.
I have always wondered about above the fold content. and I have not given much thought to the colors but the info you provided does make sense. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Marcie for reading, above the fold is really important as it give an reason for users to scroll down, it is is not attractive they might not see other content on the blog.
Thank you for sharing with us this interesting guidelines.
The best way to get a decent logo is to ask a professional to create one for you.
In any case always help to know informations like this for better collaboration with the designer.
Its always good to have a professional do the work for you and that’s the reason i have listed LogoNerds here, They are professionals and their price is really great.
Awsome infomation !!!!!!
nice tips Sanjev.
after reading this post i gain much about web designs and especially the color combination. previously i know much about color effects and your posts clears me about color importance and prohibition of large image use.
Thanks Reeha for the visit, Visual representation is very important as it can sometimes be a forcing factor for your readers.
True and very authentic.
Hi I’m just new to your site. Why is it not possible to add large images to your themes? What can be the effect of it to the blog site? I thing choosing a color could benefit the site so that it can attract more visitors. Many choose fancy colors to add more visitors from their site. Thanks for sharing different ideas, now I know what to do when I start up to make themes in my blog.
Large Images takes time to download and can increase your page load time. So its better to avoid them if possible. If you want to use them than keep an eye on page loading speed. Thanks for reading and hope to see you more here.
I am testing out using a large background image right now. I am using a CDN to host images though, so hopefully the load time will not be impacted. Being a business, it is very important to capture the eye of the visitor and retain the on the page. I am hoping that the image will do that long enough for them to see what the site is all about and to keep their interest for a few minutes.
I’m interested if it will help conversion rate, but it’s hard to tell when you do not receive much traffic. What are your opinions on using a CDN.. does this make it OK to use larger images to try to make a good impression on the viewer?
It depends on how and what you are going to project on page, if it can be best described with big images its great. Our main aim is to convey our purpose and products to the customers. CDN might help, let me know how it worked out with CDN.
The main drawback and point of concern is load time, so I would be keeping an eye on that factor.
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