If you’re looking to hire a web design company to create a website for a new business venture, or are refreshing an existing website, your input into the design is key. A well-planned and well-designed website will ensure its relevancy and longevity in a market where web technologies are constantly pushing new boundaries. A poorly constructed site that doesn’t have the end user at the forefront of its planning will not only drive visitors away – you will have wasted your money from the outset. However, it’s not just about visual styling - site content is of equal importance. If your skills lie away from content writing, it’s worth paying a professional to do it for you. Bad grammar or a mixed message can make your site appear untrustworthy and confusing.
To help your potential customers navigate through your site more easily, here are some guidelines to follow:
To help your potential customers navigate through your site more easily, here are some guidelines to follow:
- Style - The style of a website plays an important role in conveying the company message. For example, using clear flash animation will help attract users and make it visually engaging. Flash is most often used on the homepage, however, it should be used minimally as to ensure the key message is not lost.
- SEO Friendly - Search Engine Optimisation describes a strategy that helps websites to be found more easily on all search engines. The inclusion of relevant keywords into the text and images of a website, will ensure your site achieves greater visibility when people search for your services.
- Navigation – This is a crucial element of web design. As a rule of thumb, any visitor should be able to find all pages on a website within three clicks from their landing page. Navigation describes how the website content is divided into different sections, and the flow from page to page – this includes the menu and its associated drop-down menus, buttons and hyperlinks. Think about what you would expect when visiting a site, and what page would make sense to link to, based on the information on that page.
- Compatibility – Regardless as to how good the graphics or content of a website, if the web pages are not compatible with the main web browsers, the website will not achieve its true potential. Ensure that it will be fully compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.
