When you design a website there are numerous things yo need to take care of. Starting from page design it is very important that you should avoid common mistakes.The site and its pages should be search engine ready and user friendly.Let us discuss few points which will help you in designing the web sites and pages as well as people who are planning to launch a new website or getting a fresh look for an old site.
1. Create a logo and include your logo in all pages. Position the logo at the top left of each page.
You can do it at the header level configuration and include the header in all page templates if you have templates.
2. Create and use a favicon. A favicon is that small graphic that appears next to the URL in the address bar.
Favicons definitly represents your website.There are lot of online services are available to create favicon like www.favicon.cc.
3. Create short, descriptive page titles.This is important with respect to search engines and users to click on your links.
4. The website should have a consistant look and feel.
It is recommended that all the pages should have consistant look and feel.
5. Include a copyright statement at the bottom of each page.
This is very important to protect your hardwork.
6. You should have About Us , Contact Us pages.
In the About Us section includes all relevant information about you and your business.
The Contact page is required because it is a great tool for your online users or visitors to contact you.
Most important thing is that ask for feedback.include a feedback form in your Contact Us page.
7. Make your page size minimum.
It is recommended that the maximum size of one page should not be more that 50kb.This will make the page load faster.
Read: 7 steps to Speed up website loading – Website Optimization Tips -Part 1
Read:Speed up website -Compress CSS/JavaScript using GZIP/DEFLATE compression – Optimization Tips -Part 2
Read:Check website/ web page for css/script Gzip/ Deflate compression – Optimization Tips -Part 3
8. You should have a link to Home page in all the pages except home page.
Also link your logo to your homepage.Put a link to your homepage on all your internal pages.
9. use breadcrumb trail if possible.
Breadcrumb trail is the path from the homepage to the page where you are.It will look like Home->major-section->minor-section->current-page.
10. Set up your search box.
The search box should be site search not web search. Site search boxes are very important because online users can search relevant contents within your website.
11. If your page is too big or long ,you must provide links at the bottom.
Providing simple text navigation links at the bottom of long pages helps the users without doing scroll back up.
12. You should have menu options. Categorize your content and add the menu option for each categories.
13. Use fonts consistent across the page. Avoid using many different fonts in the same page.
Verdana is considered as the most web-friendly font, since it is wide and easy to read.
14. If a page is too long, break it into several pages and link to them.
15. The links should be descriptive.
This will give user a chance to think whether to visit a particular link or not.
16. Use respective icon images if you are linking to documents such as PDF,DOC,XLS etc.
17. Avoid linking to pages which are not ready.
You should not link to pages “under construction”
18. Use the ALT attribute if you have graphics and images in your page.
Read:Basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tips for Better Search Engine Rankings
19. Add internal links if you have relevant pages.
Read:9 methods to improve your link popularity and increase your page rank.
20. Content is the king. Use more content than graphics and images.
21. Optimize your page for all popular scree resolutions (like 800×600).
Read:Best Online website URL analysis , virus scan and advisor services
22. Test your website and page in all different browsers and different versions of each browsers.
Read:Online tools to check browser compatibility -Cross platform browser test
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