How To Design A Web Site
I'm not a professional web site designer
and openly admit there is a lot that I don't know. But if you're
a beginner I probably know more than you do, so the listen up.
Rather than give a lengthy dissertation on
web design I have broken it down into the following points:
- Keep your navigation bars either at the
top or left of the page (a recent tip I heard is: by putting the nav bar on the right of the screen it appears below your site content in the html code and therefore will be read by the SE spiders last). You can clearly see
my navigation bar on the left of every page.
- Have your navigation bars visible on every
page unless its a sales page, in which case you don't want them
to go anywhere else.
- Divide your navigation bar into related
groups of links for easier navigation.
- Have you company name
and logo in the top left or top middle of the page.
- Keep the theme of your site standard throughout.
Don't use different fonts on different pages or mix fonts on the
same page without a good reason for doing so. A constant theme
also includes the color of unvisited, active and visited links.
- Keep your use of colors to no more than
about 5-7 different colors per page (less if you can).
- Include a site map which lists every page.
Good for your visitors and site maps make it very easy for search
engines to spider your site.
- Don't have more than 3 layers in your web
site. That means if I was to start at your home page I should
be able to reach any other page in your site in 2 clicks or less.
Any more and your visitors may become lost and search and engines
will leave before they have finished indexing your entire web
site. This is easier than it sounds if you have a comprehensive
navigation bar and a site map.
- Limit your use of graphics on a page unless
they are essential to your marketing because they will drastically
increase load time and some visitors won't be prepared to wait.
- Keep your background white and the majority
of your text black. Mixing background colors and texts not only
looks unprofessional it is can also be difficult to read.
- Include a links page
which can be reached from the navigation bar. On your "Links" page have instructions describing how someone can post a link
and the link you would like them to posted on their site. I prefer
to view links before I post them in case they are not appropriate.
TIP: If you are planning on getting visitors through
your search rankings then I recommend you optimize your
site as you build it. Don't build it first and optimize
it later, that will cost you many hours of unnecessary labor.
To learn more read my articles:
-
SEO
(search engine optimization) Ranking Advice
-
5
Quick Tips For
Getting More Visitors From the Search Engines That
You Can Implement Right Now
Recommended
Resource 1: SiteBuildIt!
- Perfect if you are just starting
out
SBI! is a product of Ken Evoy's
SiteSell empire. It is an all in one package and
what some people say represents the future of web hosting.
SiteBuildIt is an excellent tool (combination of many
tools really) for beginners. There are heaps of features:
-
SBI! is an online
service that provides you with an easy point and click
interface for designing your own attractive and professional
web site and
-
SBI! includes brainstorming
tools for choosing your theme and keywords
-
SBI! incorporates
tools for search engine optimization
-
SBI! auto submits
your web site to the search engines and tracks search
engine spiders and provides ranking reports
-
SBI! includes domain
registration
-
SBI! includes web
hosting of unlimited pages
-
SBI!! permits unlimited
bandwidth
-
SBI includes unlimited
autoresponders (a tool for sending email automatically
when someone subscribes to your ezine, newsletter,
tips etc)
-
SBI! includes ad-campaign
management
-
SBI! includes click
through analysis
-
SBI! provides you
with a linking service (very important for search
engine rankings)
Recommended
Resource 2: When I started out I really wanted to
hear from people who already had success and learn how
they did it. I was very pleased when I found Cory
Rudl's "Secrets To Their Success". I
became a member of this site and got to read thorough
interviews with successful marketers who sold music, soap,
scuba gear, children's gifts, you name it...not just Internet
marketing stuff. I learned about what they sold, how they
started, what they used and
even got to visit there sites and check it out for myself.
I actually got my first and second
site ideas from there.
Also included is a monthly web
site critique where professional, marketing savvy webmasters
critiqued the site of a fellow
member.
Recommended Resource 3: Ken
Evoy's "Netwriting
Masters Course" is an informative FREE course
about writing for the Internet. It is not a series of
English lesson but a thorough breakdown of the art of
writing to market products on the Internet. |
Written by Murray Hughes
007 Work From Home
Licensed To Make Money! - Learn FREE. Savage The Internet And Explode
The Bank. |
