Some simple web design fundamentals for a business website

By Jennifer Farley | Apr 30 2007 |

Let’s take a look at some of the things you need to consider when building a website for your business. The fundamentals of successful website building include; making your site load quickly, making it easy to navigate and of course making it look professional. There are many tools available to help you get there but is it necessary to use all every bell and whistle on your site?Firstly, you may feel that using a lot of animated web graphics, flash, banners and pictures on your home page will lead to extra interest from your visitor. It won’t. All it will do is slow down the loading time extensively. People surfing on the web are incredibly impatient and if your site does not load in less than 5 seconds, the will go elsewhere. All graphics should be optimized for quality and file size before uploading to your website.

Next, you need to think about navigation. People need to know “where am I”, “where will this button take me?” and “how do I get back?” The visitor should only need to look at their screen to see where they are at all times. Navigation bars should be clear and easy to read and in the same place on every page. The visitor on your page is not interested in working out a puzzle to find out where they are. Keeping pages clean, tidy and clutter free will result in an easier and more pleasant user-experience for your visitor.

Finally, the “professional” looking website does not include distracting backgrounds, loud and annoying background music or font sizes that shout at your visitor in two inch tall capital letters.

Backgrounds should not clash with the text on the page. Choose a single colour for the background and a complementary font colour that is clear and easy to read on the background. Avoid red and yellow text for the main body of the text. They are too hard on the eyes and will leave your visitor drained rather than excited about your products. The actually copy itself should be well written and brief – again web surfers are an impatient lot and don’t want to read several paragraphs where one paragraph will suffice.

To sum up, if your web pages are easy to read, clutter free, easy to navigate and don’t take long to download or make your eyes water, then you’re probably doing okay. Check out other websites to get some ideas and look at other business and product web sites (in your own field AND outside this fields) to see what they have done.

A well designed and thought-out website is the first step to producing a very good income.

Comments

2 Responses to “Some simple web design fundamentals for a business website”

Vivek on March 10th, 2008 12:06 pm

Your article is a ready referencer for small business owners who want their site to look professional. I plan to comment on this article and will provide a link to it from my blog. Thanks
Creating A Business Website on May 15th, 2008 12:48 pm

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