5 Crucial Components to Web Design

Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 3:24 am

Five Crucial Components of Web Design
By Woody Longacre (c) 2009

Professional website developers know the importance of web
design and the role it plays in making a website successful.

Designing a successful website is no easy task, especially for
someone who is new to the world of web development. With the
help of web development applications many people can and do
create decent websites. But decent in most cases is not good
enough to make a site successful from a traffic or financial
standpoint.

There are five crucial components of web design that you must
focus on in order to make a site valuable to its visitors and
successful for you.

- SEO -
Getting free traffic to your site.

- Usability -
Ease of navigating around the site and finding desired
information quickly.

- Aesthetics -
Visual appeal.

- Content -
Valid, up-to-date, relevant information.

- Graphics -
Eye candy that relays relevant visual information to the
visitor.

SEO

Before you ever lay down a byte of HTML code for a site, you have
to know and understand at least the basics of SEO and how it
fits into the design. SEO is the art of designing a site in a
fashion that gives the site an advantage for obtaining free and
abundant traffic.

The number one aspect of SEO is selecting keywords relevant to
your site. The keywords you select should be based on high
usage, low competition and relevancy to your topic. Once you
select keywords you can then begin the development of your site.
Keep in mind keywords are a critical aspect of the design. The
keywords you choose will be applied within the design in
strategic fashion to benefit the flow of traffic to your site.
To understand more on how to implement SEO you should read and
learn more about this important subject. If you don't, your
website success will be difficult to achieve.

Usability

Your website must be easy to navigate and designed in a way that
makes it easy to find information. Visitors will not stay long
if it takes more than one or two clicks to get the information
they want or if it takes brain power to figure out how to get
the information they want. One of the goals of your site design
is to keep usability easy, and simple. To do this, apply the
following three fundamentals of usability.

* Provide a site search tool.

A visitor in a hurry can quickly find the info they desire then
move on to the action they desire.

* Provide simple, intuitive and consistent site navigation.

This provides visitors the tool they need to leisurely explore
their way through your site.

* Provide logical and simple to follow content.

The message of a site should start off in a simple and basic
fashion with well defined links pointing the way to more
detailed information or explanation as needed.

In the cases above, the goal is to make it easy for your visitor
to find the information they want without frustration or
difficulty. Doing this well will have a positive effect on
increasing the return of your visitors.

Aesthetics

A website has to look clean, uncomplicated and strike a balance
in layout that is pleasant to the visitor. Pleasing aesthetics
come about when the colors of a site complement each other, the
graphics blend and lend continuation of the theme and the layout
brings unity and openness to the page.

Often overlooked by novice designers is the color palette of the
site. While you can select color in a willy-nilly fashion and
still provide a visually appealing site, a better idea for color
selection should be based on an understanding of the color wheel
and proven color strategies.

Many web designers often view a web page as an opportunity to
blast a visitor with lots of information in hopes this will
convince the visitor to take action. Usually this results in a
quick exit due to the overwhelming visual effect and complicated
look. A better approach is to provide less content and open
space (referred to as white space) to allow visitors eyes to
scan and explore with ease.

Content

An important feature of any website is the quality of the text
content. Visitors come to a site expecting to find answers to
their questions, solutions to their problems or for
entertainment value. The content offered at your site must be
well-written and without grammatical or spelling errors. It also
has to be relevant to the theme of your site, with valid, up-to-
date information for your visitors. Content is King!

Graphics

You can have a functional and usable website without graphic
elements. However, if there are similar sites to yours that
employ graphics, guess which site will get the most traffic. The
necessary companions to any well-designed site are the images
and illustrations that grace its pages. The images can't be any
willy-nilly graphic that you might think is cool. Graphic
imagery has to support your branding, and communicate the
message you are trying to convey. Before you incorporate graphic
elements into your site, take some time to look around the web.
Notice what looks good and how elements are laid out. These same
layouts techniques can be used as models for your site.

The Internet is a highly competitive business arena. To be
successful with a commercial website, you have to keep these
five crucial web design elements in mind. Contrary to what many
will tell you, it is rarely possible to have commercial success
without the benefit of a professional website. This is not to
say that you must hire a professional, however you must
implement professional design elements to improve your chances
for success.
================================================================
Woody Longacre, Internet Web Design
(http://www.webhostinggoods.com/Web_Design.html). We invite you
to visit the Web Hosting Goods Store (http://www.webhostinggoods.com/)
for Web Design Services, Web Hosting, and Domain Registration.
================================================================

Share and Enjoy: