Essentials of website design

Build your website

Promoting a poorly built site is much like trying to dig half a hole.
You must succeed in creating a good, clean website design and
interesting and original content.

Use eye-pleasing colors, text color as well as background. I disagree
with the color that Jo Marie has used. Being a designer herself,
the colors, to me, are a strain on the eyes, especially the right
side of the home page.

Basics Of website design
Learn the very basics of website design. These are the very minimums
that you can adapt your first website. Please stay away from design
techniques such as used by
Burlington UFO and Paranormal Research and Education Center.

Effective website design
Follow some basic and simple design tips for an effective website. Here are some essential web design tips that every website should follow. Design your website by following these tips and you would do OK.

Your website design must consider the user's Psychology
The design is probably the most important aspect of building, promoting and in some cases monetizing your website. I read in an article that said "In many respects, it is the window to the soul of an Internet business as well as the people behind it." Some portals are so busy, it is very easy to get lost in them. They attempt to express too much, confuse visitors and make interaction stressful. You have to be careful to handle it in the best possible way.

Implement a flavor of site-search on your website
Is there a way to find out the most popular search engine people use when they search for information they are looking for. Yes, research shows that Google has a huge market share in this regard.

Site search engines provide users with a simple and convenient way to locate products using the terms with which they are most familiar. When users can easily find what they want, they are more likely to buy - and in the end, that is what all Internet retailers want.

Compare design with usability
In the minds of some website developers, there seems to be a tussle going on between the design of a website and how best its usability can be. The design aspects deals with the attractiveness of the website whereas usability deals with how useful the website is to the visitor. How best s/he can get information what they are looking for.

How changing a button increased a site's annual revenues by $300 Million
In a brick-and-mortar store, I go in, buy what I like and get out. Salesperson can help. I can talk to the manager for any problems. On many eCommerce website, you have to register or login before it lets you buy anything. What if I don't remember if am registered or not. What if I don't remember my User ID and/or password. They have to send me the information via email. I may or may not check my email. Forget the whole thing. I click on the close button. Make it easier for the customer to give you cash. Make it optional, and clearly explain the benefits customers will get if they do sign up.

Hiring Outside Help
I don't encourage people to hire outside help. You can build a professional looking website yourself using these Tools for creating your first website. However, if you do have to hire a design company to help you build your first website or perhaps you want to redesign your existing website, you can use the following criteria to choose a website design company.

How to choose a web design company with business expertise
f you search for a website design company using your favorite search engine, you would find an overwhelming number of companies offering their services. From template based websites, to full multi-media e-commerce sites with streaming music and video, your options are endless when it comes to a professional website design.

How to choose a web design company with technical expertise
On this page, I describe the criteria as to how much the design company know about HTML, Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), any JavaScript and such other languages that might be of some help in designing a good feature-rich website.