The design of a website should best represent a company and the service or product they offer. You only have a few seconds to capture a visitor's attention; therefore, a poor web design will only lead to poor sales. A badly designed website will only deter visitors from staying on your site. If a visitor is not impressed within the first view seconds, they will easily and quickly move on to another site. This is why it is important to create a design that has a good visual display and appeals to your target audience.



A web design reflects the image of your company. It is important to present the best image so that visitors will come to your site and want to stay there. The longer they stay at a site, the better the chances that they will make a purchase.

The following is a list of tips on creating a quality website design:

- Consistent and Readable Text: Don't use a wide range of text fonts. It looks very amateurish. The size of the text should be easy to read. A standard size 12 is a good choice. Most people prefer the text to be black because it is easy to read.

- Easy Navigation: Make sure that users can easily navigate from one page to another. Make sure they can easily find what they are looking for. It should be clear, include professional headings, and be easy to understand. Having a "site map" is a valuable tool. Make your navigation clear and try not to have any "Page Not Found" error pages.

- Professional Images: Remember what audience you are targeting. Men looking for hunting equipment are not going to want to look at pictures of pink flowers. Professional websites should not use silly images such as an animation of a goofy looking animal that is dancing. Use graphics that will not slow down load time. They should be small and have an "alt" label. Flashing images are very annoying and distracting. You don't want to give users a headache.

- Design Lay Out: Don't have images and texts haphazardly scattered throughout the web page. There should be a consistent order to where images and text are displayed. Everything should be uniform and even. Choppy and inconsistent designs makes a webpage look childish. Also, make sure there is a consistent theme that ties each page together. Totally different designs on each page will confuse visitors as they may think they have gone to a totally different website.

- Technology: If you are using state of the art technology, make sure it does not slow users down. People will usually abandon a site if they have to wait more than 10 seconds or so for a page to load. Don't use a certain piece of technology just because you think it is fun and cool.

- Search Engine Friendly: Make your site compatible to search engines. The robots and spiders must be able to crawl and index your site pages. Include relevant content and targeted keywords.

When your website has bad design, you will lose traffic and thus lose customer sales. You can have the best content and best optimization, but if your site is poorly designed, you will still lose traffic. A customer will most likely never return to a badly designed website. Optimize and design your website to be professional and captivating. Because your website is the face of your company, you need to make sure visitors will click, stay, and purchase. A good web design plays a key role in achieving business success.