1.Navigation



The single most important part of the website where more people falter is the navigation factor. The ease of navigation in your website can set you apart from your competition. The idea is simple, the easier it is for the user to browse through your website, the more pages he or she is going to end up reading and this could result in more profits for you depending upon your business model. The idea is to carefully plan your entire website before you start to actually design it. I do this with a paper and pencil. Thinking through about the various pages and the way they would be interlinked helps a lot to an easy navigational system on your website. Search engines love html(text) navigational systems; as it gives them an easier path to follow on your website.

2.Readability

You must have at some point of time encountered a website that had a, what I call eye-unfriendly color scheme. Some website owners think this will attract visitors where it does the exact opposite. Most of the times you would end up closing the eye unfriendly website without even bothering to see what the content is. So, it is again very important to make designs that don't hurt the eye. Your website represents who you and your company are. You need to choose the colors carefully keeping in mind that the entire website must have readable text and your message must be clear within each page.

3.Screen Real Estate

The golden rule is the "Content is the King" rule. If you give a good deal of your real estate to your content you are attracting more people. You should plan how you will divide the space amongst your content, advertisement, graphics and navigation menus. Compare your layout from other new websites that have attracted you. An easy layout makes it easier for your web page to be read, don"t bunch up a lot of text in one area as visitors wont even read it. Make your body paragraphs short and to the point. Your message will be read lot more in small sections rather than one big huge text block.

4.Quick Loading Web Pages

How quickly your page loads is a very key parameter for the users to like or dislike your website. We have all clicked off a website when it does not load instantly, the web is to big to wait for some websites to load, I personally think next and press the back button. I am proudly guilty of this action myself. So make sure you have limited flash and smaller images on your website. Huge flash or images will up your load time drastically. So keep it simple!

5.Compatibility

Any discussion on a good website design will not be complete without the mention of the websites compatibilities. A good designer will always test the website in multiple browsers and in multiple resolutions. It is good to plan a layout which is compatible on all the browsers and looks alright on various resolutions and nowadays also the hand held devices. Planners may however also want to consider a target group of audience and then plan the best possible layout for them and have alternatives for the others. Make sure everyone can see your website efficiently!