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Web Design Best Practices

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It is our goal to help make your choice in web design companies as easy as possible. Because of this, we have created a few pages with important information in printable form. They can also be sent to your e-mail or to someone else's with the form at the bottom of the page. Print or send all three so you can refer back to them at your leisure.

Page Layout

1. Appealing to target audience

2. Consistent site header/logo

3. Consistent navigation area

4. Informative page title that includes the company/organization/site name

5. Page footer area ? copyright, last update, contact e-mail address

6. Good use of basic design principles: repetition, contrast, proximity, and alignment

7. Displays without horizontal scrolling at 800x600 and higher resolutions

8. Balance of text/graphics/white space on page

9. Good contrast between text and background

10. Repetitive information (header/logo and navigation) takes up no more than one-quarter to one-third of the top portion of the browser window at 800x600 resolution

11. Home page has compelling, interesting information above the fold (before scrolling down) at 800x600

12. Home page downloads within 10 seconds on dial-up connection

Browser Compatibility

1. Displays on current versions of Internet Explorer (6+)

2. Displays on current versions of Firefox (2+)

3. Displays on current versions of Opera (9+)

4. Display on current versions of Safari (both Mac and Windows)

Navigation

1. Main navigation links are clearly and consistently labeled

2. Navigation is easy to use for target audience

3. If images, Flash, or DHTML is the main navigation, clear text links are in the footer section of the page (accessibility)

4. Navigation is structured in an unordered list (accessibility)

5. Navigation aids, such as site map, skip navigation link, or breadcrumbs are used (accessibility)

6. All navigation hyperlinks "work" ? are not broken

Color and Graphics

1. Use of different colors in page backgrounds/text is limited to a maximum of three or four

2. Color is used consistently

3. Color has good contrast with associated text

4. Color is not used alone to convey meaning (accessibility)

5. Use of color and graphics enhances rather than distracts from the site

6. Graphics are optimized and do not significantly slow download

7. Each graphic used serves a clear purpose

8. Image tags use the alt attribute to configure alternate text to display if the browser or user agent does not support images (accessibility)

9. Animated images do not distract from the site and either do not repeat or only repeat a few times

Multimedia

1. Each audio/video/Flash file used serves a clear purpose

2. The audio/video/Flash files used enhance rather than distract from the site

3. Captions are provided for each audio or video file used (accessibility)

4. Download times for audio or video files are indicated

5. Links to downloads for media plug-ins are provided

Content Presentation

1. Common fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman are used

2. Techniques of writing for the Web are used: headings, bullet points, short sentences in short paragraphs, use of white space, etc.

3. Fonts, font sizes, and font colors are consistently used

4. Content provides meaningful, useful information

5. Content is organized in a consistent manner

6. Information is easy to find (minimal clicks)

7. Timeliness: The date of the last revision and/or copyright date is accurate

8. Content does not include outdated material

9. Content is free of typographical and grammatical errors

10. Content provides links to other useful sites

11. Avoids the use of "Click here" when writing text for hyperlinks

12. If standard link colors are not used, hyperlinks use a consistent set of colors to indicate visited/nonvisited status

13. If graphics and/or media is used to convey meaning, the alternate text equivalent of the content is provided (accessibility)

Functionality

1. All internal hyperlinks work

2. All external hyperlinks work

3. All forms function as expected

4. No JavaScript errors are generated

Accessibility

1. If images, Flash, or DHTML is the main navigation, clear text links are in the footer section of the page

2. Navigation is structured in an unordered list

3. Navigation aids, such as site map, skip navigation link, or breadcrumbs are used

4. Color is not used alone to convey meaning

5. Image tags use the alt attribute to configure alternate text to display if the browser or user agent does not support images

6. If graphics and/or media is used to convey meaning, the alternate text equivalent of the content is provided

7. Captions are provided for each audio or video file used

8. Use attributes designed to improve accessibility such as title and summary when appropriate

9. Use the id and headers attributes to improve the accessibility of table data

10. If the site uses frames, use frame titles and place meaningful content in the noframes area

11. To assist screen readers configure the html element's lang and xml:lang attribute to indicate the spoken language of the page.

Web Design Best Practices

Planning your web site on paper first is vitally important. I don't mean planning every little detail, I just mean planning the look and feel of your homepage, as well as the navigation or flow chart of the various pages of your entire web site.

Think of your website as a pyramid with your homepage as the pinnacle of the pyramid. Your visitors will navigate from your homepage to your 2nd tier pages, and from there to the 3rd tier pages. In the beginning, you will just want to build your home page and the 2nd tier pages.

Here's a Fast Track Technique to make your job of designing and building a website a lot easier:

All you really have to do is plan one page, your homepage, and then clone all your other 2nd and 3rd level pages. Your goal should be to make one perfect webpage, and then you'll simply use this as your template and fill in the pages with different content.

Let's look at the requirements of a successful webpage. A good webpage must fill the needs of the visitor to your site, as well as the needs of the search engines, and must also entice the visitor to click-thru to the merchant page where s/he can make a purchase.

But that's not all. A webpage should also capture the name and email address of the visitor. There should be numerous places and opportunities for the visitor to opt-in to your newsletter or to get your freebie product. I recommend you put your opt-in email capture form on every page of your website. Getting your visitor's name and email address is actually more important than selling a product to your visitor.

Optimizing your webpages for the search engines is especially important to get free, targeted traffic to your site. Using articles that you write about your business, combined with SEO webpage design principles practically guarantees an avalanche of targeted traffic to your website.

In addition to convincing your visitors to give you their name and email address, and optimizing for the search engines, a top notch webpage should also be designed to nudge the visitor along a pre-defined path to get the visitor to take a particular action. The action you usually desire the visitor to take is to click on the link that leads to your merchant page where a purchase can be made.

Here is where website navigation becomes vitally important. The amount of clicks from the time your visitor arrives at your website to the merchant page where the visitor is confronted with an offer should ideally be not more than three clicks.

The navigation must also be designed so that the visitor is not overwhelmed with choices. I see too many websites that offer a plethora of choices to the customer. This is a Big Mistake. A confused mind hesitates to make a purchase, or takes no action at all and exits the website in search of a simpler solution.

Design your navigation so that no more than five choices are offered at any one time. So your homepage might offer five category links at the top of your page, each of which might lead to five more 2nd tier links. This already adds up to 25 pages plus the homepage.

The navigation should also be placed in the same place on every webpage to make your visitor's experience easy and pleasurable. You do not want a frustrated customer. The happy mood is the buying mood. What's more, a good experience at your website ensures that your customer will return again and again to your website.

Offer excellent, easy to find content at your website. Design your webpages with simplicity in mind. Nothing fancy or complicated. Use a white background and easy to read fonts. Do not overdo the colors! Choose black type and one or two colored fonts and that's it.

You need to convince your visitor that you are reliable, trustworthy, honest, and credible. To do that your webpages should be conservative, easy to navigate, and easy to read. It's also important to include your email address prominently.

By following these webpage design guidelines, everybody wins. The search engines do their job by delivering relevant content to the visitor (because your webpage has been optimized for the search engines). The visitor wins by effortlessly locating the information and product that s/he was seeking. The merchant wins by making a sale. And you win by collecting a commission from the sale. You also acquire the customer's trust, as well as their name and email address, so that you can market to them again in the future.

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Both Www.komailnoori.com & William Perkins are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Www.komailnoori.com has sinced written about articles on various topics from Travel and Leisure, Vacation and Fishing. Get Website Designing and SEO Consultancy from Komail Noori, a -. Www.komailnoori.com's top article generates over 12100 views. to your Favourites.

William Perkins has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Web Development and Computers and The Internet. Big Willy writes about starting an online business, affiliate marketing, and making money. He has packaged much of what he knows into a re-brandable ebook titled,

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