Tenets of Web Design
- Before building your site, ask yourself: What is your objective? Acquire new customers? Advertise new products? Engage with existing customers? Create your site with these goals in mind.
- Content is king. Don’t let flashy features and visual noise distract users from what’s really important: your message.
- Writing for the Web: Keep it brief. Users don’t read websites like they read books; they skim. Make sure you surface important information clearly so that users can get what they need quickly and easily.
- Create a consistent look and feel. Your website represents your brand. It should look consistent throughout and accurately represent the brand you want to portray.
- Simplicity is a virtue. Many of the themes we created are simple for a reason: they let your content shine through.
- Don’t make your user think any more than he has to. If a user can’t find out what he or she is looking for right away, there’s a high probability he or she will navigate away from your site and never return. Ask yourself: if I were a potential customer coming to this website, what would be the most important information to me?
- Test, test, test. Ask your friends, family, and customers to look at and use your website. The insights and feedback you get might surprise you.
Tips & Tricks
- Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
- Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
- Not all users scroll to the bottom of a page, so consider putting your most important content high up on the page where it can be immediately seen.