Internet Marketing Blog » Web Design Tips

The One Rule Of Web Design You Can’t Miss

Richard — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:33:18 +0000

When most businesses concentrate on their web design, it’s their own needs that are naturally in mind. The scope of the site, its purpose and its hopeful future incomes are all there to benefit the business. No matter how true this is, it’s a really bad starting point. Most sites would achieve a whole lot more if they just kept the fundamental rule of web design in mind.

The rule is: keep your site users’ interests in mind.

This is the absolute, primary rule that you should keep in mind during your web development. It isn’t something that will be alien to many businesses. If you deal with people at all – and every business does – you have to find ways to get them to do what you want them to do. In general this is done by pleasing them. Business just doesn’t work any other way.

Unfortunately, many businesses only come to apply this to their websites after the initial design is complete. Concentrating on their own needs at first, they only come to think about usability and other customer-oriented issues well after the site has been launched. In fact, they only come to think of it once it’s already a problem.

Putting customers first during web design is a smart move. It allows you to plot your conversion paths far more efficiently than setting them in retrospect. Talk to your designer about your customers’ needs. You can talk to us at internet marketing agency Click Consult about web development planning for your site.

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Should You Go For Stand-out Design?

James — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:02:59 +0000

One of the usual pieces of web design advice is to match the design to the standards of your industry. If, for example, you’re in an industry that favours sombre and elegant sites, the normal way to go is to design a sombre, elegant site to match. There is something to be said for bucking trends, however, and sometimes it is a good idea to make your site stand out.

Standing out the wrong way

Usually, though, when sites try to stand out against competitors, they go about it the wrong way. Disliking the sombrely professional image of their competitors, they jump straight to funky, colourful web designs which scare their target audience away. Too much change can definitely be a bad thing.

Standing out the right way is likely to involve either subtle alterations on your industry’s convention, or the use of web design themes from another industry. It is a good idea to talk to your web designer about your ideas, and use their experience as a guide. You can talk to our expert internet marketing team at Click Consult about web design alternatives for your site.

With so many new sites on the net, and so many more appearing each day, your web design is one of your greatest competitive assets. Design is an important element in convincing the average internet user that you have what they’re looking for. It can be difficult to judge, sometimes, exactly how best to convey that message. Every site owner has to judge for themselves the effectiveness of standing out.

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Top 5 Web Design Basics

James — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:00:13 +0000

Every website is different, and needs to be treated differently. Even if you lifted and pasted the code of your competitor’s website onto your own pages (which we do not recommend), your site would inevitably end up with its own quirks. This might seem to make it difficult to formulate good examples of web design, but it is just the opposite. All good web design has a number of things in common.

If you’re at all uncertain, it can be incredibly helpful to consult a professional for your web design, and you can talk to our internet marketing experts at Click Consult. Here are five basic things to keep in mind:

1. Room to breathe: Don’t over crowd your pages. One secret of web design is in knowing that text on your pages is just as important as any graphical element, and giving it room to breathe. A good page should have a feeling of space.

2. Simple navigation: Your site’s users need to be able to find their way around easily. Don’t make your site a maze. It can help to draw up your navigation on paper, the old fashioned way, before implementing.

3. Keep fonts to a minimum: Too many fonts make for a distracting web page.

4. Avoid the stack: Stacking each new page element underneath the others makes for a boring page. Use the horizontal space as well as the vertical.

5. Choose, and choose wisely: Some websites are a hodgepodge of design, with a different theme on every page. It’s important to be consistent throughout, with only slight changes.

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How WYSIWYG Ruins Websites

Richard — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 08:05:30 +0000

WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) can seem like a godsend to new web designers. When HTML is still very unfamiliar, and the basic principles of web design are fresh and awkward, having a ‘what you see is what you get’ option can be extremely helpful. Overuse of WYSIWYG, however, can be extremely detrimental to your web development.

In many ways, WYSIWYG can open up possibilities when it comes to web design. Most of these ways only apply to new web designers, and they don’t compensate for the limitations that come with programs that display pages instead of code.

WYSIWYG and limitations

What limitations do you get from programs that operate mostly in WYSIWYG? One of the more frustrating limitations is that these programs usually embed proprietary code within the page, so you end up with a bunch of what is essentially DreamWeaver or FrontPage junk mail sitting in your source code. This makes for clunky code, and can hinder your site in the search engines.

Another limitation is that errors can be harder to fix if you don’t know how they were made in the first place. If you’re doing your own web design, you may run into problems. Experienced web developers should work exclusively in HTML, and you can talk to our online marketing experts at Click Consult about expert web design.

Viewing your page as it’s being built is very tempting, but don’t give in to the temptation to the extent that you ignore your code. Your code is what the search engines see, what other sites see, and is ultimately what makes your site work.

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Using Curves In Web Design

James — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:00:07 +0000

The majority of web designs use shapes consisting of straight lines, yet there are endless possibilities for curves. Even those sites which mainly employ straight edges are often tempted to round off corners here and there. It all boils down to fashion, with different styles becoming popular at different times. However, curves signify very different meanings from straight edges, and understanding this can lead to better designs being created for websites where a particular feel is needed.

Straight lines themselves can vary in meaning, with a diagonal line appearing unbalanced with a risk of falling, which conveys movement when compared to its static, horizontal alternative. Jagged lines can seem aggressive, or full of energy, while the vertical and horizontal sides of rectangles convey containment, balance, order and stability. Thicker lines seem solid while thinner variations are more sensitive and fragile.

Curves, on the other hand, are sinuous and soft, echoing random forms in nature. They can add a sense of comfort, peacefulness and grace to a design, or more of a feeling of movement, depending on how restless the curves appear. Curves are less predictable than straight lines and can give a web design a more artistic look than a series of regular boxes. Depending on how they are drawn, curves can be used to achieve a web design that is restful to the eye.

At web marketing company Click Consult, we vary the shapes in our designs to stay ahead of the curve, while always making sure that we create a look that suits the client’s needs.

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Tone, Colour And Contrast In Web Design

James — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:03:43 +0000

Web design relies upon the skilful use of colour in order to, firstly, delight the eye, and secondly, draw attention to certain areas of the page. The overall use of colour must be balanced or the design will feel off kilter, with clashes or nauseating combinations sending visitors scurrying away from the site.

Mastering the use of colour is not enough on its own to make a web design succeed, though, as the elements of tone and contrast are perhaps even more important in making the finished look work. For the colour blind, a page that makes sense without relying on colour to indicate that, say, a certain phrase is a link, or that a particular link has been visited, is much easier to use.

Ensuring a page works for everyone means making it work first in greyscale, perhaps using variations in tone to indicate page elements such as links, or basic styles such as underlines. Viewing a site with colour turned off also gives a feel for the contrast and how readable all the text will be for every visitor, not just for those who are colour blind.

If a page works in greys, whites and blacks, it will be much more likely to succeed than one which does not, even though the colours might be beautiful. This is because the emphasis is always on ease of use and readability. At internet marketing company Click Consult we know the differences between tone, colour and contrast and understand how to use them on the pages of your website.

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Web Design With Content In Mind

Click Consult — Thu, 27 May 2010 12:29:18 +0000

Often during web development the structure of a page ends up being imposed upon the content. Numerous columnar and box-like shapes surround and enclose the text, creating a strong and sometimes distracting abstract pattern on the screen. There can also be a tendency to limit written content, partly in order to fit into the page scheme and partly due to the idea that articles on the Web should not exceed a certain length.

These restrictions may be detrimental and, with skilful design, they are unnecessary. The use of rectangular borders and blocks of colour around content can overwhelm the text, making it disappear into the background. In addition, having too many elements on the page can confuse the eye, giving an overall look that conveys chaos rather than professional orderliness. The answer lies in a lighter touch. Blocks of text speak for themselves within a thoughtful design, and need not be announced clumsily with borders, boxes and the like. If the paraphernalia of design is kept to a minimum, the text can leap out and grab the reader’s attention.

The amount of content on a page need not always be small as, with careful design, a larger piece of writing can be made both easy to scan and relaxing to read in full. At the other extreme, even the shortest portion of text might lose its impact if forced into a poorly-designed page. At Click Consult our design team knows how to create web pages that bring content to the fore.

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Typography Is A Vital Part Of Web Development

James — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:05:34 +0000

Choosing the correct font for a web design project can be difficult but the selected typeface will be extremely important in the overall look of a site. First, a font must be readable or there is no point in using it. On screen, sans serif fonts are generally easier to read, while the opposite is true for print.

Many factors affect how type appears to the viewer, making life difficult for the designer. Presently, typefaces are not developed according to universal standards. Also, different browsers have their own ways of rendering type and user settings can change the appearance even more. Finally, there is the monitor and all its variables for colour, resolution and brightness.

When using more than one font it is usually better if one is easily distinguishable from the other, providing contrast. Using more than two is only recommended in special cases, such as simulation of a retro style. Sometimes using two fonts by the same designer means they will go well together. A combination of both serif and sans serif helps to achieve a balanced look.

It makes sense to research the history and associations of a typeface early in the web development process. Quite subconsciously most people associate fonts with certain ideas. For example, an offbeat style might suggest an attempt to appear young and quirky, while type that reminds one of newspapers signals tradition. The fonts used speak volumes about a website, conveying an image. At Click Consult we make sure that your site’s web design sends out the right message for your internet marketing campaign.

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The Importance Of A Search Facility In Web Design

Richard — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:05:17 +0000

Many users go straight to the search box on entering a site instead of using the navigation menu. The number of people who do this is commonly underestimated, yet the information typed in can be very valuable when determining customer needs and can easily be collected using web analytics. A search utility should be seriously considered during every web development project.

The specific words entered in a search box provide many clues about visitors’ intentions. They may indicate information that people are looking for but which the website does not sufficiently cover, or reveal confusion about using part of the site. Analysing the search results can allow such problems to be rectified.

Observing which page a particular search was made from and where a visitor went next is useful in determining how an individual page answers users’ needs. Possibly the search itself needs to be improved. This may be suspected if visitors leave the site immediately after obtaining their search results. Perhaps too many results are offered and they are not relevant enough, so the customer despairs and moves elsewhere.

There is also the question of ‘conversion’ during an internet marketing campaign, the term referring to any positive outcome such as a sale, or a blog subscription. If the search facility helps visitors find what they are looking for, then the conversion rate should be substantially higher for those who use it. The web development team at Click Consult know that including or improving a search utility is a key feature of the web design process.

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It’s Not Just About Looking Up And Down

Gareth — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:00:06 +0000

While every form of web design quite obviously considers the header or banner at the top of a web page as being of the utmost importance in attracting attention and displaying vital information, it is easy to forget about potential usages for the footer at the bottom. Whether it is given an equal amount of space and identical styling as the header to create a ‘book ends’ type of feel to the page, or if it is simply allocated as a basic space to index links to other important pages within the overall web design, the footer is something that should certainly not be overlooked.

Whatever the objectives of a website might prove to be, design functionality is certainly just as vital as ensuring that the most basic of details are clearly readable in a coherent and legible text format. Therefore the process of web development needs to stay abreast of current trends and innovations in design technology, as well as in marketing strategy and new ways to encourage the greater flow of traffic to a website.

Competition can be amazingly fierce for any company doing business in today’s tough economic environment, and that means web design must also remain competitive if it is to stay ahead of the proverbial curve. So here at Click Consult, our web design considers every inch of the page to be important, whether a company is looking for a minimalist concept or something more elaborate and complex.

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