Website Design Guide | Web design tips

Free Website Design Guide | Web Site Design Tips

Every designer approaches website design in a slightly different way and there are numerous debates over what is the most important element in the design of a website. Is it the colour scheme, the graphics or is it accessibility or navigation? The list goes on. Website design is very subjective and as a client the most important aspect of it is what will sell your product better. Below are some tips and advice on website design, they include advice on how to plan a website, write good website content and get better SEO results.

We currently provide website design services to clients in Swansea, Cardiff, Carmarthen and throughout South Wales, to find out how we can help you, visit our Website Design page. If you're looking for e-commerce advice or Pay Per Click (PPC) or Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) information check out our other comprehensive guides on our free website resources page.

Quick links
>	What is website design?
>	How to plan a website
	>	The purpose of the website
	>	The website's target audience
	>	The content of your website
	>	Website compatibility
	>	Website documentation
	>	Website design and accessibility
	>	Website design and functionality
	>	The actual design of your website
>	Writing good content for your website
>	Ecommerce website design
>	Marketing your website
>	Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
>	Pay Per Click (PPC)
>	Website statistics

What is website design?

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Website design is the conceptual planning, design and creation of a collection of pages which can be viewed over the Internet.

How to plan a website

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Before you undertake the development of your website you should create a project plan. A project plan is a document intended to guide those involved in the project through the steps needed to complete the project. It can take any form, contain any information and any number of steps to completion. A typical project plan for a website can be split up into several stages, starting with the most important, the purpose of the website.


	The purpose of the website	Top
	Start your plan by defining the actual purpose of the website. For example, is it purely an information giving website, is it for selling products or services online or is it just to let people know what you do? Once you have defined the purpose behind your website you will have a better idea of what you want included in your website design. For example, if your website is for selling products or services, you will need text describing your products along with product images. You'll also need an ecommerce solution, which allows customers to buy your products online. Check out our e-commerce guide for more information.

	The website's target audience	Top
	The next step is defining who your target audience is going to be. You're website design should always have them in mind. The target audience is the group of people who you want to visit your website. These are the people who will ultimately buy your products or services, which is probably the main purpose of the website. To find out who your target audience is you will need to ask yourself a few questions. Such as; What type of people am I trying to attract to my website? What will they be looking for? How will they move around the site? You'll need to take a good look at your products or services and try and define some of the characteristics of the people who are buying or are going to buy them. Once you have done this, you'll have your customer profile and this will help you design your website and marketing campaigns. Remember to keep your website design simple and colours down to a minimum thus helping you're website appeal to more than one customer profile.

	The content of your website	Top
	You should think long and hard about what type of content you wish to display on your website. Your website design should enable you to add images and text easily. The text you display should be related to the purpose of your website. For example, if your site is simply to tell people what you do, you could have a products or services page, a company history page and contact details page. Your site will probably be pretty basic with under 7 pages in the whole site and it shouldn't break the bank in any way to produce. Remember you can always start small and then grow. Make sure your website is scalable, you should be able to add pages and change layout easily later on.

	Website compatibility	Top
	The current browser trend among web surfers is a screen resolution of 1024x768. However, with the rise of TFT monitors optimum screen resolutions seem to be changing. For most people surfing the net from home a 15" monitor will have an optimum resolution of 1024x768. New 17" or 19" monitors which are being sold by the bucket load for home and work use, work best at a resolution of 1280x1024. There is also a huge rise in wide screen monitors available for home users which provide a resolution of 1440x900. So what resolution do you design for? Try and have in mind your customer profile when you design, design as much for their type of resolution as possible. You could also place code on your website which allows the user to choose their optimum resolution size. You should try and ensure your website design is cross browser compatible, the most popular browser around is internet explorer and this is currently up to version 7. You should try and make your website design compatible with version 5 onwards. The other top browsers are mozilla, Opera and netscape. There is also Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)otherwise known as surfing the net on your mobile phone, you might want to look into getting your site wap enabled, especially if your site is a directory of any kind.

	Website documentation	Top
	All relevant documentation used in the production of your website should be held in one file. It is important to plan out your website page by page taking into account its purpose, target audience and content. Once you have done this you can use it to create a visual image of the navigational structure of the site known as a site map. It will show how pages are structured and interconnected. It can also be used on your website to orient users and show them the scope of the website. There are several different ways in which a site can be structured. Linear website design, which allows users to move in a sequence. Hierarchical or tree website design, which allows users to get to destinations via more than one path. Branch website design, which allows for numerous ways to move around the site via internal links and go to other websites using hyperlinks. In addition to this structural site map the actual website design layout and interface can also be designed via a story board. All web site pages are given titles, descriptions and a purpose and are linked together in a page by page plan of your site.

	Website design and accessibility	Top
	Website accessibility is a hotly debated topic, especially with web site designers. The main reason is that accessibility can mean the curtailment of the visual website design and interface of a website. You need to strike a balance between website design and accessibility. For the latest W3C guidelines please visit http://www.w3.org/ please not the W3C website holds vast amounts of information and is hard to navigate around. For a summary of the Accessibility Guidelines you can visit our accessibility guide.

	Website design and functionality	Top
	Website functionality refers to how your website actually works. Make sure you always keep in mind your audience's requirements when designing how individuals will use your site. Make sure your site navigation is easy to read and understand and intuitive to the user, no mystery meat please (images with no text explanations). Make sure links work and are clearly marked as links with an underline and go to the correct pages. If you use external hyperlinks make sure they open in a new window and explain to your user that they will be leaving the website.

	The actual design of your website	Top
	The design and interface of your website should be as clean and simple as possible to allow it to load up in the browser quickly, stay away from flashy imagery with garish colours and don't clutter the page with too much information. Choose just a few colours that compliment each other and use white as a background as it can take any colour. Try to develop a colour or image theme which can run throughout the website. Use a template to design your pages as it will reduce the amount of pages that you will need to change if you alter the website design later on.

Writing good content for your website

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Writing the content which will appear on your website is probably the most important part of designing your website. Your text should be relevant to your site's overall theme and written in plain language so it's easy to understand. Try to place your most important information, for example, your no.1 sellers or freebies, on your home page in a prominent position. Have a terms and conditions statement and a privacy policy clearly marked on your website. If you are selling online make sure you provide plenty of product descriptions and images. Have a clear sales process for the user, for example, have a bar which indicates the steps in the process of buying from your website. Add value to your website by adding interactive tools like popular polls, website image and layout customisation capabilities, RSS feeds, bookmarking, a calendar, members area with login and blogs. Remember to keep in mind Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) when it comes to writing the text for your website. For more information on SEO check out our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Guide.

Ecommerce website design

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If you're developing a website to sell your products online you will need an e-commerce solution. Check out our e-commerce page and our e-commerce guide on our free website resources page for more information on how to do this.

Marketing your website

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Once the website design phase is finished you will need to market your website in order to drive potential customers to it. Check out our marketing solutions and marketing guide on our free website resources page for more information on how to do this.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

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If you want any of your potential customers to actually find your website on the net you're going to need to spend considerable time making sure your SEO is good. Check out our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Solutions and our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Guide on our free website resources page for more information on how to do this.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

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Pay per click is another form of advertising designed to get you near the top of an internet search results page. Check out our Pay Per Click (PPC)Solutions and our Pay Per Click (PPC) Guide on our free website resources page for more information on how to get good seo.

Website statistics

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Tracking the traffic to your website is very important, how can you know which advertising campaign is working unless you know where people have come from and where they are going while they are on your site. Good statistical analysis of traffic on your website can provide you with enormous amounts of useful information about how people use your site. This can allow you to modify and adapt your marketing campaigns so that they have the maximum effect. There are numerous stats software packages on the internet to choose from, be careful if you choose free software, don't place any code onto your website you are unsure of.

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