Some Points To Consider When Setting Up A Webpage
December 29th, 2009
The most important thing to remember when you are setting up a webpage is that your site should be very easy to read. Take care to select your text and background colours very carefully. Don’t use colours that make it difficult to read your text. Use a dark text on a light background rather than the other way round. Make sure that your text is large enough to read, but don’t use all capitals except in headlines as this will look like you are shouting at the visitor.
Align your text to the left of the page rather than having it centred at this will make it easier to read for your visitors.
It is important that your site is easy to navigate, your links should be easy to see, image elements such as tabs or buttons should be clearly labelled and easy to read. Select the colours, backgrounds, textures, and special effects of your graphics carefully. It is much more important that your buttons and tabs are easy to read and understand than to have “flashy” effects. Link colours in your text should be familiar to your visitor (blue text usually indicates an unvisited link and purple or maroon text usually indicates a visited link), if possible. If you don’t use the standard colours, your text links should be highlighted in some way (bolded, a bigger font size, set between small vertical lines, or any combination of these). Text links should be unique - they shouldn’t appear the same as any other text in your web pages. You don’t want visitors clicking on your headings because they think they are links. if your visitors are unable to find what they’re looking for within a few clicks they will just leave your site and look somewhere else.
It should be easy to find your website.
It is a commonly held belief amongst companies and organisations new to the Internet that you just have to build a website and people will come. This is an error unless you promote your website nobody will ever find it. When you set up a webpage it’s possible to promote it by using amongst other methods, submitting to directories, submitting to search engines, banner advertising, electronic magazines, bookmarking your site at social networks and getting links from other web sites. If you are not familiar with these concepts and it may be better to hire an online marketing professional.
Websites can be promoted offline by the normal advertising methods such as print advertisements, radio, television, brochures, word-of-mouth, etc. Once you build a web site, all of your company’s printed materials including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, etc. should have your Internet address printed on them.
Not only does your web page need to be easy to find, but also your contact information should be readily available. Visitors need to know that there is someone at the other side of a web site who will help them in the event that:
1. They need answers to questions which are not readily available on your web page;
2. Perhaps something on your website is not working properly and Your visitors will need to be able to tell you about it so you can fix it.
By providing all the necessary contact information (physical address, telephone numbers, fax numbers, and email address), you will also create a sense of security for your visitors. They will be able to contact you in a way that is easiest for them.
Your web page layout and design need to be consistent throughout the site
Just as in any document formatted on a word processor or as in any brochure, newsletter, or newspaper formatted in a desktop publishing program, all graphic images and elements, typefaces, headings, and footers should remain consistent throughout your web site. Consistency and coherence in any document, whether it is a report or a set of web pages, project a professional image.
For example, if you use a drop shadow as a special effect in your bullet points, you should use drop shadows in all of your bullets. Link-colours should be consistent throughout your web pages. Typefaces and background colours, too, should remain the same throughout your site.
Colour-coded web pages, in particular, need this consistency. Typefaces, alignment in the main text and the headings, background effects, and the special effects on graphics should remain the same. Only the colours should change.
Your web page should be quick to download
Studies have indicated that visitors will quickly lose interest in your web page if the majority of a page does not download within 15 seconds. (Artists’ pages should have a warning at the top of their pages.) Even web sites that are marketed to high-end users need to consider download times. Sometimes, getting to web sites such as Microsoft or Sun Microsystems is so difficult and time consuming that visitors will often try to access the sites during non-working hours from their homes. If your business does not have good brand name recognition, it is best to keep your download time as short as possible.
A good application of this rule is adding animation to your site. Sure, animation looks “cool” and does initially catch your eye, but animation graphics tend to be large files. Test the download time of your pages first. If the download time of your page is relatively short and the addition of animation does not unreasonably increase the download time of your page, then and ONLY then should animation be a consideration.
Finally, before you consider the personal preferences of your web page design, you should consider all of the above rules FIRST and adapt your personal preferences accordingly. The attitude “I don’t like how it looks” should always be secondary to your web site’s function. Which is more important: creative expression/corporate image or running a successful business?
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