Everyone knows the importance of having a website. For any business to flourish, it has to have a strong web presence on the internet. And just having an amateurish website design wouldn’t do! Your website design has to be such that it captures visitors’ attention and make them stay longer.

Here are some important tips by which you can improve your website design and make it even better in its pursuit to complement your business objectives:

Fast Speed
Inspite of the internet revolution, not everyone has access to fast internet connection. Many people still use the dial-up modems to connect to the internet. Therefore your website should cater to those with slow connections as well. The pages of your website should load faster. Avoid using banners and images that take eternity to load. Instead use relevant images that have been optimized appropriately. If your website doesn’t load in maximum 15 seconds, there is no reason why visitors will stay and wait.

Value Time
When you make your web pages load quickly, it gives an impression that you value your visitors’ time. Don’t keep them waiting for too long. If at all you cannot avoid your website from loading slowly, request your visitors to wait rather than making them stare at a blank screen.

Provide Options
If you need to include music or other sound effects on your website, at least provide your visitors an option to turn it on and off as per their preferences. This is because many people don’t want to listen to music as they surf and might as well leave if they are made to. Providing them with an option to turn it off will make your website a favorite with all.

Text Size
The text size of your web page is another important factor that affects your website design. Make sure it is large enough so that visitors can read it easily and at the same time not too large so as to give an amateurish appearance to your website. Also, the background color should be in contrast to the text color so that it doesn’t obscure anything.

Color Choice
The choice of colors for your website is a critical point. It’s always advisable to stick to web safe colors and use a white on black or black on white combination for text colors.

Clear Links
All the links on your website should be clearly identified and point towards the right destination. Organize all the hyperlinks on different pages of your website so that your visitors can navigate through the site with ease.

Use of Flash
Using Flash to create drop down menus for a website is a hot trend nowadays. Using Flash along with Macromedis Fireworks and Dreamweaver can help your create professional looking website designs in less than a day. However, make sure your visitors are able to figure out how the Flash menus work.

Cross-Platform Compatibility
Your website should be compatible on all the major browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera etc. this is because your website should be functional and accessible to users across the world using a variety of browsers.

---

Maneet Puri is the managing head of LeXolution IT Services, a top class web development company that offers powerful web solutions and a host of website maintenance services to its clients. He is a professional web designer & developer turned entrepreneur.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Colors form an integral part of website design. Choosing a color for your website is not mere guesswork. Rather, it requires a lot of patience and experimentation. The color selection can either make or break the overall look of the website and can also influence the moods of visitors.

Here are some important points that you should consider while choosing colors for your website design:

Contrast
Content is the king. And for the content to be seen and read by website visitors it needs to be visible enough. Therefore all text on the page should well be in contrast with the background. The best, and the most tried and tested combination is that of black text against a white or light background.

Patterns in the Background
This is one of the recent trends in website designing. The background instead of being painted in a plain colors is patterned to enhance the look and feel of it. However, when the text is viewed against it, it is hardly readable and makes no sense at all.

Links
Another one of the most common but very important features of website design. Make sure all the links on your website are marked blue as per the universal code of link marking. And to ease out the navigation process for your visitors, the visited links should be differentiated in a separate color most probably purple, maroon etc. however, do make sure that its not employed for your navigation links.

Limited Color choices
Less is better here. More the colors you use on your website, more there will be chaos and drama. It’s always a better deal to stick to less number of colors that stay in perfect harmony with one another and grabs visitors’ attention rather than shooing them away.

Shades of Colors
It’s always a better idea to use different shades of a particular color on the website than using different colors altogether. This is because shades gel in well and have a pleasing affect on the eyes. Contrary to this, using distinct colors tend to render a heavy look and strain the users.

White Space
Often undermined in the process of website design, white space plays a crucial role in enhancing the look and feel of the website. By adequately spacing out the content of the page, you can enhance the importance of a particular piece and prioritize over the others.

Clashing Colors
Avoid using colors that clash against each other. Imagine reading blue text against a red background. Forget readability, it will hardly be able to make visitors look at it. Don’t use primary colors in contrast with one another. Rather try using colors that go in sync with each other.

Branding
Branding is very important to web design. Websites represent the online face of companies and organizations. Therefore, it is important that they reflect the brand name of the same. Use colors that are related to the company logo and business or at least are complementary to the same.

---

Maneet Puri is the head of LeXolution IT Services, an eminent India web design firm that provides high quality web solutions and internet promotion services to its clients. His 10 years of experience in the industry helps him lead his team of custom website designers to create aesthetic websites that score on the user-experience as well.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!