Website Design 5 Most Important Rules

When your website is concerned, more attention should be given to every small detail in order to ensure that it performs optimally in order to serve its purpose. Below are seven important rules of thumb you need to observe in order to make sure your website’s performance is level.

1) Don’t use splash pages

When you arrive at a website, splash pages are the first you will see. They normally have a very beautiful image with words such as "welcome" or "click here to enter". In actual fact, they are just that -- pretty vases without a real purpose. Don’t give your visitors a reason to click on the "back" button! Instead, give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Don’t make an excessive use of banner advertisements

Even the less net savvy people have trained themselves in order to ignore banner advertisements so valuable website real estate will be wasted. Instead, try to provide content and weave relevant affiliate links which are valuable into your content, and let your visitors feel that they would like to buy instead of being forced to buy.

3) Have a navigation which is simple

Your navigation menu must be simple and very straightforward so that even a young child will know how to make use of it. Steer clear from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't have knowledge on how to navigate, they will click away from your site.

4) Indicate where the user is more clearly

When visitors are deeply absorbed in browsing your site, you will want to ensure that they know which part of the site they are presently in. Therefore, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site more easily. Try not to confuse your visitors as confusion implies "abandon ship"!

5) Try to avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor stays on your site for a long time, whilst reading your content, you will want to make sure that they aren’t annoyed by some audio looping on and on your website. If you insist on adding audio, try to make sure that they have some control over it -- volume or muting controls work really well.

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