Author: Preetam Kaushik

A website depends on two things: content and its representation. While most of the websites on a particular topic have very similar things to say, the only thing that brings in a difference in their popularity is the representation of the website. Here we provide you with certain guidelines on website designing, in case you are about to launch a website of your own to ensure that your website sets itself apart from all other options that are available to the user.

The first thing that you must keep in mind to begin with is that the website must be user friendly. Always adhere to keep the requirement and convenience of the user as your top priority. In order to do this, here are a few things that must be checked before you officially open your website for usage.

STEP 1: Balance your Website

By a balanced website we mean using texts, images forms and white spaces in an appropriate manner, such that none of these occupies too much space on the web page. This will help the user to comprehend your site better and pull out whatever information they have been seeking easily. Although websites are supposed to provide information but providing too much information just at one place is not a very bright idea when it comes to it. If there is too much to read at one go, the reader might give up the website and search somewhere else.

Another trick that helps in this case is to provide subtitles in the text. You have only a few seconds to catch the user’s attention and make them stay at your page. In case the reader does not directly see what they have been looking for they simply click the back button. To avoid this from happening always highlight the content of your website using short and appealing subtitles.

Another thing that you must do to balance your website is to break it into pages. Like we said earlier too much information on one page can be over whelming for the user. Captivate the user’s attention by telling him short details about your content and direct him to another page for more details. This makes your website look organized and also is beneficial for the user.

STEP 2: Manage the Content on your Site

The key to good web writing is to be appealing and captivating your target audience, information can be compromised but you must never be negligent about the way it is communicated.

As soon as the user starts reading make sure that they get to know the main idea behind the text within the first few lines. In case that doesn’t happen the user will quickly abandon reading and head anywhere else. Also the reader must have resting points while they are reading. Use a lot of subheading and highlights in bold to convey the main information.

Also, remember that a reader does not read the full content of a web page. They only skim through the page and look for any relevant information that they need. So you must at all cost avoiding long sentences and paragraphs that go on. Make it short and pithy instead.

Another crucial thing is to remember who your target audience is. This shall help a lot as then you can write directly address that section of users. Make sure the content on your site satisfies all the expectations of the users.

STEP 3: Check the Appearance of your Website

It is not just the content that brings success to your website. When it comes to World Wide Web the package matters as much as the matter inside. Thus, what you must equally give importance to when designing a website is its appearance. Here are few common things that should be on top of your head when while web designing:

• Choose the colour of the text and the background meticulously. Colours that are unpleasant to the eye might make a user abandon the website even before reading anything. Also ensure that the colour that you are using is compatible with different web browsers. In case this is not so your page might look completely reverse from the way you had meant to design it.

• The graphics are also important for your website to look good. Be careful while using them. You must not over do graphics which might make your website look overwhelming. Same goes for animations. Also though the graphic designer might have designed the web page in a different manner, all the colours and fonts specified by him, might not be available to all the users’ browsers. To tackle this situation be flexible with the appearance and do provide alternatives along with the fonts and colours

• The font that you use in the website must be a common one so that it opens up in every web browser. Also apart from being appealing it must also be legible and suiting the tone of your website. For example, if your website targets a sophisticated audience avoid using a font like Comic sans.

• Above all these things one thing that you must pay special attention to is consistency. There must be uniformity in different web pages in your website, so that it does not take the user any time to understand the link between the two. It might also be possible that the user lands up on some webpage of yours other that the homepage. There must enough information to help the user know where he is and guide him properly. Remember the Web is non linear and you have to serve the user keeping that in mind.

STEP 4: Allocation of Size of the webpage

Another thing that concerns the user is the time that the website takes to open. In case it takes longer than 30 seconds the user gives it up and moves to some other website. To avoid that from happening to you always keep the size of your home page small so that it loads quickly. The home page must also be concise and provide a synopsis of all the information that your website promises to deliver.

The other links that your homepage leads to can be a bit longer as by this time the user knows what exactly they are looking at. It is advisable that you provide the computer with the page layout beforehand so that the processing can speed up.

Images usually are the main reason behind slowing down the loading of a page. Try not to use big size images in every page of your website. Restrict them only to the home page unless really necessary. Also, find the middle ground between image size and quality when it comes to JPEG images. You can even use several tools available to compress the size of the image.

STEP 5: Knowing the Basics

When you are designing a webpage you might find a number of tools available to you that are ready to make your task easier. But the main tool that you cannot survive without in the web designing world is HTML. It is the basic tool for designing web pages and you must be proficient with it if you intend to design an effective webpage.

HTML can help you make your site attractive by adding interesting stuff on t without much hassle. You must learn the commands and the coding of HTML to add texts, images, forms, colours, graphics etc. There are several HTML tutorial e-books available on the web. Understanding HTML will help you design a web page that is more interactive and attractive to your users.

STEP 6: Giving your Website a Final Touch

Before launching your website there are certain things that you must check. Ensure that the content that you are uploading is up to date and serves the kind of users you want to target. It is also important that you spell check and proof read your content. Low quality content leaves a bad impression on the user. Also, check and fix the broken lines, if any, in the content. If possible access you website through different web browsers and see if your website is working properly in all of these and not showing any anomalous behaviour.

STEP 7: The W3C Validation

Once you have finished the work on your website, you can check your website through the W3C validation service to see if your HTML code complies with the HTML standards or not. It helps you locate any errors in your HTML coding which might lead to improper functioning of your web page. This test enables you to be convinced about the quality of your web page. To use this service you can easily log in on web and look for websites that provide this service.

All these steps will definitely help you build a better webpage. Remember the key is to keep in mind your target users and keep yourself in their place and then study their requirements. Creating a webpage is not just business but also a great deal of fun as it covers a lot of artistic areas. More interactive your webpage is more popular it becomes. So, go ahead and create one, right now!

About the Author:
Preetam Kaushik is a Freelance Writer from India. He is a Contributing Writer at Suite101.com and a Feature Writer at BrightHub.com in its Web Development Channel. He is a regular contributer to Canadatop.com and serves as an Editor. "