Great website design ideas

A good aesthetic appeal can never make up for a lack in performance where your website design is concerned. Most amateurs and professional webmasters belief that the more visual and audio aids they use on their website, which means slower loading time, the better it is for the visitor, when it isnt so.

Let sneak a view into the elements that makes up a good website design.

1) Do not use splash pages; The splash pages are the fancy pages you see when you enter a website. These pages use elaborate designs created with the purpose to entertain the visitor with fancy animations, brilliant photos and include welcoming words such as hello welcome or click here to enter our website. They are merely fancy additions without any real functions at all. The most important thing is not to allow any room for users to think about leaving your site, and this is almost impossible if you are using fancy splash pages with slow loading times.

2) Overuse of banner advertisements is a big mistake; The most common place for these large advertising banners to be placed is close to the page header but the bottom of the page is also quite popular too. Banner ad tends to be ignored by most web surfers so it is a total majority of the web surfers so they would a total waste of your website space. There is a better way to add contents instead of using banner is by giving them useful information and then add their affiliate links so that they would seem natural.

3) Have a simple and clear navigation; Navigation should be made very simple so that even a young child can understand. Leave out any form of complicated menu that is flash based or the use of multi-tiered menu: they only add to complicate the layout. Any form of complicated navigation will cause them to leave your site for good. The creation of a site map that will help visitors find what they need should be one of the first things you consider as part of your website design.

4) There should be a clear indicator showing where the user is currently on the website; When you have successfully captured their attention and enjoying the whole experience perusing your website, you will want to make them know where they are at the moment without feeling lost. This way, they can easily navigate the exact section they want. Make sure that every page has its own title and that some form of breadcrumb trail is used to track the visitors step throughout the entire website. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means they will leave!

5) Do not use audio; Your favorite tune may be repulsive to some visitors, so use music sparingly. A sound file should not be played continuously it can be irritating on the user. When adding audio to your website, make sure to include some form of user control that allows them to mute or lower the sound as required. If you wish for the visitors to return to your site, learn to apply all these website design rules and you can reap the benefits of long term traffic.