Here are 5 basic web development tips that may help you fine tune you website.
- KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid: Keep your visitor’s attention by not overcrowding the page. Do you have more stuff then you need to? Do you have too many boxes, colours, lines and any other “pretty” stuff without functionality that you don’t need? Too may navigation options? How about typefaces? Have you used more then 2 basic fonts? Simplify and strip out everything that is not needed.
- Think of every page on your website as an ad: Each page is an advertisement either for the information on the page, a function, info capture, or for information on another page. That is the purpose of a good web page. When your page works well, visitors will continue to engage with the web site.
- Design Is Important. Or Is It? Coming from a web designer this will come as a surprise. But tests have shown that sometimes very basic, ugly, cheap-looking designs can outperform slick professional design. Why? The main job of a web page is to facilitate communication and an attractive design done for the sole purpose of “looking cool” can get in the way. The design will either support the message you want to share by drawing attention to the message, or it will detract – by drawing attention to itself. You don’t want visitors to your website to stop and look AT your web design. You want them to interact with the information on it.
- Saying It Clearly: What can you do here? What is this page about? Why am I looking at this picture? Whatever it may be, just clearly say it! Make sure there are no surprises. If the link says “Contact Us”, make sure it goes there. It sounds obvious, but it happens very often, especially in navigation, that links are misleading. Don’t let visitors wonder where they are. Take them by hand and guide them through the website.
- Relevance Is The Key: In order for Google to rate your web page, it will look at the its relevance: how relevant is the information on the page, and how relevant it is as far as the rest of the world is concerned. The really important factor is what the rest of the world says the page is about. And this is based mainly on one thing – inbound links. But creating your own links is very time-consuming. And if you go chasing links from immaterial and low PageRank pages, you are wasting your time. That’s why the information on your web page has to be relevant to your site as well as interesting and impactful enough for visitors to come and link to it on their own.
