DIY Web Design

DIY Web Design (Do it yourself) is simple as long as you keep a few things in mind. Remember we are building a business and your web site is where your business is located. It is your central hub, your headquarters.

Your design technique/design principles are extremely important. It is ok to be a newbie at DIY web design but we must maintain certain standards ensuring that our site achieves maximum exposure in terms of the number of visitors and overall reach. Here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your web site.

Tip #1 - DIY Web Design

Make sure that your website has a well planned navigation system. Your menu's navigation should be focused and concise. Your visitors should have clear, direct and uncluttered menu options when it comes to navigating your web site.

Some schools of thought focus on creating menus containing your keywords. This can work; however, your primary focus should be on creating a pleasant experience for your visitors. For example, if you believe that most people expect to see a “home” page tab in the menu, don’t change it to something else for the benefits of the search engines.

Concentrate on your visitors. If you visitors are happy then the search engines will also be happy sending traffic to your site. So, a menu that is clear, concise and avoids confusion is your goal.

Tip #2 - DIY Web Design

Where ever possible, reduce the size and number of images on a page/website. Images are very appealing yes but they slow down your site. Why is this an issue? For one, Google has expressed a definite interest in the performance measures related to websites.

Page speed happens to be one of them. You can’t have your site loading too slowly so you want to minimize the images. Now if you find that you really need a lot of images, make sure that you are minimizing the file sizes. This will help you pages load a bit faster.

Tip #3 - DIY Web Design

Remember to keep your paragraphs short and sweet. We have all searched the internet at one time or another for info. Generally the quicker we find it the faster we can move on to the next step.

Large blocks of text sometimes inhibit your visitors from fully engaging your content. When your paragraph is too long just split it up. Short and sweet is better because allows your visitors to scan for important information.

Tip #4 - DIY Web Design

Take some time to familiarize yourself with web standards at www.w3.org. In addition, check for your web site’s cross-browser compatibility. This is the one thing that a lot of people often forget. It is very important though. You don’t want a website that looks great on Firefox and horrible on the Internet Explorer or Opera. Verifying this will help you avoid losing visitors unnecessarily.

Tip #5 - DIY Web Design

Avoid scripting languages when possible. Scripting languages should be reserved for visual effects or manipulating data. This is key, scripting languages have been known to slow your page loading times. Also, keep in mind that some scripts my not function the same in every browser.

Tip #6 - DIY Web Design

CSS is great! Use it where ever possible to style your page and the content. CSS saves time by styling all of your pages content in one shot.

Conclusion:

The one thing that we should always remember; web sites should be designed with your targeted visitors in mind. It is important to focus on SEO also but get it right for your visitors first.

On another note, choose your web site’s colors carefully. Those that design web sites professionally embrace the psychology of color. Don’t be afraid to also use white space. When first designing your site you will have to make an educated guess in terms of what will be pleasing to your targeted visitors.

Once your site is up and running you can use any number of analytical tools to track and focus on the pages that visitors prefer. Data collected can help you to determine the content and marketing strategies which require modifications.