There are many things to be considered when creating a website and it also depends on what the purpose of the website is, and what do you want to achieve. Although there are some solid rules that apply no matter the purpose of the site.

Below we’ll dip into

  • How to choose a domain name
  • Understanding your market niche
  • User friendly layouts
  • Cross browser testing
  • User testing

Choosing the appropriate domain/URL.

The first step of creating a website is choosing a domain name/URL. Sometimes the best advice is - keep it simple. If possible, it’s great to include the nature of your work with the web domain. For example, if your website is selling books, you should have the word book within the domain instead of some fancy words that sound cool but have nothing to do with your business.

Researching your target niche.

You can create the website the way you wanted, however, this does not guarantee your potential customer will like it. It’s important to thoroughly understand your market niche and design accordingly with your potential visitors in mind. If for example you are marketing luxury dog food, the text copy and the images you utilise will be totally different from those you would use to market a luxury car. Research shows that visitors spend no more than 5 seconds making a decision to either look further through your site, or bail out to one of your competitors. And this all depends on if the website is ”catchy” enough.

Designing a user friendly lay out.

The lay out in your website should be as easy to use/understand as possible.  If you do feel daunted, don’t hesitate to ask about our bournemouth web design services Planning ahead is the key, only put down the links/buttons/header that you think is absolutely essential. Envisage your page as you would like it to be in your minds eye - then get cracking with the pen or pencil and paper. Also, think about your customers: will they like it? How you like it doesn’t really matter. Is it easy enough to use or to find the information? Accordingly, you’ll save wasted effort re-jigging the design every time you have a ‘oh, this might be nice’ idea.

Making sure the website functions properly in all the browsers.

Browser Compatibility is vital. Without this, your customers can’t find you or even when they find you, they can’t view your website properly which means all the effort you put towards to it will be wasted. The two browsers you really need to pay heed to currently are Internet Explorer and Firefox. You need to make sure your website can be found and work properly on both. It is not uncommon for a website that works on one but not the other. You don’t want a screwed up page popping up on your visitors’ screens, and if graphics are missing or worse due to browser incompatibility that could be the least of your worries.

Testing on Users.

To make sure your website functions properly, once the site is set up ready to go, ask your friends use different web browsers and search for it and see whether it’s easy and straight forward to find, if there is a problem, you can fix it right away rather than wait until the website comes to live because for some fussy customers, you only get one chance, they will not come back visit again if they had negative experience with the site.

There are still many things you need to consider when designing a website, without a doubt above are just few of them. If you follow these tips, you’re on your way to creating a solid, professional website. Enjoy the ride!

Need help with your business website design? Call us today, we’re happy to help you with your questions.

Lloyd Roberts