Website Design Guidelines

Thispage is dedicated to giving you tips about website design.  Nowyou are wondering why a company such as ours is giving you tips so youcan do your site yourself.  Well the reason is simple, noteveryone wants to get a website through us, some people want to trytheir own hand, others do not have the money to pay for a site and somewill go elsewhere for their sites, but nonetheless we would like tohelp.  Below are some simple guidelines to follow that can helpyour site be as effective as possible.

Domain Name

Manypeople have interesting domain names, but few actually realise thepoint of one.  Domains need to be short and they need to be clear.

Using this site as an example “Elements” is our name and we do “Design”.  For this very reason, we own the domains; www.elements.net.nz and www.elementsdesign.net.nz both of these are simple and concise. An example of a bad domain would be www.nzwebdesignforyou.net.nzor something close to that. It may sound stupid but many people dothese things! Remember; keep it small, you want people to remember it.

Content: Keep It Simple Stupid

Nobodywants to read rubbish. Plain and simple.  People want theinformation they are after and they want it quickly.  This meansdo not have pages and pages of information on one topic.  Get tothe point, explain what the customer needs to know and move on.

Here are four simple ways to achieve this:

Web Standards

Simplyput these are a set of rules that ensure that websites are all builtthe same way.  Much like how we have set ways of building houses.This ensures a high standard professional work (most the time). Webstandards work the same way. They are a set of guidelines that helpmake your page more accessible.

By following theseguidelines, everyone who visits your page should be able to view themeasily.  A good place to start understanding these is www.w3schools.com – read up on XHTML and CSS. From the 01/01/2006, all our sites produced after this date will adhere to these standards.

Design

Havinga appealing site is important, but the content is far more valuable toyour customer in any situation.  If possible keep the site simpleand let the content do the talking. 

However, if you know the site you’re creatingwill not have any major content to attract the customer try and keepthe site as good looking as possible. 

If the food you a serving tastes bad, at least make the presentation good.