To help you remember the rules for effective website design, here are five basic rules.
1) Do not use splash pages
Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. Made up of pretty designs, they are usually lavish images and graphics with accompanying words such as welcome to our site or click here to enter. 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) Reduce the number of banners on your site
When banners are displayed on a web page, they are usually right at the top but can frequently be seen located elsewhere, including the foot of the page also. Blatant ads such as banners tend to be regarded as being less credible and it is a total waste of website space Web surfers tend to ignore such banner ads so adding them would only mean a waste of virtual real estate space. A better solution would be to add useful web contents and weave affiliate links artfully into them.
3) Stick with an easy navigational system
The best navigation would one that a young child can understand. It is good to leave out any fancy flash menus or even multi-tiered drop down menus, they only serve to make navigating the site harder. There are so many websites competing for attention, if your menus make it difficult for them, they will leave. It is good in any website design to include a sitemap to help them find what they are looking for.
4) Make it clear to the visitor where they are
When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. This way, they can head to the right information they are looking for. When each link that has been visited is marked in some way form the ones that are fresh, visitors can easily know which is fresh and which is fresh and which is not. Never confuse your visitors because you will lose them very quickly as they become frustrated.
5) Make it a point to avoid using audio.
To make your visitors stay longer, avoid the use of excessive music. Sound files should be used sparingly. If adding audios seems like a good idea to you, do make sure you provide some form of control such as muting or volume control so that your visitors can adapt to their surroundings. By using this information on website design you will find visitors to your site stay much longer and will return in the future.
