Simple Webpage Designs
articles » online marketing tutorial
As Leonardo da Vinci states, "simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication." The simplest things in nature are the most appealing. When things become complicated and confusing people tend to find them less appealing. Simple webpage designs present the highest quality of sophistication available on the Internet.
No longer do people want those heavy Flash presentations, lots of graphics or pages filled with tons of links. In the past month, June 2004, the evolution of web design has turned to simple webpage designs. Just take a look at Amazon.com and search.msn.com; both are major companies that no offer cleaner, simpler designs to meet their customers' needs.
When designing your web site you want to ensure you follow these rules. Many companies have ignored these rules, but they are working on improving customer interaction and web site usability. Using these simple rules can help your web site perform better in the search engines and appeal more to your customers.
- Use Current Standards
- Building a web page is like building a floor for a high-rise building there are codes that should be followed. Failing to follow those codes could cause your web page to perform poorly for your visitors and even in the search engines.
- Validate Your Codes
- Validating your codes ensures your web pages will work better in the search engines and in the various browsers people use to surf the Internet.
- Avoid using JavaScript, Java and Flash
- Unfortunately not all search engines can navigate through JavaScript, Java or Flash. While Google can index Flash files, Google still can't navigate through them. And even worse, not all visitors can use JavaScript, Java or Flash. Your ecommerce site should never require supporting those elements.
- Site Navigation
- Being able to navigate a site is extremely important to the search engines and to your visitors. If people can't find your information and products they won't buy. If search engines can't navigate your site they won't index the site very well.
- Site Directory Structure
- Using keywords in your directory and filenames has been noted to assist in search engine optimization.
- Provide Useful Content
- Content is king and shall always be king. Site counters, vanity statements such as "best viewed in" and awards are all considered useless information and your customers could care less about that stuff.
- Keep the Clutter Out
- Many people have noted that Google.com is the most popular search engine. Some believe it is the results provided. I challenge that belief with this simple statement, "Yahoo.com used Google's results for years. However, Google was still more popular than Yahoo because of the clutter a searcher had to deal with on Yahoo." Simple designs speed site performance and make for happier customers.
- Speed IS Everything
- You have less than 6 seconds to impress a visitor. That's six seconds on a dial-up connection, not a cable or DSL connection. If your site is over-burdened with a lot of fancy graphics that have no purpose other than being fancy you're wasting your precious time.
Improve the performance of your site by employing the elements of simple webpage designs. Remember people visit web sites to learn about a company's services and products. Your visitors want information about your products and services, not a bunch of fancy graphics.
