Designing Your Website is the main step of building a site process meaning you have to create a site layout and publish it to the Internet. It can be considered as an art, which you will be making a website both user and search engine friendly.

You have to organize and manage the contents of your website by categorizing, dividing and labeling them. That way, your visitors can easily see, locate, find and read the information on your website and also search engines can simply find and crawl your web pages in order to index them.

Your website should be designed in a way that entices and encourages the visitors to do what you want them to do. That action can be a simple click, fast download, a signup or a sale. No matter what that action is, you want to convert your visitors to desired users such as members, subscribers or customers. A well-designed website has a high conversion rate meaning that a great percentage of the visitors are converted to desired users.

In order to design a good website, you need to consider the following points:

1. Divide Your Website Into Different Web Pages!

Dividing your website into a number of web pages is the first thing you should think about before designing your website. You would not want to put every thing on the main home page, right? That said, you should break your website into several sections, each is designed for a specific purpose.

There are 2 types of web pages you will consider:

General Web Pages: These are web pages like Home, Contact, About, Advertise, Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions and so on. These kinds of web pages are necessary for any type of website. Once created, you don´t need to update them all the time. A link to each and every of these web pages should be put on every single web page.

Specific Web Pages: These are web pages that are about a particular topic or sub-topic of your website. In other words, these pages are your fresh content, something that you will be adding more regularly.

2. Build a Layout As Your General Site Template!

You need to build a layout for your website that will be followed as a template. It is an important factor for being remembered by your visitors. It would be complicated if every single web page of your website looks different.

3. Create a Nice Header & Footer!

A nice header and footer would make your website look more professional. In your header, you would put your website logo and probably other elements. In the footer, you would add other components, as well. Like I said before, you need to have a site layout and it might always contain the header and footer.

4. Make a Beautiful Logo!

Your logo would reflect your website or brand name. Spend some time and create a good-looking and meaningful logo, including your site or brand name. As you may know, people always look at the logo and it can easily be remembered, if designed carefully. Your logo could be a simple image, a nice graphic or just letters such as your site name. Remember, your logo might fit your site layout. In other words, your logo and your site template could complete each other.

5. Build an Easy-To-Use Navigation Bar!

A navigation bar is another necessary component of your website. It is the section where your visitors look at in order to locate and find the various parts they need. A typical navigation bar should contain a list of your web page URLs, a search function, and other available categories of information in a particular content area. This bar should be placed in a right position meaning that everyone could see and locate it. Your website navigation bar might fit the general template, as well.

6. Add Your Content In the Right Place!

Your content is your website core element that attracts visitors and search engines. So, you should put it in the right place of your web page. It must be both user and search engine friendly. For instance, avoid putting your main content in frames. Texts, Graphics, Audios and Videos are different types of content that you will be adding to your web pages. Try to match them all with your general website template. In the next posts, I will be talking more about creating and adding content to your web pages.

7. Make Your Website More Functional!

It is an important factor especially when your visitors are going to use your website. It should work well. If you are offering a service, it would be functional. People don´t like getting error messages on your web pages. Always check your site functionality and solve possible issues. Moreover, try to build a site that uploads very fast. Your visitors don´t want to wait too much to see your website. It might be accessed simply and quickly. Avoid using annoying elements such as Pop-Ups or Pop-Unders. Trust me, your visitors would hate them.

Designing your website is not a simple process. It can only be improved through testing and tweaking. The above-mentioned points are just a few important elements you have to consider before designing your site. But, there are more facts, as well. Since you have got only a few seconds to make a good impressions on your visitors and keep them staying longer on your website, then your site design plays a really big role in this situation.

Whether you will be designing your site by yourself or hiring someone else to do it for you, you would not want to underestimate this step of your online business. Trust me, if you put more time and money on your project particularly on this part, it will pay off. An attractive website can always help your business stand out from the crowd.

In the next posts, I will get through this step in more detail. So, stay tuned and get the latest posts by subscribing to my blog RSS Feed!

To Your Success!

Hooshmand Moslemi