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5 Site Design No Nos - What To Avoid When Creating A Website

By: Keith R Lunt

1 - Use ample of colours
Using loads of colours is a sure way to get carried away and take the classy look from the website. Too much is just that. You only need a handful of colours that compliment each other. Yes, applying 30 different colours on alternative blinking backgrounds may make the links stand out, but at what price?

Also, be very aware of the colour palette you settle on. I was recently asked to use a theme on a site, with part of it red wording on green and the rest green wording on red. An attention-grabbing combination, particularly as the site was for an opticians, who may well be dealing with red-green colourblind customers…

2 - Hide the navigation
Unbelievably, a lot of people design sites and miss basics of the navigation from the screen. I’ve had graphic designers pass me final proofs to work from, that the customer has signed off, that immediately I look at and spot an important part of the navigation is omitted.

It does sound impossible, but on shopping sites I have seen designs that are missing simple bit as for instance a link to the shopping basket or checkout. If a customer adds a product and then goes back to view more, but then wants to checkout, they easily cannot buy from you.

3 - Design for paper
Not having a dig at graphic designers (as some work very well on sites), but there are also lots that do not get their head about the fact that a piece of paper is totally different to a website. Several times I have been passed layouts that succeed on a widescreen, but would involve horizontal and vertical scrolling on a normal sized screen. Or the layout calls for a variable screen width, but all of the components are fixed width.

You have to allow for the fact that there are a myriad of browsers, operating systems and screens in use and they will all show your site in a different way.

4 - Only test your site in one browser
Different browsers will display your website in different ways. The formatting between, for instance, Internet Explorer and Firefox can be slightly different when using certain techniques. A website that works in one browser does not always look its best in another. It is a difficult and frustrating process, but you have to check your web site in different browsers, different operating systems and different screen sizes.

5 - build a web site and sit back
I am always surprised at the number of people that think that building a site is the lifeline their business needs. Pay a few hundred for a web site and then they will be run off their feet fulfilling orders.

This is not the case. Merely because you pay for a website, this does not mean that it will be an overnight runaway success. With every new site you need to market it. That means promoting it to customers and local marketing, promoting it through social media and article writing, pay per click schemes, optimisation and a whole lot more.

Without marketing, your website is as good as non existant.

Article Source: http://www.gambling-articles.org

Written by Keith Lunt, who gives a website design Merseyside service. If you would like to know more about website design, call into our marketing blog and watch out for our new free Ebook, coming soon!

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