If you’ve gotten your feet wet with a bit of web design, and you think you can build your site, be it for e-commerce, personal, community, or specific content use, there are some ideas you have to remember if you aim to create a workable site that gives users an excellent experience.
It’s important to remember the following guidelines:
Action
Make sure that all click-through buttons work. Broken links are an annoyance for user experience, and it’s better to kill a button than let people click through to a broken or missing link page. However, if you wish to keep the link active, ensure that you develop a good landing page for buttons that are used less frequently. You can even use the landing page for other functions, such as surveys or ads.
Function before form
Any reputable NYC web design company will tell you that function is more important than form. Delivering an excellent user experience is more important to guests and determining the traffic on your site over time. Even if your website aesthetic looks a bit awkward at first, at least for the first iteration, you should have proof that it works. This is important mainly for e-commerce sites.
Keep it simple, seriously!
Let’s say you have a sidebar. You might be tempted to insert a search bar and then a little section about you, and then maybe an ad. You may also like to place your older blog posts or list your top products. And before you know it, your sidebar already has more functions in it than the landing page. This isn’t just cluttered for you – it’s cluttered for your potential users, too. If it looks cluttered, they won’t use all the functions anyway.
Determine the top three or four things you need in your sidebar and then install them appropriately. Don’t force extra elements but keep the other functions and widgets you want in mind. As you observe your site, you will soon find a way to integrate it into the next iteration and remove some of the older widgets from the sidebar.
Avoid keyword stuffing at all costs
SEO NYC agencies that consistently produce successful marketing campaigns are highly skilled in integrating keywords into a client’s website design. In essence, search engines will compare your content with recognized keywords and rank your website accordingly. In the past, there was a belief that an SEO agency would raise that page’s rank in search lists by using the same set of keywords repeatedly or using a large set of keywords within one text block. For a time, this was true, but since it’s been heavily abused, search engines have been updated to detect most tactics involving keyword stuffing.
Final thoughts
Do you have an innovative or ground-breaking idea that sprung to mind while designing your website? Before you execute it, finish your original design, and see if your new idea will work with it. Sometimes, even if it’s a great idea, it may not suit your existing plan. It’s best to be safe when it comes to web design optimization until you feel confident enough to start breaking the rules.