5 Important Rules in Website Design


When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1) Do not use splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like "welcome" or "click here to enter". In fact, they are just that -- pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the "back" button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements

Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valueable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

3) Have a simple and clear navigation

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

4) Have a clear indication of where the user is

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. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don't confuse your visitors because confusion means "abandon ship"!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they're not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it -- volume or muting controls would work fine.

I agree with all of those. I like the music one, that is really annoying.

I know..

I hate the ear spam.. lol

Thats a good one.

Splash pages for some websites serve a purpose. Such as some adult sites. They serve as a road block to the main forum. Keeps little Johnny and Suzy from stumbling on Harry and Sally doing the horizontal boogy right off the bat. You use it to challenge the visitor before they see the content. Yeah I'm 18 let me in or no I'm not 18 so I'll be going now. The domain url points to the splash page and not directly in to the subject matter. Now that's a useful purpose for it. Staying in compliance with local laws in that case.
But for a business or hobbyist webmaster imposing that on members or lurkers is just going too far. Unless the content is confidential or questionable, I agree with not using them.
I use a content management system as a front page but if you set your browser to go to the main index that's where you go. The CMPS is just eye candy.

Thats true, plus sometimes they look pretty cool.

Good tips, especially with the audio one!

I have actually heard that if your navigation is at the top you will get more visitors checking out your pages because this is the prime place to have your navigation. IF your navigation is at the left or right side of your page it will usually confuse the visitors for some reason...

ya i hate the audio as well...

some of the ambient sounds arent too bad...

I just really hate when they think that everyone else likes 50cent...