eNCarolina Article Knowledgebase

Do you want to create a website? Good for you! It's almost necessary these days if you want to get noticed, promote a business, or simply express yourself. Not all websites, however, are created alike. Good design can make a website stand out. So can bad design - but for all the wrong reasons! When creating a site, be sure to follow these design tips to give the best impression possible.

When you create a website, make sure that the design is readable. If you have a dark background your text should be light, and vice versa. Clashing colors may look snappy at first, but will soon strain the eyes. In the same vein, it's best to avoid text that is too small, because some visitors will have problems reading it. If you have doubts, get someone else to view your site and ask his or her opinion.

Just as important as a readable design is a layout that is easy to navigate. What is obvious to you may not be to the visitor who has never seen your site before and is completely unfamiliar with its content. Provide clear, unambiguous navigational guides. A site map can also help.

You would like to have multimedia items such as pictures, music, video and interactive elements in your website to make the site attractive. If this is the case it is advisable to keep them in separate pages; for example a photo gallery for pictures, page with audio or video clips etc. The purpose for which this is recommended is due to the fact that multimedia elements require faster internet connections and many people still use slower connections.

It wise when you decide to create a website that any multimedia files are set not to play automatically. There are many sites that, for example, replay the same music file every time a visitor clicks there. For many visitors, this becomes very annoying. It is better to let the visitor decide if and when they'd like to play the file.

There are many people/ hosts who would like to put their advertisements on your website. You may not always have complete control on this; however if you create a website having too much of intrusive advertising you will find that your visitors do not return to your site. One method solving this problem is to see whether you can choose the specific ads that can go on your site. Specifically targeted are not as harmful as randomly chosen ads. Another thing you could do is to check the type of ads such as text/ banner/ sidebar/ pop-up that can go in your site. Different visitors/ webmasters have different choices and you should do what you think is best.

Once you've followed all these tips and have a site that's readable, easy to navigate, view it in different browsers. Internet users use several different programs, and what works on the browser you use may break or look bad in another browser. It takes some extra time, but it's worth it to make sure that your website gives the best possible impression!