To begin, let’s discuss the structure of your web page design. The fundamental principles to designing a traditional static web page are quite simple:
- you have a header,
- a footer,
- a content area, and
- navigation.
To make your life easier let us suggest that you put the content in the middle. The navigation either goes down the left side or across at either the top or bottom. If you get a really complex site, your navigation could be in both places. If you choose to put it across, we usually recommend that you put it at the top under your header.
The header is where you put your logo. Sometimes your phone number is good here as well.
The footer has your copyright notice and links to other places if you desire. For instance, you can put in a link to us, we’d really like that.
While content continues to be king, the queen (graphics) has a lot to say. Many people can read the words but don’t get the picture. Some can see the picture but not understand its meaning.
By combining these elements, you stand the best chance of having your message delivered the way you intended. For the best results, you should use graphics that are germane to your topic.
As far as how much material to put on a page, that is entirely up to you. We recommend that each page be dedicated to one topic, product, or service. So, if you have 5 primary services, you would have 5 services pages. If you have more than 5 services/products within a topic/subject, you will probably need a menu page just for them.
The “Privacy Policy” page serves two purposes:
- It gives the visitor a sense that you are concerned and will look out for them as best you can.
- The search engines give you bennies if you have one, which only means that you might get your pages ranked higher than someone that does not have a privacy page.
A Site Map is like a picture of your site, however, usually done as a straight text linking tool. This also serves two purposes:
- If you are using graphics for your navigation, this page provides text links (which is what the search engines follow)
- Your visitors might get lost in your system and this is their way to find out where they are and where they might really want to go.
If the depth of your site gets complex, the site map will be critical to providing clarity for your visitors.
There is another sitemap that you might consider adding to your site called sitemap.xml. It is used entirely by the search engines to spider your site. You can get your own sitemap file from a free source called http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. This tool will map your site and all you need to do is store it in your root directory on your web hosting server Use this tool after you have launched your site with most of the content that you expect to use.
Having your structure design in mind will help you decide on your look and feel. This is the graphics part of your page design. Since the ‘look and feel’ is such an emotional issue, we are not attempting to go into much detail in this document, however, with that said, let’s look at some basic things to keep in mind:
- Keep the look and feel consistent with your existing business plan.
- If this is a startup, keep the design extremely simple. Most of the time black or dark on white or light colored pages is best. White on black works good if you have a lot of photos on your site.
- Always keep your target audience in mind. If they are young and your topic is say loud music, a busier site makes sense.
- Research the available tools to determine which will work best for you. If you need more graphics then look at those tools; words, then editors; a mixture, perhaps a more generic tool will suffice.
Above all else (including the almighty search engines), remember: Your visitors are the most important persons in your entire life at the moment that they choose to visit your site. Treat them well and you will get your just reward.
The author, Bruce Tuggle, is the manager of houston-websites.com. He has been building websites since 1992. Before Al Gore invented the web.
