Design of Your Web Site

It is commonly accepted that you should put your logo on all pages, usually on the top left corner of each page. At the top of the page put a tagline or phrase that goes along with all your site title. For instance. Spritual India & Nepal “The Ultimate India Travel Guide”

When you have a site that uses flash you should also give the option for users to use a HTML version of the web site. Personally when an option is given of using a Flash or HTML site I always choose the HTML version. In general if you have an informative site that people will come back to it is not a good idea to use Flash, as the search engines often hate it and will not index it, it takes a long time to download, and moving objects on a website can be really distracting.

In general do not use pop-up windows as people really hate them and they will think you are trying to advertise to them in a pushy matter.

Best to not describe everything all in one page, but put links to other information and if thing are discussed that can be done in more detail add a link to another page, where you make a detailed description of the subject. Too much detail on one page can confuse the search engine.

Try to make web pages that look good, easy to navigate and that help the user get to the result you want them to receive with the minimal amount of though process.

Using a cascading style sheet is good, because there is one external file that is linked to from every page to produce the same style on every page. It also makes the pages smaller by reducing the amount of code on each page, therefore the pages load faster.

It is usually best to use graphic only when you really need them and many professional site don’t use any graphic at all. They should not just be used to decorate the site but should have a purpose. All graphics should be optimized so they load faster.

Color is used to clearly separate section of a web page and to give emphasize to important subjects.

You should use web space to separate section of your pages to make them more readable.

A well designed site you use screen friendly fonts such as Verdana and fonts should be big enough to read.

You can use color in navigation menu. You can use a bright color button to emphasis a button that you want viewers to click. If you have too much color on a page you can not use color to emphasis things, as it will just be mixed in with the rest of the colorful page.

A lot of people hate the numeric page counters on pages, but personally I like them on page even though I haven’t put any on my pages, because then I can see how popular the pages are.

Test your web site on various web browsers and computers as you may be amazed as they can look. Also check the site on versious resolutions.

Page That Usually Should Be On a Site
Typical pages that people expect to find on a site are:

About Us
Contact Us
Products/Services
FAQ (how to use your site or products)
Shipping, Payment and where you deliver too.
Privacy Page

An About Us page that explains who you and your business are. Put a copyright statement at the bottom of every page.

Navigation and Search Facilities
Every page should have good navigation links. The navigations links should be together, usually at the top or left side of the page and a text navigations links at the bottom of the page so users don’t have to go back to the top of the page to reach the navigation links.

If you have a navigation bar on the left side of your page, the search engine with index it first so it is a good idea to have your important keywords on the left side and not just in the main body texts..

If your site is large it is usually a good idea to give facilities for searches on your site.. A good place to put a search box is on the top right hand corner of the page. The search box should be set to search you site and not the web. It is a good idea to have a default page if no results come up for a search, as would result if the viewer misspells a word in the search. A good option for this default page is a the Site Map page, which has links to the main sections and pages of your website.

Freefind (http://www.freefind.com) is a good free and useful search engine that you can put on your site. Another option is to use Google search options, which can be set to either search you web site on the Internet.

Layout of Website
Leave a space at the top of the page to put your most important or newer content. It is best to put your best content at the top of the page.

Set up your pages in tables (usually frames should be avoid).

It is usually best to set the width of the tables by percentages and don’t use a fixed number of pixels. In this way your web page will fit the screen that it is on and user do not have to scroll horizontally. You may want to set the width of a table using a fixed number of pixels if you want to keep a design uniformed when using images.

It is considered to be best that your pages be optimized to view at 800 X 600, as this is the most popular resolution that people use at the present time.

Fonts
You should not use too many fonts on the same page. Most experts say you should not use more than three fonts on a page.

Verdana is known to be the most web-friendly text as it is wide and can be read clearly, making it easier to read. It is best to avoid using small serif fonts (such as Times Romes or Times), as small serif fonts can be very difficult to read on a computer screen.

Use a high contrast on the main body of text. Black text on white background works best and second is white text on a black background. Be careful of using a a dark colorful background with light text, as it can be difficult to read. Also you have to change the link color defaults and the colors that link change when they are clicked.

Try not to have long blocks of text, as this can really make it hard to read the text and reader usually hate it. Put something to break up the page, such as subtitles, bold keywords, links to other places, bullets, or simple graphics.

It is commonly accepted that when writing a sale letter that paragraphs should not be more than four or five lines long. In this way if people are reading your site to find out the content, they will often read a few lines of a paragraph and if they do not find it interesting they skip to the next paragraph to read more. If your paragraphs are short then they may read through your entire article before they know it.

Don’t use too many exclamation points, All Caps, centerized main body text block (titles can be centerized) , too much animated graphics or backgrounds with pictures on it that make it almost impossible to read the text.

How to Help Search Engines to Search Your Site Properly

Search engine like text but for the most part images and pictures do not interest them. Of the text used they usually like HTML the best.

If is a good idea to make your navigation bar text, because if you use graphic button for navigation the search engines will not be able to follow the link and therefore may not index the lower pages properly because they cannot read the link.

It is a good idea to make a Site Map that contains all the pages of you site that is directly linked to from your homepage. In this way search engine can use it to find all the pages on your site and therefore index your pages properly.

Best to stay away from frame, as search engines often only see one section of a framed page. They may only see the navigation system of the site and no contents or body text, or they may only see the main body text of the main pages and not see the navigation section and therefore will not follow links to other pages.

Try looking at the source code of a page made using frames and you may only see the navigation section of the site and not see any contents listed.

Search engines also have trouble with Flash and Javascript. It is usually best to keep things simple and reduce as much as possible the use of Flash, Javascript and images.

Web site designers often love Flash and will suggest you have a Flash graphic when you site first loads. Except in rare cases this is a really bad mistake (I made it with my first website). Search engine can be stopped short by JavaScript or Flash and not index any further. You can see why it can be the worst mistake possible to put a Flash page as your introduction page. If you use Flash on your site you should have an HTML version of your site, which user will often prefer and also it is searchable by the search engines.

If you use JavaScript for navigations menus, you should put an HTML version of your navigation at the bottom of the page so search engine can find other pages.

 

Copyright ©2001 John Howley and Spiritual Guides