Web Site Design Tips for Beginners

Web designing is all about creating a website that looks good, has excellent content and is easy to navigate. To create a good web site design, you need to understand the major elements that go into an engaging website. If you are planning to design a website for the first time, here are a few tips you can consider.

Use a Design Template

The first thing to remember when you design a website is the consistency of design. You can design any kind of template for your website, but to avoid confusing the users, make sure that all your pages have the same design. In addition to design consistency, maintain consistency in the fonts, font size and the colors. Remember that the only thing that can be changed often, depending on the need, is your web’s content and not the design.

If you don’t want to create your own template, you can also use a few ready-made templates that are available from various web sites like Template Monster, Free Website Templates, and WebsiteTemplates.com.

Use CSS for Formatting and Style

CSS or the cascading style sheets tell you how to format the different elements of your webpage. Using CSS makes it easy to create a text layout, format and align it, style your images and much more.

Use a Content Management System

An alternative to avoid learning all the HTML codes and the CSS codes for designing your website is to use a content management system or a CMS. A content management system allows you to structure your web site design, update and manage it without the hassle of learning a programming language.

Using the Right Colors

Using colors can be a great way of making your website attractive. You can use color in the background, the text and other graphics on your website. But ensure that you use the right combination of colors for background and the text to make your webpages easily readable by the users. Avoid using loud colors and stick to pleasant ones, that are easy and light on the eye.

Choosing the Right Font

Although you cannot maintain consistency in the font color, style and size throughout the website, try to use variations in moderation. Unless you want to highlight a point, avoid using different text styles, using larger fonts or different colored text in between the content of your webpage. Use the default font size and style for paragraphs, use bold text for headings and sub-headings and avoid using decorative fonts too much.

Navigation and Functionality

Your web site design must enable the users to navigate through the site without any confusion. If you want the users to stay on your website, to know what you are trying to sell or share, the user must be able to move to any page of your website without difficulty.

In addition to keeping these basic tips of web site design in mind, also consider a few web designing mistakes that you should avoid. Complex functionalities, using splash pages, use of blinking text, music on the site (that can’t be turned off), irrelevant images and exit messages should all be avoided.

Patrick Le May is an internet marketing expert, who writes articles on search engine optimization company tactics, email marketing services and website development