Google has a clean website design which is unrivaled in it's simplicity. Other sites go for a complicated layout to create an air of excitement.
No matter which type of feeling you're going for, you need to know the basics of web design to create a site which works. Read this article in its entirety to find tips to help you achieve your goals.
Make sure your website content is both interesting and compelling. While the look of the design is important, the content is what keeps visitors returning to your site. When your content provides useful and valuable information that addresses the needs of your site visitors, those visitors are more likely to come back to your site in the future.
One thing that all web designers should keep in mind is the importance of a logo. The logo is what you want your target audience to remember, so it needs to be something that is catchy and recognizable, in order to serve its highest effectiveness. This will allow people to remember your brand.
Make sure your webpages aren't too long. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and if your most important content is "below the fold," it may not even be read. If you have a lot of related content that needs to stay together, consider breaking it up into sections and adding links to each section.
Make sure to test early and to test quite often. It's very important that you carry out your site's user interaction and usability tests as early as you can in the design phase of your website. Make sure to keep improving and testing it as your website continues to grow.
Make sure everything is easy to locate on your website. Spend some serious thought on how everything on your site will be laid out. When content is randomly thrown on your site with little thought to the layout, you are making things harder for the people whose use of your site ensures your online success - your site visitors.
If you're designing a website, make sure the code you write has a valid HTML+CSS. Although most browsers can make sense of code that isn't valid, it could be rendered correctly or incorrectly. Valid code will render the same way most of the time in modern browsers. You can check the validity of your HTML code with an HTML validator.
When hiring someone to help with your web design needs you should agree to a payment that is broken into three to four payments rather than half of the payment upfront. This will allow you to be sure that you are going to be happy with the web design that you are given and that it will be fixed if you are not satisfied.
Whether you're going for a site with a minimal look or something which is jazzy and bright, the information you've read here will lead you down the right path.
Get busy putting these tips into practice and get your website up as soon as possible, then build your traffic and enjoy your results!