Back to Basics: 13 Infallible Tips to Design Your Website

Some say creating a website is an art and may be complicated to master while others feel that it’s just child’s play.

There are certain degrees of creating a web design that may include psychological, testing, creativity and other factors that determine a good web design.

Today, I am not talking about the philosophy of web design instead I’m touching on the front end of it, more in layman’s terms, so to speak.

These short and simple tips can help any amateur who is not a web designer to improve their results when they want to design a website.

13 Quick Tips For Your Web Design

Often we are guilty of neglecting the basics and principles when it comes to web design. Though these tips that I am going to share may not be the most advanced, they have proven to be useful when it comes to web design.

1. Add A Custom 404 Page

Creating a custom 404 web page with navigation options and instructions/directions is a good way to guide your visitor around when they have mistyped or miss-spelt a URL on your site.

Image credit: Justin Poliachik

A creative or twist of humor-style 404 page will also make your visitor smile and make your site standout.

2. Redirect Your URLs

Online visitors will often leave out the "www." portion when they type a URL or link to your website. It’s the laziness or forgetfulness of human nature. Set the website up so that it automatically redirects any non-www version of your domain URLs to the www version of your website.

3. Include RSS Auto-Discovery

If you offer an RSS feed for any content on your website, be sure to include auto-discovery code in the header of your website. This will allow many browsers and RSS readers to automatically detect the presence of an RSS feed and alert the visitor that it is available.

4. Build a Consistent Navigation

Navigation should remain consistent on a website. When a visitor browses the website, the navigation bar should stay in the same place on each page, making it convenient for the visitor to maneuver around.

The navigation bar should also be clearly visible and there should not be any duplicate navigation bars to confuse your visitors.

5. Include a Favicon

Create a Favicon icon (favorite icon) and add it to your website, so that your company or product logo appears in the URL box. This icon will also show up in a bookmark list, and gives the website a distinctive look.

6. Name Your Files Meaningfully

Use meaningful file names for any files, graphics, or web pages. Many search engines look at file names as part of their search algorithm, and using keywords in file names may help to improve search engine rankings.

7. Optimize Your Graphics

Size and define all graphics and images on your web pages properly and correctly. Remember to save your images in optimized format. Properly sized and defined images can reduce the web browser workload and speed up the page loading time.

Image source: Pete Orelup

A fast loading website will enable you to rank better in search engines too.

8. Fill in your Alt Tags

Use ALT tags to describe what images represent on web pages. ALT tags not only assist visually impaired visitors in knowing what the images are, but they also help with search engine ranking.

9. Hyphens vs Underscores

When naming files and webpages, use hyphens (i.e. web-page.html) rather than underscores (i.e. web_page.html) for the file names. It is much easier for search engines to separate and index the keywords when hyphens are used.

10. Update Your Copyright Notice

Include a copyright notice on the bottom of each page contained on the website, and update it to keep it current. It may seem trivial, but an out-of-date copyright notice can send a message to your visitors that the website and its content may be out-of-date as well.

11. Spell Check and Proof Read Your Content

A website that contains mistyped or misspelled words is unprofessional. Remember to spell check the text on your site and proof read it to avoid any grammatical errors.

12. Test, Test and Test

After making changes to a website, always remember to test it. Most of the time, when a webmaster has fixed something on their website, they unwittingly “broke” something somewhere else.

Image source: Ed McGowan

Making testing a habit after making even the most minor changes will save you a lot of time and trouble.

13. Find Ways to Get In Touch

If you have a website, there will be instances when a visitor will want to contact you. Whether its feedback, inquires or just saying hi, having a contact form or contact source for visitors to get in touch with you is important as it lets you connect with them. It also shows that you are a genuine person and have nothing to hide.

The Simple Magic 13

Of course, there are more complex and in-depth principles in web design but these 13 tips should assist anyone who is just starting a website.

Though these pointers may seem small, they are proven to be useful in assisting the website as well as its visitors.

Do you have any tips to share with us on web design? Feel Free to leave a comment!