subject: How To Create A Website That Looks Great [print this page] Appearances are everything, especially when it comes to a website. When people are deciding on a company to do business with, they often judge a book by its cover. That means it's more critical than ever to know how to create a website that captures people's attention and looks great. This means focusing on graphics, content and overall layout.
When someone arrives at a website, they want it to look different than every other website. This means that graphics should grab their attention upon arriving at the website. Whether this is a well-placed logo, a video to grab their attention or some sort of flash graphic, there must be something to instantly capture someone's attention.
Once the attention is grabbed, it must be maintained. Conversions are important. This is the act of converting a site visitor into a customer. The most effective way to do this is clearly spell out what the website is about. People need to know what they are expected to do and what the product or service on the site is all about.
No one is going to take the time to navigate through a website if they don't know what's going on with the site. If the website is selling something, it should be very obvious what the name of the company is and what the products being sold are. If the website is offering a service, that service should be quickly identifiable. And if the website is trying to capture information from the site visitor, the person needs to know why they should be entering their personal information and what they will get out of it.
All of the tabs for navigation need to be placed at the top or the sides of the website - not at the bottom. When someone wants to go to the next page, they don't want to navigate throughout the whole site to find the tabs. The tabs need to be well marked so a person knows what to expect upon clicking on those tabs.
All of the content needs to be spelled out clearly. No grammatical or spelling errors should be made. Everyone has the opportunity to run spelling and grammar checks on text before pasting it into a website, so there is no excuse for mistakes like that. It shows a company is unprofessional and it will detract from the beauty of the website.
Content also must be broken down into manageable chunks of text. The use of white space in between paragraphs makes it easier for people to scan for the information they want. Using bold or underlined words for emphasis can also be effective. If it's a full page of text that has no variations, the text will never get read because people will be rushing for the back button way before that.
Photos and videos can break up some of the monotony. Photos can display things that words cannot express and videos can be much more informative - and offer a little change of media as well. These can also help with search engine rankings down the road.
How to create a website with today's technology isn't hard. However, some creativity needs to be involved in the layout and design to ensure it captures everyone's attention and looks good.
