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With the launch of the site rubix website, you can now design a personal site with a few pages or a corporate website bursting with content. And you won’t need any special skills, not even a working knowledge of a coding language like HTML.

A good design is pivotal to your success. When the visitor lands on your website, arriving via a link on either a search engine or from mention of your website from another source, you have about 3 seconds to catch their attention. Remember, they’re only one click away from the browser button. With a quick mouse reflex, they can disappear in a nanosecond. Once they hit the back button, they’ll never be seen again. On the other hand, it is just as easy for them to bookmark your website, return to it again, and even recommend it.

What is the difference between losing a visitor and winning one over? Content, obviously. Content that holds their interest and that answers some core need. But content, no matter how brilliant, how articulate, how relevant, and how well-formatted is not enough. The frame that holds the content in place — the design — can be just as important in securing visitor loyalty.

Design does not have to be brilliant to win respect. It has to be highly functional.

Here’s an analogy:

Grocery stores are never works of architectural magnificence, but they are popular. They offer people something they need in a way they can easily find. There is an efficient system of shopping carts, marked aisles, and check out counters. The minute the door swings open, people know how to shop. Rarely are these places ugly, dirty, or disorganized. Those that exhibit chaos soon go out of business. The better stores have an austere, utilitarian beauty.

Similarly, a user-friendly website is considered to have a good design. Mind-boggling graphics seldom impress. Like any high quality store, your virtual establishment should be attractive in a utilitarian way, with form built around function.

Here are 7 ways to create a winning design.

1. Your pages should load fast. Statistics reveal that most people have slow internet connections and that their average patience level ranges from 10 to 15 seconds.

2. Your text should be easy to read. When it is too small, it makes the reader squint and start searching for their eyeglasses. When it is too large, they wonder if the website was designed for children learning how to read. Usually, a black text against a white background is best. If you lust for a colored background, it should be a pale shade so that the letters still stand out.

3. Your website should be easy to navigate, with each link clearly identified as one because it’s blue and underlined. Similarly, graphic navigation elements like buttons and tabs should be easy to recognize and use. While you may personally delight in high-tech special effects, like a mouse movement that leaves a trail of stars, these should be avoided. Keep navigation plain, simple, and easy-to-understand. If navigation is not intuitive, a visitor will simply navigate away from your website.

4. Your layout from one page to another should have a consistent theme. If the headers and navigational clues shift dramatically from one page to another, people may very well believe that they’ve drifted to another website. Use a stylistic theme to weave a sense of continuity from one page to another.

5. Avoid music! Frankly, most websites that greet the visitor with a loud burst of music instantly frighten them away. It does not matter how beautiful the music. You could be playing something as soothing as Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Allegro and still offend the visitor.

The reason people use music is because it does work offline.

When you push open the door of a physical store and are greeted with pleasant music, it uplifts you, the customer, puts you in a better mood, and encourages you to linger and shop more.

But on a website, the visitors only response is to escape as fast as is technologically possible.

6. Make your design compatible with the most popular browsers. What may look great on Mozilla Firefox may look strange on Internet Explorer. If possible, view your website from Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

7. Design your website for all screen resolutions. While most people use 1240 x 1080, some still use 800 x 600, even 640 x 768! What looks perfect with high resolution may be unrecognizable when viewing in 800 x 600.

Good design, then, is subtle. It should be quietly running in the background allowing your visitor to focus on your content. Your purpose is to entice visitors with your products and services. In other words, content becomes foreground only when design elements become background. Since it is content that sells, a “loud” design will not improve your business. Flashy presentations may attract attention offline, but online subtle effects sell.

While this type of thoughtful design can take hours using traditional HTML editors, it can be done in minutes with Site Rubix Website.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 9:03 pm and is filed under WA Members Hosting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.