Website Design: Welcome The White Space
Individuals who are new to website development will often compartmentalize the web page and fill every available space with either text or graphics. After all, why shouldn?t you maximize the site design by including as much information as possible?
There seems to be an underlying fear that if there is ?white space? the website will look incomplete. The term white space is a common term in publishing. For instance when a newspaper is developing an advertisement they will seek to allow for some areas of the advertisement to be free from text or graphics. Most publishers have learned that white space provides a sophisticated look while drawing attention to a very specific selling point.
The best way to describe it is to use music as an example. There are times when musicians will use a very roots-oriented approach to their music. They may sing with only a guitar. This approach of stripping away everything else helps the listener experience a more intimate encounter with the music. Sometimes adding more actually reduces the overall effectiveness of the music or, in the case of web design, the message.
If your online visitor has to take a significant amount of time to locate the important information they hoped to find on a web page they will likely lose interest rapidly.
Cable television contains reality television shows that attempt to help individuals sell their property. In most cases the very first thing the experts note is the clutter that may be distracting guests from visualizing the possibilities of the property. The experts will generally paint rooms a neutral color and most of the furnishings are removed from the home. The episodes generally end with the homeowners with a contract and very impressive reviews from those attending an open house.
Many web designers are reverting to a more minimalist approach to their webpage design. The use of links is a key strategy while removing unwanted clutter.
The use of great photos and a significant amount of organized white space allow visitors to concentrate on the reason they came to the webpage in the first place.
Another reason white space may be an important element in site design is to allow for the inclusion of advertising. If you fill every available space you eliminate advertisement from being a consideration on your webpage. In effect you may be driving away customers and advertisers at the same time.
For some, the thought of intentionally carving out white space in a web design requires a new way of thinking. I would encourage you to take some time and visit some of the most successful websites and see how much white space exists. What can you eliminate from your site design that gives it room to breathe?
About the Author:
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with http://HighPowerSites.com at: http://www.highpowersites.com
-
Building an Innovative and Effective Website, by making full use of available technologies, is crucial for the future success of your current or future online business. There are literally 1000’s of great ideas out there, but finding the right ones and applying them to your website, is where the real trick lies.
Applying the best tips, tools and other design principles to your website, can bring you untold success on the internet. At the same time, using powerful and innovative ideas in the design and development stages of your website, will level the playing field for your business, and raise it’s competitive edge on the internet.
We have been doing web development for more than 7 years now, and during this time, many important design and development principles have come to light. Don’t waste valuable time by making the same mistakes many other web designers and webmasters do. The following 8 powerful website design principles will assist in helping you make the right choices for your online business :
1. Do-it-yourself OR outsourcing ?
Before you start compiling your new website, you have to establish your skill level to tackle the specific project. If you have sufficient html understanding, a good idea of graphics and colors, plus fair writing skills, you mostly can do the website design yourself. If, however, you don’t have a fair understanding of html, it would be advisable to outsource.
2. Dynamic vs. Static web pages
Do you want your site to be static, i.e.. no input from visitors, or dynamic, i.e.. fully interactive, with visitors being able to log on, take part in forums, post information, etc ? Many new and fantastic scripting languages are available to make your site more dynamic and bring it to life.
3. Web Site Title vs. Domain
Before registering a domain for your site, take some time to think of related words or names that best describes your business. Compile a few possibilities and then check for availability on the internet. The best ones would normally already be “taken”, but innovative thinking can get you very far !! When compiling you main page, use this domain name and extend it to your website’s main page title tag. This is step 1 in getting future good search engine rankings.
4. Build your site around important keywords
When building the content part of your site, remember to include a fair dose of important keywords and phrases that best describe your business. These keywords, the words and phrases people use when searching for relevant information on the internet, should also be extended to all the important tags of every web page of your site. Be careful though not to overdo it, as search engines penalize “keyword stuffing”. Also use full sentences and make them sound natural. The clever search engine algorithms have recently just become even more advanced, and can now track unnaturally sounding sentences !
5. Optimized Title, Description & Keyword Tags
Each page of your website should be individually optimized in terms of the message you want it carry. Every page is different and there for a specific reason. If the page info and page tags do not match in terms of keywords, the page will not show up in search engine results. Search engines want to give searchers relevant results, and by not applying this principle, your site will not rank well.
6. A Site Map with links to all pages
Assist the search engines by making it easy for them to index your site. If all pages can be reached from a central point like a sitemap, you will firstly make sure that the search engine spider finds all your site pages, and secondly help visitors to find relevant info and pages quickly. Sites with good structures and fresh content gets spidered more often.
7. All pages back-linked to the Site Map and Home Page
Visitors to your website will not necessary land the index page or sitemap. It is therefore imperative to give them a way to get to your index, site map and other important pages. A well structured informative website also receives more return visitors.
8. Standard background & fonts on all pages
By keeping pages uniform, you ensure your visitors know they are still on your site. Having various banners, backgrounds and fonts will only confuse visitors. Try to stick one font, or two at the most. The human eye needs to adjust every time it reads text written in a new font. Do not irritate your visitors by using many different fonts - they will leave in a flash !
If you have an existing website, but nothing much have been happening for you, try to apply these 8 principles and see what good transpires…
|
About The Author Brian is a freelance writer, website marketing and SEO expert & webmaster of 3 websites, including Rank Advance : http://www.rankadvance.com.  TagsNo Comments »No comments yet. RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a commentYou must be logged in to post a comment. |