I want a new site. 20 essential elements good to know to (re)design websites

We meet almost daily someone who wants a site for his firm and the reasons are usually:

• Was made a few years ago
• It's bad compared to competition
• Doesn`t like the look (anymore)
• Want to be modern, because others have more modern sites

With so many web design experts and firms, it should be easy to find a company that makes your site, right? Perhaps you believe that a major obstacle is the price. Our opinion is that this is not the obstacle.

For better or worse, if you want a site for your company you definitely find the financial resources to do it, as long as the asking price is reasonable.

The biggest obstacle for most entrepreneurs is the lack of clear, structured info to evaluate the work of those who pay to restore the site and then later postponed the reconstruction site. And therefore lose money daily ...

When you ask a web designer to make you a site or rebuild your existing website, you should know first how to evaluate the final result, based on objective criteria, to be sure that the final result is a website that can attract new customers.

Next, we show you a set of 20 essential elements to keep in mind (or ask web-designers (re)doing your website to keep in mind) to have the guarantee that your site will look good but will also turn your visitors in customers.

The 20 essential elements are divided into four categories: Accessibility, Brand, Navigation, Content!

ACCESSIBILITY

1. The loading time of the website must be reasonable

A website must load quickly. As soon as possible, because the patience of visitors is limited.

If your site is slow loading, you have a few options:

- give up large load images for your homepage
- resize images to be smaller but without losing quality (example: Tiny PNG )
- change hosting that you have for a more powerful hosting, allowing your pages load faster (if you need help to select the best based on your criteria, let us know)

2. Proper contrast text-background

The visitor must be able to quickly and easily read your site (black or grey text on white background is totally recommended). If you use grey text on orange background, or other tricks, you risk the visitor leave fast your page because he cannot the text. Really annoying.

The eyes are different and monitors alike, even if you see your monitor text very well I could not see well on my monitor and then... I went to another webpage.

3. Font size and spacing of letters

To be sure that you`re not wrong, use better higher letters than small. Because lowercase grows frustration when trying to read and you don`t want frustrated visitors that cannot read the writing on the site.

In addition, use the white spaces. Do not try to write text on entire wall, because nobody will be reading. Use paragraphs instead.

4. Flash Animations, minimal or (better) without

Avoid using animations on the site, even if the designer says it looks very cool and your competitors use the same flash technology. Remember, these animations upload useless pages and takes a long time to load, which lead us to the issue mentioned before.

5. Use "alt" correctly set for images

ALT (alternative) Tag is an alternative text describing an image on a website.
Google does not see images as we see, but looking behind them as ALT text can understand, and index quickly.

Therefore it is important to verify that your images have ALT tags set correctly. You just need to right-click on the image, push Inspect Element and you see the alt-tag description.


BRAND

The first question when someone arrives on your site is:

"Who are you?" It's important to find instant response, after which the following questions should also be asked: "What do you do?" And "Why should I trust you"

6. Company logo and your firm`s mission

Put the logo where people expect to find it, usually in the top left corner or in the centre (as modern design).

If your logo is elsewhere, the visitor is confused, not understanding what it is. Do not upset him, and put it there, even if creative designer insists a better look elsewhere.

Your firm`s mission must reply to "What do you do" in a concise short sentence. The visitor will be satisfied as soon understand what it is and so is Google that gives you an extra point in SEO for this.

7. The homepage is "digested" in 5 seconds

So much is the patience of visitors within a page at first entry. If accomplices page and doing very busy, he will not understand anything. Will just leave.

8. Information about your company and contact must be visible

"About us" webpage is not outdated. It's what visitors want to see. Give them one, do not skimp.
A mention here: about us not a place to boast that "self-praise does not smell to good" (unless aims to help visitors).

It's where you show visitors how you can help them. It makes sense to put reviews / awards / experience etc. here only to understand it's to their advantage to work with you.

9. Contact details for your visitors (potential clients)

Be sure to put your contact information in text format, not in a picture-format, so that anyone interested can see and index properly by Google.

NAVIGATION

This piece is very important for visitors who know what you do and want more from you, on your site

10. Navigation must to be easily identifiable

People expect a navigation bar. It should be easy to find, almost with closed eyes. If you have two, you have to be very clear to people what's the difference. If you have more, stop. It's time to give up a few.

11. Names for menus must to be clear

If you say "communicate online with our team", it is weird. It is unnecessarily pompous and seems forced.

Rather say "Contact"; it is clear, simple, specific and anyone can understand at first view what it is there.

12. Buttons and reasonable links

Psychologists say that we can process a maximum of 7 pieces of information simultaneously.

Similarly, if you have multiple menus, never exceed seven main menus.
If you need more than 7 main menu, it might be better to think prioritize them a little bit because it's almost impossible to find a visitor to the mood / time to go through all.

13. The company logo is linking to the home page

It seems obvious, but if a logo (placed in the upper left corner or centred, do not forget) it is not linking to the homepage visitors click on the logo continuously, without understanding why it is not opening the page.

The only place where it is recommended to NOT link the home page is the logo from landing-page types, with a clear purpose, you want visitors to do one action, usually to fill out a form or to press a button on the page to go to the next page.

14. Search button is easy to access

Not all sites require a search box. If your website is small or do not have much information, it does not have. But if you have a search box, make it visible. Usually it is put in the right corner of the page.

CONTENT

It says the cash is the king. Similarly, the content is the king in the online space. As can be easy to use, the content must be consistent, organized and easy to scan.

15. Use clear and descriptive Headings

Entire content shown must be organized according to importance: heading must be clear and to get points you have to use SEO necessary headings tags: h1, h2, etc. A page structure is depending on the importance of "h".

16. Important content is above the bottom of the screen (the fold)

It is also called "the fold" and is based bottom of the screen. It is very important that any content that explains what you do, who you are, which is critical for better understanding of your page's be above the fold, because a lot of people do not scroll down the page and you lose.

17. Use bold or strong text

On principle: if you try to pay attention to everything, does not call attention to anything. If all text is bold, no one understand what is important and what is not.


18. The main text is concise and explanatory

The basic rule for online texts: Write what you mean on and then erase half.
Because people scan; they will not be able to read everything you write, so keep the content to a minimum.


19. URLs make sense and are user friendly

There are many types of URL. Choose the type of URL that make sense, and can be read by visitors and search engines.

20. Titles of HTML pages explain what's page

Page titles are caught between tags < title > </ title > and must be descriptive, unique, not full of keywords.

The page title is what you see when someone finds your page on Google. And if it does not make sense what is written there, no one will visit your site.

Ready! These are the 20 essential elements that need to be considered when you consider (re)building your website.