One of the primary keys to a successful website is a good design. A poorly
designed site actually discourages visitors from even getting to your site,
and to leave quickly when (and if) they arrive. A well designed site
encourages people to visit and to remain once they find it. In fact, the
best designed sites encourage communication, which in turn causes people to
continue to visit time after time.

So what is this thing called a "well designed web site"? In concept it can
be summarized in a few words:

"A well designed web site communicates and encourages communication."

It's as simple as this statement implies. However, the implications of this
statement are far reaching and critical to the success of your web site. For
example, one of the critical questions to ask yourself when you are
designing your site is "who and what are you communicating with?" Why is
this important? Because in addition to your visitors with their complex
requirements, you area also communicating with search engine spiders,
internet mapping routines and other automated tools. These are critically
important to the success of your site.

Okay, so what do you need to do to make your site communicate to everyone
and everything possible? Some suggestions are listed below.

Design Your Site

Before you do anything, sit down and think about your site. Virtually all
successful projects begin with good planning, analysis and design work.
Leave out these steps and you may find yourself reimplementing your site
over and over. Think it takes too long? Well, I have a question for you:
"why is it everyone has time to do it over but over time to do it right?"

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/gooddesign001.htm

Alt Tags

To make your site communicate better to those people (and search engine
spiders_ who do not view graphics, be sure and include ALT tags with each
image.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/alt.htm

Metatags

You want to tell the search engines (and other spiders) about your site?
Include the proper Metatags on each page. This helps improve your rankings
on some search engines.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/metatags.htm

Navigation

Be sure that your navigation makes sense. Help your visitors get around on
your site by making it easy for them to find things.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/navigation.htm

Linking

Ensure from the first day that all of the links within your own site work
perfectly. There is no excuse for broken internal links - these are a sure
sign of an amateur. As far as external links go, accept the fact that these
will break occasionally. The web is a rapidly changing environment and you
will virtually never be notified when someone moves a page or closes their
site. Just check occasionally and update your links as needed.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/gooddesignexternallinks.htm

Site Map

A site map is similar in concept to a table of contents. This is a great way
to introduce your visitors to the whole picture of your site in all of it's
glory. It also helps drive visitors (and spiders) to pages other than the
few that they happen to find via search engines.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/gooddesignsitemap.htm

What's New

Keep your visitors coming back by including "What's New" sections on your
home page and in a special section.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/gooddesignwhatsnew.htm

Frequently Asked Questions

Since the idea behind your web site is to communicate, why not create a
frequently asked questions section? This answers the more common questions
and helps prevent you from getting overwhelmed with common, everyday
requests for answers.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/gooddesignfaq.htm

Provide A Guestbook

All good web sites provide a guestbook function for their visitors. This
gives people a way to communicate their feelings about the site to the
webmaster and the rest of the world.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/maintguestbooks.htm

There are many, many other things you can do to create a good web site
design. Just remember your ultimate goal is to communicate something. If you
are selling a product, you are trying to communicate about that product in
such a way that your visitor wants to purchase it. If your site is about
your cat, than that is what you are communicating. The better your design,
the better your message gets across.

About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This
website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet
profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
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