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Building a great website is within the grasp of anyone who wants it. Staying focused and understanding your goals is key. In doing so, you will make the site easier to manage and more concise. If the website say, for example, allows users to download a super important PDF file, then it should do it well. It should do it over and over again without fail. It should also be easy for the visitor to figure out how to perform their part of the task. This may sound like the obvious, but all to often I go to a site that has the potential to be a great one, but then they drop the ball at the crucial moment. So, test, test, and test some more. The Information Architecture (IA) is possibly one of the most critical areas of the design of a site. The IA is basically how the site will be laid out, and how the visitor will be asked to navigate it. How will the navigation links be displayed? What resources should be placed on the index home page versus secondary pages? When a visitor comes to the site what are they looking for and how easy is it to find? When you are visiting a truly exceptional website, you never think about these questions. You simply look for a moment, then flow to where you want to be next. That is what great IA is about. Style and design aspects are what most people think of when they imagine how cool their new website is going to be. This is the emotional component of a website. Much like what a person is wearing, the type of perfume or cologne they may have on, their style of haircut, do they have on a Rolex watch or a Swatch, leather and beads or gold and diamonds. A great website makes the visitors feel at home. It will make them feel comfortable and at ease. This can only be done if you design your site for the appropriate audience. If your website targets teen girls, use common sense and don't use a conservative business motif. I like Flash and video, and use them often. However, if they adversely effective the load time of your main pages then something is wrong. Excellent websites should have excellent load times. There is nothing wrong with using Flash animation, just make sure it loads in the background and doesn't keep the visitor waiting. This is a basic concept taught in beginning website design classes around the world, but more often than naught the temptation to put that cool video on the home page is just too great. Don't do it. Don't lose your visitor before they even get to see your website. Keep your load times down. That content is king is a clich, but it still holds true. If you have unbelievably hot unique content, then your website is going to be unbelievably hot and popular. It should be valid, relevant, and easy to access. Exceptional content is at the heart of every exceptional website. While quality content is king, it isn't quality unless it is current. Content that was hot last year probably isn't even warm anymore. Keeping a website up-to-date is vital to making sure your content is indeed quality and relevant. Keep it fresh and people will eat it. Keeping your visitors safe is a big one. This can be more difficult for some sites than others, but the mantra remains the same. Security comes first: then function. All exceptional websites go the extra mile to make sure their visitors can safely visit and engage in ecommerce with the knowledge that their personal and financial information remains safe.
Article Source: http://www.itempad.com
About the author: Dustin Dickens is a professional website designer living and working on the Costa Del Sol in Spain. Check out Dustin's free report on how to be certain your business website design doesn't suck!
