Web design top tips

• Your website should have a purpose. This may seem a rather obvious thing to state but many businesses put a website together to simply 'tick a box' rather than having a specific objective in mind for their site. The purpose could be to make a sale, advertise a new product or service, get an email address, or to receive a phone call.

• Choose a good domain name for your site. This is the address visitors will type into their web browser to find your site and usually takes the form www.yourbusiness.co.uk. It can be hard to think of a domain name but it is definitely worth spending a bit of time on. It should be relevant to your business (though not necessarily your business name), easy to spell, memorable and not too long. Consider incorporating search keywords into your domain name.

• Be involved in the design process as much as possible to ensure you end up with a site you are happy with and are confident will benefit your business.

• Consider how you are going to promote and advertise your site from early on in the design process. Methods of promotion range from including your website address on stationery, articles in local newspapers through to Search Engine Optimisation and Pay per Click campaigns.

• The site should be fast to load and easy to use. It is important that you provide your potential customers with a pleasant and beneficial experience when they visit your site. Web users are impatient and if your site takes too long to appear on their screen or if they can't find their way around your site they will go elsewhere.

• Site content (information within your web pages) should be easy to read and kept brief. Technical terms and jargon should be used as little as possible and explained in plain English if their use is unavoidable.

• Your Home page should tell the visitor what you do and begin to convince them as to why they should do business with you.
  
  The About page could provide information on the history of your business, reflecting the values associated with your product or service and perhaps a bit about the key people within the company.
  
  The Contact page should provide various ways in which people may contact you. It is perhaps worth considering putting contact details on all pages to make contacting you as easy and convenient as possible.

• Be sure to tailor your website to the needs of your audience. For example, the style and design of a site with the aim of encouraging teenagers to eat more healthily would be different from a site selling speciality hand made tiaras to brides to be.

• It is important to keep site content up to date and current. Visitors do not want to be reading about the 'latest news' that occurred two years ago! Your site should be an ongoing and continually evolving part of your advertising, marketing and sales strategy.

• Websites may be developed and expanded through time. You may start off small with a one, five or ten page site. If your site is working for you, more pages can be added or eCommerce functionality may be considered.