5 Keys to Designing an Effective Web Page

1. Come up with a goal for your site visitors.

To create an effective page design you must start by asking yourself what the goal is of your web page? Is your goal to gather contact information? Is it to sell a product or service? Whatever your goal is you better make it easy for your site visitors to figure out what to do next. That means you want them to buy a product the buy buttons need to be clearly associated with each product and should say something like 'add to cart' or 'buy now'. If you want someone to complete a lead for provide them with exact instructions on how to do it. Whatever action you want your site visitors to take make sure you remove the mystery and explain to them exactly what you want them to do.

2. Make what your webpage is about obvious to everyone.

Once someone lands on your web page studies show you have about 7 seconds to catch their attention. So it better be clear what your page is about. I like to put a large title across the top of my pages to help my visitors know they've found the information they're looking for. Just like your daily newspaper I call this a headline. Make a compelling headline with big text in an easy to read font. Don't make small text that's hard on the eyes.

3. Make your text is easy to read.

Just like with your headline you want to make the text on your page easy to read. Large text size in fonts like arial, verdana, and times roman are typically easy to read. Black text on a white background is always the easiest to read. Don't make the mistake of trying to make your web pages overly creative or "cool looking" by using unconventional fonts, font colors, or a tiny font size. If you don't like the plain look of a white background with black text you can soften the text color by choosing a dark gray or you can use a black background with white text. A black background with white text will not be as easy to read as a white background with black text but it's fairly easy to read. Never use yellow text. I've never seen a use of yellow text that was easy on the eyes.

4. Make your page about your product or service not about your logo.

A common mistake I see with web design is making your page about your company logo instead of about your actual product or service. You may have a fantastic logo but chances are your site is not about your logo. And since you only have a few seconds to grab your site visitors attention I don't suggest putting your logo in an obvious spot on the page.

Displaying your logo on your page can be important for creating a brand and I do suggest displaying it in the same location on each of your pages. I find the best place to display the logo is in the very top left-hand corner of the page. The upper left-hand corner of the page is a valuable piece of page real estate but is not the focus of the page. That makes it a great place to build brand recognition.

5. Keep it clean.

There is so much content on the web that sorting through it can be exhausting. Chances are your site visitors had to search through a ton of sites before finding you. For that reason you'll want to make sure your site is clutter free and free of what I call creative annoyances. You can ensure your page is clutter free simply by using a lot of white space in your page design. White space is the empty space between words, images, borders, etc. It's difficult for the brain to concentrate if it has to sort through a cluttered mess. So try to create spacing between paragraphs, images, and other content. A magazine, book, or newspaper will give you a good idea of how to use white space properly.

The other thing you'll want to avoid I call creative annoyances. Creative annoyances are all those "cool" animated images, glitter text, and really anything that flashes or moves. Although you can use these things in a tasteful manner for the most part they're distractions and will only annoy your site visitors when they're trying to focus on reading your web page. If you can't help it you just need to have some creative flare on your site try to use it in a way that will draw attention to the action you would like them to take.

There you have it. Following these 5 simple rules should put you well on your way to creating a compelling website that really gets results. Follow these steps and you're sure to create an awesome free website.