GUEST DESIGN

How to Design a Commercial Website

These are the guidelines we use here at Words in a Row to design a commercial website. This used to be one very long page; we've broken it up into separate pages covering the subjects below. To get more details click on the underlined words in the summary:

• Look at your website as a continual advertisement. Make your site work like an ad.
  
  How do you make your site work as an effective advertisement?
  
  
• Your website should be enjoyable. If it's not a joyride, at least it shouldn't be unpleasant.
  
  
• A website should make you money. Sell something! Make at least part of your website a great sales pitch for whatever service or product you're selling.
  
  
• Your site should give something away. There are many ways to give something valuable to your visitors without giving away the store.
  
  
• Your site should build up an email list for you so you can promote to past visitors.
  
  
• Your website should make it easy for people to contact you. Don't hide your company from your customers.
  
  
• Design your site with the search engines in mind or you won't get many visitors.
  
  
• Frequently neglected opportunities to get better rankings in search engines:
  
  
  • Neglected Headings--Graphics are not always better than text headings. Search engines don't index the text in images.
    
    
  • Neglected Text--You need lots of plain old written words (text). How much is enough? At least 250 words. Where do you need it?
    
    
  • Neglected Captions on Pictures--With a little thought, the humble ALT tag can get you more visitors.
    
    
  
  
• Jakob Neilsen did a survey to find out the ten most common web design mistakes in October 2005. These same design issues keep coming up year after year. Make sure you're not doing them.
  
  

Note: Those of our competitors who read this information and are savvy enough to apply it are welcome to it! Good luck!

If you need help applying what we cover on these pages to your own website, feel free to contact us.

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