In the digital age, it’s almost impossible to not have a website of your own. When you are doing anything from promoting a book to selling crafts, you need to be able to reach the largest audience possible. Today that means having and updating your own website. The problem is that many people don’t know where to begin with building one. Those who do fall prey to poor design, unreadability, or poor cross browser compatibility. Your website may be the only thing that people see of you. Therefore it’s important to put your best foot forward.
Readability
Readability is, predictably, how easy it is to read your website. Try to avoid bright, contrasting colors. These create eye strain and can cause headaches. Also try to avoid the programming box look, this means a dark or black screen with very bright or white colors. This also causes eye strain. It’s best to have a light colored background and dark text. Make sure that your text is large enough and an easily read text. While certain fonts do look interesting, you need people to be able to read your content.
Distractions
Part of a good design for webpages is ease of scrolling. This means that your information needs to be laid out in an easy to follow template. Try to avoid overwhelming graphics or distracting videos or dancing characters. A major complaint about websites these days is music players. Nothing quite jars someone who is listening to their own music like having some unknown sounds blare through it. While you may think it’s a great way to create a website that is personal, most people only see it as an annoyance they need to immediately get rid of.
Cross Browser Capabilities
There are numerous different browsers available for people to use while surfing the web. Don’t assume that a page you load up will look the same on all of them. Something that works excellently with Firefox, for example, could look horrible on Chrome or Internet Explorer. When you design a site, you should load it up on as many browsers as possible. This will make sure that you can reach the most people with your page.
Mobile Browsing
More and beyond people own a smart phone these days. If you do or know people who do, it would be good to look at your page on those platforms as well. Mobile browsing presents a different set of issues than regular web building. You need to make sure that the text will read easily and that graphics don’t have to be loaded. When you design a site, you may look into codes that can make mobile browsing easier.
Websites are an important aspect of any business or promotion. If you don’t feel like you have the time or abilities to make a good website there are other options. Some host sites have preloaded templates that you can just add your content to. Other websites give you built templates for a fee. If you want to have a truly personal touch, you could also hire your own web designer.