What are the 10 commandments of web design?
-
what are the 10 commandments to follow when designing a website?
-
Thank you for the comprehensive answer.
-
That is right up there with "what is the meaning of life?" Everyone will respond differently.
I will share a few ideas::
1. Ensure your site complies to whatever coding standards you are using. For HTML, use the validator offered at http://validator.w3.org/
2. Ensure your site is optimized for SEO. Use an appropriate title tag, meta description and canonical for every page.
3. Social sharing is a component of web design. Facebook and Twitter authentication, sharing widgets, etc should all be taken into consideration.
4. Web security should be always be considered. Know which parts of your site will be public and private.
5. Know your audience. Who will use your site? A technical site may be designed very differently then a site discussing music or art.
6. Your site must be easy to navigate. Navigation bars, drop down menus, html site map, links, etc. all need to be considered. Buried content might as well not exist. Content should be layered so the most interesting content or best selling products will be on the landing page. Links will be offered so visitors can then move on to other products or content.
7. Stay consistent. I will take consistency over style any day. One example is breadcrumbs. There are some pages where they are helpful, and some where they are not useful. But if you decide to use breadcrumbs on your site, they should be used on every page so you stay consistent.
8. Check your site on every browser your audience might use. Presently IE 8, IE 9, FF 3.6, FF4, along with the current versions of Chrome and Opera needs to all be checked.
9. Go Mobile. Your site needs to consider the viewing screens of your users. Not only do you need to consider users with smaller monitors, but also the many users who will view your site from their cell phone.
10. Content is king. You can develop a perfect site, offer great security, and do everything else right...but if you don't add quality content then the rest doesn't matter much.
Wow. I had no intention of making it to ten when I started typing but the ideas just kept coming.
-
I tend to use these guidelines...
- The KISS method works wonders (Keep It Simple Stupid). Say more with less.
- Keep it Content-Heavy and Code-Light
- Learn proper HTML structure - think of the ease of adjustments down the road.
- Make the site be fast-loading
- Communicate... that's the whole point
- Maintain clear calls-to-action
- The web can be hard to read, especially for older eyes. Design to your audience and have nice contrast.
- Keep an open mind - push yourself to learn and try new things. Ask questions and seek answers when you are unsure.
- Design inspiration can come from anywhere... non-web sources can be great! Architecture, magazines, nature, you name it!
- Web design (including page markup) is both parts creative and technical. There is no single way to lay out a great page. Some ways work better than others though, so strive to be the best you can!!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Looking for live web examples of Medical schema
Has anyone seen a hospital system or medical clinic properly employ schema markup to their sites? This seems like very new territory, and we want to do it right by our client. Are there any best practices I need to look out for?
Web Design | | Madgenius3 -
Metro style design for a new eCommerce Platform: will it survive?
Hello, While developing eCommerce solution for building webstores in WordPress, our team decided to use metro style design for our dashboard. Could you check the Dashboard screenshot please and discuss several questions with me: How do you think, is it a good idea to use this kind of style? Do you think if there are many people who hate it?:) Should we offer more dashboard designs that can be changed through admin area (may be to offer a standard WP design) or this style will be enough for the start? Thank you very much! Yaros, GosuSell 001_dashboard.jpg
Web Design | | GosuSell0 -
Web Designer Needed
So I feel like I've almost convinced my boss to hire out a re-design for our website (which is SORELY needed.) I'm at the step where I need to start finding quotes and site builders. I want a responsive design site built modern and professional... Love the moz site but not responsive enough. My current favorite example is at www.hasoffers.com Does anybody have any suggestions of where to go? And as a bonus, if anybody is brave enough to ballpark what a site like this would cost that would be awesome. Doesn't have to be exact or even that close... Thanks for any advice given.
Web Design | | jesse-landry0 -
For a web design firm, should i make a google plus local page or company page?
I have a web design firm located in India, At this moment we are focusing on local clients as the current competition in local market is very low. But in few months we will shift our focus to outsourcing. So I wanted to know if we should make a google plus local page and connect it with my google places account and website or should I make a google plus business page and connect it to website? Our major focus is on seo. Thanks
Web Design | | hard0 -
Does Google penalize duplicate website design?
Hello, We are very close to launching five new websites, all in the same business sector. Because we would like to keep our brand intact, we are looking to use the same design on all five websites. My question is, will Google penalize the sites if they have the same design? Thank you! Best regards,
Web Design | | Tiberiu
Tiberiu0 -
TOP 5 Questions I Should Ask a web designer or developer?
I want to redesign my website to work better with SEO and crawls. I need to make sure I hire a good designer/developer but I don't have a ton of money to spend. What are the top 5 questions I should ask a web designer/developer to ensure they are good designers and have successfully implemented SEO??...or at least a site that is crawled well and has some SEO built in.
Web Design | | CapitolShine0 -
Mobile Web Sites
Hi I have started offering customers a mobile app view of their existing websites using sencha touch which works well. On visiting the website if a user visits via a mobile device they access the mobile app view of the site. I am looking for some best practice please - as many of the customers already have hosting with their existing website so would it be possible to use a subdomain of m.theirdomain.com which will point to the mobile website which will be hosted on our servers in the cloud. Or is the only alternative to use a subdomain for their mobile sites because they are hosted with us in the cloud of businessname.ourdomain.com ? Many Thanks
Web Design | | ocelot0 -
Changing my web design
When you redo your website, I assume that sometimes it might turn out worse. For example, users might just like your prior design better and thus your prior design might actually have better stats. My blog doesn't receive a lot of hits. I have about 1500 hits per months. I don't think that i have enough traffic for A/B testing. Is there a work around to see if my new blog design does better or worse?
Web Design | | jamesjd71