How to achieve great website design - do you want to stand out?

More and more web design companies are being set up in the present climate, creating a larger pool of design styles and technical knowlege for clients to choose from. So how do you stand out above the competition? What is going to make a client choose you over somebody else? If your own website is poorly designed, lacks good search engine optimisation or has missing links, your potential clients will drift away. We have 12 years experience in creating great websites for our clients and have created here, a list of simple strategies to help you.


1 - Web design is a meeting of technology with beautiful graphic design, make sure you study both if you want to succeed
Why? You may come from a tehcnical background and have excellent skills in this area, but do you have the graphic design skills to help you create a truly great website? You may come from a graphics background and are finding the technical side of web design a little bit daunting.
It takes time to develop these skills. Research is key to combining both technical and graphic design skills necessary for web design. There are many books available to get you thinking about how great graphic design makes for great usability, I found "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug well worth the money, everything in it is so obvious, you wonder why you didn't think of it yourself.


2 - Use Photoshop as an aid to layout and plan your website, work at 72ppi and put the rulers on pixels. Use guidelines.
Why? Because web design like all other kinds of design take planning. If you use a themed website approach from one of the many web building aides around, like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, you may think the design is already done for you. It isn't complete, you will need to plan out new graphics and areas that will fit the style of the theme provided. If you look closely at some of the less successful theme designed sites you will see inconsistencies in colour, graphic styles and form. Example.


3 - Don't slice up the whole of your a photoshop design for the web, leave text alone to be input as text not a graphic.
Why? Not only is it the height of laziness, it will make your website very slow to load, be un-searchable in search engines and not even figure on Google. Unneccessary blocks of colour with text turned into graphics do nothing for the user either, especially if the font is overly fancy.
Well written copy keyed straight into your html code is quick and lighter to load, search engines love relevant words that relate to the business of the site.


4 - Code the colour for backgrounds, and put images in the background where appropriate, this way your site will load quickly.
Why? Setting a colour for the page background is the lightest way to add 'texture' to your site. You can use jQuery to add gradients or create a small background image that repeats to fill the page. Images with transparency place on top of backgrounds will load quicker than a completely solid image and you can use it on a number of different backgrounds. 
Think about using .gif and .png files for flexible use of images. 


5 - Resize images for the web before you insert them into your code or editing programme, this way your site will load quicker
Why? Have you ever waited while a site slowly loads it images? The images may have been dramatically reduced in html, beware of doing this youself. 


6 - Use 2 CSS files, one for your layout, the other for typesetting, keep as much CSS out of your HTML files as possible.
Why? If you have too much CSS styling in the tag, search engines will struggle to find relevant text to use to display your site high up the rankings. Organise you stylesheets into two kinds - one for layout, the other for typography. It makes finding style items easier. You may need further stylesheets for different layouts of course, and keeping your CSS files in a separate folder can make life easier for you.


7 - Only use Flash to demonstrate your skills, don't create Flash only websites as many mobile devices don't support it.
Why? It is a shame that many large companies have blocked Flash from their staff's workstations, this historically relates to spam that used to be attached to games and other Flash files in the late 1990s. Mobile devices don't all display Flash either, so all your hard work will go un-noticed on mobile devices and people will leave your site immediately.


8 - Nicely designed graphics speak volumes, don't use clipper art, clients do not want to pay for something they can do themselves
Why? Consistency is key to great design, you may think that it doesn't matter if you use a variety of icons and graphics so long as they illustrate the point you want to make. But the design will be compromised and start to look messy. Examples.


9 - Keep words to a minimum on your homepage, you need to get your message across in a short, snappy manner.
Why? People won't read beyond the first couple of paragraphs unless they are reading an article, you can save thos for other pages on your website. A small piece of text that sums up your business will draw people in and encourage them to return.


10 - Integrate your social media sites to your website, this way you increase traffic to your site and show brand awareness.
Why? Show people that you mean business, by using social media you can offer advice and learn from others as well. Links to and from social media increases your presence on search engines, so long as you use it and keep your site refreshed with new content.


11 - Use keywords - write your introduction with your keywords in mind. But don't over do it, Google doesn't like it.
Why? A well written introduction that makes sense and uses just a couple of choice keywords will help improve your search results. Peppering your text with random, meaningless keywords may cause search engines to demote your site. This guy Bruce Clay's site is well worth a read.


12 - Verify your site on Google and create a sitemap. This will improve your page rankings.
Why? Professionalism 


13 - Create a Blog and news feeds and send these to your site to help improve your search results.
Why? As point 10, show that you understand your business and are committed to it. 


14 - Get to know the difference between good and bad design, research pays, and listen to your client, they are all different.
Why? A tricky one this, there are as many design styles as there are people. One man's meat is another man's poison - however, great design should be easy on the eye. It takes time to get really confident with your area of expertise, there are things I liked years ago that I don't now. Art and design are subjective, so you will need to avoid taking criticism too much to heart, but take notice of feedback and act on what makes sense. 




15 - Build a website that suits your clients needs, nobody wants to pay for work that looks like everyone else's website.
Why? Your clients pay you to create a great website for them that will gain them business, they each have their own needs, listen to them and act upon their brief. You may not always agree, but you can find a common path and reach a good solution.
Your clients will want to feel that you are doing your best for them, thoughtful design solutions for each client will give you a varied portfolio.

Fifteen Top Tips for Great Website Design

Tweeting now at 11:47am each day over two more weeks - 15 Top Tips to get you on the right track for designing great websites. Just follow @Bloohair on Twitter.

1 - Web design is a meeting of technology with beautiful graphic design, make sure you study both if you want to succeed

2 - Use Photoshop as an aid to layout and plan your website, work at 72ppi and put the rulers on pixels. Use guidelines.

3 - don't slice up the whole of your a photoshop design for the web, leave text alone to be input as text not a graphic.

4 - Code the colour for backgrounds, and put images in the background where appropriate, this way your site will load quickly.

5 - Resize images for the web before you insert them into your code or editing programme, this way your site will load quicker

6 - Use 2 CSS files, one for your layout, the other for typesetting, keep as much CSS out of your HTML files as possible.

7 - Only use Flash to demonstrate your skills, don't create Flash only websites as many mobile devices don't support it.

8 - Nicely designed graphics speak volumes, don't use clipper art, clients do not want to pay for something they can do themselves

9 - Keep words to a minimum on your homepage, you need to get your message across in a short, snappy manner

10 - integrate your social media sites to your website, this way you increase traffic to your site and show brand awareness

11 - Use keywords - write your introduction with your keywords in mind. But don't over do it, Google doesn't like it.

12 - verify your site on Google and create a sitemap. This will improve your page rankings.

13 - Create a Blog and news feeds and send these to your site to help improve your search results.

14 - Get to know the difference between good and bad design, research pays, and listen to your client, they are all different.

15 - Build a website that suits your clients needs, nobody wants to pay for work that looks like everyone else's website.