Australian web domain company KetMo.com has published a list of its top six web design clichés to avoid and it makes interesting reading… see what you think.

1.    Flash pages
A Flash sequence can act as a delay, if not a total barrier, between customers and their intention (finding out information and/or making a purchase). Use Flash on a minimal scale for maximum impact.

2. Stock images
Stock images look cheap and tacky. Highlight the uniqueness of your company and business by using original images.

3. White background
Colours always attract attention and yet many websites have white backgrounds. While there is nothing wrong in having a white background in the web design, some use of creativity and colours can make a plain website look lively.

4. Wet floor/reflection/shadow effect
These should only be used if you really want your website to look as though it was designed in the early 1990s. Assuming that you want to appear more modern than that, avoid these so-called special effects at all costs.

5. Big fonts
While big fonts are eye-catching and bold, they should not be used too often and all over the website. Strategic use of big fonts can be effective in a website design.

6. ‘Click Here’
When you say ‘Click Here’ it creates ambiguity about the whole message. The visitor is unaware of the action that will be performed by clicking on the link. Instead of such a redundant and mysterious term, use phrases such as ‘Contact Us’ or ‘Read more about our services’.

Web designers beware!

Regular website audits are a necessary, but often overlooked, practice for any business that wants to maximise its online presence.

Even if you are not planning any web design soon, for any business – and particularly those that are primarily web-based – a website audit can unearth teething problems that may be impacting upon traffic, user navigation and indexing in the search engines. These are all factors that will ultimately jeopardise sales.

So, what does a website audit involve? Primarily the process will analyse how accessible your website is for different kinds of users. Website accessibility isn’t just desirable – it’s the law. Theoretically you can face large fines if your website can’t be accessed by people with disabilities, although no cases have yet been brought to court.

A comprehensive website audit will also address:

•    Site Design
•    Navigation
•    Legal and Security Issues
•    eCommerce
•    Search Engine Compatibility
•    Technical Performance

If you’re thinking of redesigning your website, it’s the perfect time to instigate an audit. If there are issues with the current website design – such as user navigation and indexing in the search engines – then an audit can help to redress those concerns in the new website layout.

Even if you’re not planning on building a new website, an audit should still be carried out periodically, such as shortly after a significant website update, so that there is enough time for the site to be completely re-indexed. Furthermore, think about a website audit if such a review has not been conducted in the last few years, so that your site can keep up to date with the best practice requirements of the major search engines.

Colour psychology is now an established area of study, focusing on the effect colour can have on a human’s emotions and brain function. Brighter colours, such as red and orange, tend to act as stimulants and are often used in sales to encourage buying decisions. Contrastingly, cooler colours such as blue and grey are taken as indicators of reliability and intelligence. The ideal choice of colours in your website design will not only complement each other visually, but utilise this psychological language to hook customers.

When choosing your colours, the first key question is ‘What is my demographic?’ This will automatically help you narrow down your potential colours. For example, a product aimed at the over 60s market is unlikely to sell if marketed with a strongly contrasting colour scheme.

Following on from this, decide what is it you want your website to project. Should your company be interpreted as dynamic or traditional? Do you want to push sales or build relationships? All these types of questions will help you narrow down the best colours for your website. Many sites now use two or three colours to create interest, so keep in mind that your choices need to work visually as well.

Colour dictionaries, providing in-depth explanations of each colour’s psychological impact can be found across the web and are excellent resources at this stage of web design. Don’t become too bogged down in the science though; although using colour psychology can help increase sales, it shouldn’t be at the expense of an attractively designed website!

Once you’ve created your website, you want to make sure as many people as possible can see it. There are several technical steps you can take to ensure your website is attracting the attention it deserves.

Make sure it’s browser compatible: Check your website in as many browsers as possible. Every browser has different ways of reading things which means that something which shows perfectly in Internet Explorer may not display properly in Firefox. Making sure your website design can be seen across the widest variety of browsers will ultimately gain you more visitors.

Set up a test server: You should never edit a website live, or throw something up online which hasn’t been tested. Once your website goes live, everything can be seen online, including any mistakes in the draft. A mistake-free site is one of the easiest ways to impress customers, attract search engine attention and gain rankings.

Back up your site: You never know when your site will be the victim of a server outage, or a hacker. Both occasions can, in their most extreme circumstances, result in the need to re-establish the site. It’s rare that this happens, but if it does, back-up is essential to get the site online again quickly, to minimise disruption and avoid missing out on lost business.

Be wary of Flash: Although Flash is popular now, it’s never a good idea to base your entire site design on its usage as it does cut out a proportion of visitors. A substantial number of people don’t have Flash – and they won’t download it just to access your site!

If you’re looking for help with accessible website design, contact NS Design for a free no-obligation consultation.

With time being one of the business world’s most precious commodities, it is important that websites load quickly and completely – or you risk losing the prospective customer. As search engines like Google continue to develop their ranking algorithms, evidence is emerging that loading time is now included in their scoring systems. Consequently, how fast your site loads will have an impact on your site’s position in the search results.

The easiest and quickest way to reduce your loading time is to limit the number of web elements on each page. Elements include items such as scripts, images and any Flash components. Each element requires an http marker within the page’s code, creating http requests to the server for each component. The more elements you have, the more requests and the slower the page will load.

Ask yourself – for every piece of your webpage – what value does it add to my site, to my SEO and to my customers? If the answer is low or none, then cut it.

This doesn’t mean images should be avoided completely, but if they are essential, make sure they are optimised. Images should not be written into your code as they stand, but should be saved as suitable for web, with a screen-only resolution of 72 dpi and in GIF or PNG format. It also makes sense to resize the images so they reflect the size on screen.

For more information and advice on how to optimise your website design for the search engines, and ensure it loads in the shortest possible time, contact NSDesign for a free no-obligation consultation.