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1. Clean and simple design is best

2. Clean and simple does NOT have to equal boring

3. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel with your navigation

4. Avoid using splash pages

5. Limit your use of Flash

6. Eliminate distractions that pull visitors away from the main message

7. White space is your friend

8. Focus on improving website’s loading time

9. Use images to break up long passages of text

10. Use images to add to the message, not just for placeholders

11. Test your website in different browsers to ensure consistent appearance

12. Test your website on different monitors and resolutions as well

13. Use easy-to-read fonts

14. Ensure text color doesn’t clash with background

15. Black text on white background is still the standard for readability

16. Optimize your ALT tags

17. Don’t have auto-play sounds or video

18. Web layout and design should be consistent throughout the entire site

19. Make certain the website is easy to scan

20. Don’t abandon proven design principles for the sake of being “creative”

21. Check every piece of your website for errors before publishing

22. Never stop learning about web usability

23. Follow the rules of SEO

Which web design rules would you add to this list? Share your thoughts in the replies.

Check out other posts in the “23 Rules” series:

23 Copywriting Rules to Live By

23 Blogging Rules to Follow

Whether you’re launching a website for your new business or you’re looking to improve your current website, you want to make sure you get it right the first time. A great website gives visitors all the information they need about your business and products, is easy to navigate, and is laid out properly for the search engines.

Which pages should you include on your website?

• Home—Well, duh, of course you’re going to have a home page, but let me give you a few words of advice for getting the most out of your home page. First, don’t ever have an intro page as you’ll instantly lose new visitors. Second, don’t waste your time with a headline that says “Welcome.” Third, keep the navigation simple and the design clean so that new visitors can find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible. And finally, don’t try to tackle every facet of your business on your home page; it will overwhelm and confuse visitors. Keep it simple!
• About Us—The about us section of your website helps give a face and personality to your business. Furthermore, it builds credibility as website visitors can see you’re a real person and a legitimate company they can trust.
• Products and Services—If you offer multiple products and services, break it down into one page for each product or service. Not only does this make it easier for visitors to find the information they’re looking for, but it also allows you to target more keywords for increasing your search engine presence.
• FAQ—I’ve noticed that a lot of website don’t have FAQ sections, and I think it’s a mistake. Here’s why: Your visitors will have questions. Some of them will email you their questions, but many won’t make the effort as they just leave your website. A FAQ section allows you to give them all the information they need, and it can keep you from having to respond to the same questions over and over again.
• Contact—I recommend placing your contact information on each page, but you should also have a main contact page too. You want to make it as easy as possible for visitors to contact you, and you also want to appear as professional and trustworthy as possible.
• Testimonials—This is another page you don’t always see on websites. Look, new visitors to your website aren’t going to trust you right away. Of course, you’re going to claim your products and services are great; ever company does. Testimonials give skeptical visitors an unbiased recommendation of your company from people just like them. Read my post on giving your testimonials more credibility.
• Guarantee—If you offer a guarantee on your products or services, there are probably some restrictions to it. Lay out the fine print of your guarantee on a separate page, and do so in plain language that the average consumer can understand.
• Site Map—The site neatly outlines your website for both visitors and the search engines.

Are there any other essential pages I left of this list? Leave a comment with your tips.

Recently a college student asked me for an interview for a school assignment. I felt like it would also make for a good blog post titled, How To Be a Successful Web Designer. If there is anything that you’d like to add, feel free in the comments below.

- What is your job title and what is the name of the company/organization?

I am a self-employed web designer. My legal business name is Garry Conn Sales.

- What are your responsibilities?

I am responsible for listening to and understanding what customers want their future or current website to look like and then executing what they vision onto the web.

- How long have you been doing this job?

I have been web designer for ten years.

- Briefly, can you let me know how you got to where you are today?

Ten years ago, my father had an idea for a web based business selling aircraft. He needed someone to help him build the website and asked me if I had an interest in learning how. I was interested in learning and taught myself how to do it by reading book and various tutorials on the web.

- What is a typical day like?

A typical day consists of me spending about half an hour checking email. I reply to any new clients or leads generated via the web. From there I spend three and a half hours working on client websites. I then break for lunch and return to check email for about half an hour. The next two hours I work on marketing and promoting my business, in addition to soliciting new business on social networking sites such as FaceBook and Twitter. The end of the day typically includes writing and publishing a helpful article on my company blog. My company blog draws in business from search engines and by the readers who refer their friends and family.

- What skills are required for your job?

In order to be a successful self-employed web designer, you need to be an excellent listener and interpreter of what customers need. From there you need to have the skills to take the customers vision and develop it into a website. The programming skills necessary to be a web designer include: HTML, CSS, PHP, MySql, and Perl. As the web continues to develop, understanding additional programming languages are recommended. Many social networks and search engines have open source API, which allow anyone access into their system architectural backbone. Quite honestly, the more you know, the more you’re able to help your customer.

- What activities do you enjoy doing the most? What are 3 things that you enjoy most about working at your company/organization?

The three things I enjoy most about my career are being able to convert ideas into something live on the web. I enjoy the personal reward. I enjoy the compensation.

- What is the greatest challenge of this job? What are the 3 most challenging aspects of working at your company/organization?

The three greatest challenges of my career are keeping up with the speed of the web and other online companies, keeping up with my continued programming education, and managing my time and keeping customers happy by delivering on time.

- What skills are the most important for you to learn to be successful in this career?

Anyone can be a programmer. Anyone can learn the programming languages needed to be a web designer. The most important element that allows me to be a successful web designer is creativity.

- If I wanted to start in this career area, how would you recommend that I go about it?

The best thing to do is to go to college. However, many people can not afford to go to school. In fact, many people seek web design careers because they need to work from home. If college isn’t an option then I recommend purchasing books at the store. Also, if you can’t afford books, endless information is available on the web. Once you have learned the programming languages, you need to work on promoting your business. Once again, I use the web for this. I use social networks, my blog, and the people who read my blog to gain business.

- What advice would you give to me in regard to my career direction? Or, if you had a chance to do it all over again, what would you have done differently?

I am unsure of what your career direction is. I can say that if I had the chance to start over with my career, the only thing I would do would be to invest more time learning in advanced rather than learning on the spot.

I have been using computers most of my life, and surfing the web for almost as long. One thing that I enjoy is finding old school websites. In most cases, these sites are very easy on the eyes because they don’t focus on styling HTML with CSS, and they provide very resourceful information. Also, most older sites I’ve seen that launched in the early to mid 90’s are simply cool, and even sites from early 2000. They all have a certain look and feel to them that are unlike any other. Maybe I’m just getting old? But I don’t think so.

That said, I ran across a really interesting site called thesitewizard.com. I have to say, this site has a lot of useful information, and the design reminds me of the style I enjoy most… 90’s! I found the site from a link on Eric Brantner’s site, one of the writers here on SeoHosting.com, and I am seriously glad I did.

To begin with, thesitewizard.com offers visitors with a resource of free online wizards. A wizard is referred to as an easy to use and automated program that creates customized CGI scripts, PHP scripts, or JavaScripts for your website. Simply answer a few questions and each wizard will generate the proper code for you to add to your website.

Some of the more popular wizards include the Feedback Form, CSS Navigation Menu Button, Drop-Down Menu, Frame BreakOut, and Article Syndicator.

The fun only starts there. In addition to free online wizards, thesitewizard.com has sections that include multiple articles on getting started with your website, web design, search engines, how to make money online, domains, web hosting, and even blogging. Additional sections include online tutorials on JavaScript, PHP, Perl / CGI, HTML, and CSS.

The entire site earns two thumbs up from me, but as a bonus, there’s one additional feature to the site that makes it even more amazing that it already is, and that’s the RSS feed. While older sites do appeal to me, one thing that does bother me about stagnant sites created in the 90’s is their lack of updates. Clearly not the case with thesitewizard.com.

Subscribing to their RSS feed will gain you up-to-date information, tips, tricks, and tutorials all that will enable you to become a better blogger or webmaster. I personally suggest you make thesitewizard.com one of your regular reads.

What other OLDER sites do you know of that are similar to thesitewizard.com? Share them with everyone else in the comments below.

As a copywriter, I know how frustrating writer’s block can be. It kills your work flow, and it makes you think you’ve lost your touch. But you can work your way through it and surprise yourself if you stick with it.

Web designers face this same struggle. Designer’s block occurs when a designer falls into a rut of building the same uninspired design time and time again or just can’t find the motivation to get the project started.

Thankfully, I’ve come up with a short list of tips that will help you slay web designer’s block the next time it rears its ugly head.

1.    Bust out the pencil and paper—When web designer’s block hits, you could end up staring at a blank computer screen for hours waiting for inspiration to kick in. Or worse, you could easily lose focus and start mindlessly surfing the web. Neither of these is a good option. Instead, take a step back from the computer, and start sketching. Sketch the basics of a bunch of different layouts so you can see what works and what doesn’t. Sketching can be done very quickly, saving you time and getting you back on track to a quality design.

2.    Look at the work of your favorite web designers—If you’re a serious web designer, you probably have a few designers you look up to. When you’re stuck, go take a look at some of their work. What is it they do that you like so much? What things do you think they could do better? This isn’t to say you should just rip off someone else’s web design ideas, but it’s good to get outside of your own head to see what other designers are doing.

3.    Go offline for inspiration—Sometimes, looking at other websites for inspiration just won’t do it for you. That’s okay. You can get inspiration for your website design offline too. Open up a magazine and look at the print ads. Watch TV commercials. This will help you identify color schemes you like, new typography ideas, and other design inspiration that will help add a new flavor to your web design.
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