Web Site Design

The term web site design confusingly refers to at least three entirely different concepts and I've created a different pages for each definition:

1   Meaning "I want to hire someone to design a web site for me". If that's the case, you may care to visit my article, Finding A Website Designer

2   The craft and possibly the art of using the medium of web site design to create beautiful and captivating sites such as The Beatles.com or Cher.com, both of which, because they have receptive audiences, can make externsive use of Flash to present their wares. Most other web sites can't afford that luxury because in the past:

a    download time was too long

b   surfers realised that the download was actually costing them money and clicked away

c   the flash design was often bombastic rather than helpful &

d   search engines couldn't (and still can't) read Flash text, meaning that all visitors have to be invited in via pay-per-click or hyperlinks passed on by affiliates etc.  

Successful sites tend to use simpler techniques, such as:

• layout
• graphics
• audio (yes, it's Flash but quite subtle and usually unintrusive) & 
• with the mass acceptance of Youtube, some (like this site) are occasionally using video 

I'm reasonably certain that the artists amongst you will find the ideas in my article, 12 Tips for Website Design fairly basic but they are worth paying attention to, because I believe that it would be difficult to have a successful site without (most of) them.

3   Site Architecture is a concept that few web designers seem to consider when designing a website, which is a shame because correctly-designed site architecture makes websites "logical" for search engines and can account (given that the text is interesting) for considerable FREE search engine traffic.

I consider site architecture extremely important and and the ideas on this page are definitely worth incorporating into your website from the outset.