Netallianz Web Design

Ever been to a website where you just can’t find anything?

Or maybe you surf for 10 minutes and finally find what you’re looking for. But you don’t bookmark the page and when you come back, you just can’t find it again.

It’s frustrating, we know.

Most people will not mind surfing a website that has great content, even if it is visually displeasing.

But if your website has poor navigation it will not be as forgivable, even if you have great content.

Besides slow loading speed, irritating pop-ups and flash animation, POOR NAVIGATION is probably the next most annoying thing for most web surfers.

The Internet is a virtual jungle, and many websites can be large forests in themselves.

The importance of navigation increases exponentially as a website becomes bigger. If you are planning to grow a website over time, it will be important to get the structure right to start.

LOADING SPEED

Research shows that most people will click away if your web page takes more than 8 seconds to load. As text content loads very quickly, the key factors which impact the loading speed of your website include:

- Size of graphic and flash files
- How well it is scripted
- Server quality and location

We would use Flash VERY SPARINGLY in web design unless we are doing interactive marketing.

Flash takes time to load and is NOT GOOD for search engines.

Put yourself in the shoes of your readers. Would you care to look at fancy animation that tells you nothing you want to know? Or would you rather read one full page of solid content that is informative?

Having your web hosting server in your target audience’s country can be beneficial.

Bear in mind that the surfing experience differs from one individual to another, even more so if both persons are in different countries.

You may find it fast to visit a website hosted in Malaysia. But to a surfer in the US, it is an excruciating slow experience.

IF YOU ARE TARGETING THE U.S. MARKET, CONSIDER HOSTING YOUR WEBSITE IN A U.S. DATACENTER.

Ease of Reading

Reading online can be hard on the eyeballs.

Font size, colours, typography and paragraph spacing are all important factors.

Firstly they need to be sympathetic to your audience. If your target group is age 50+, it will be unwise to use Font Size 8 only to make your website look good.

Font size and colors can also have a huge impact in your sales message. You can create a powerful sales letter with the aid of big colour fonts over certain keywords – this give emphasis to your buzz words.

You job is to make your reader’s job easier. One way is to format your content appropriately for web reading, eg. short paragraphs, lots of bullet points, headers etc – see our Copywriting Tips.

Another way is to use supporting GRAPHICS and IMAGES.

Well chosen graphics placed at the right places will help boost your content. They are more enticing than text at first glance and help to clarify your message through visual reinforcement.