1. Include your logo in all pages. Position it at the top left of each page.

2. Complement your logo with a tagline or catchy sentence that summarizes your business purpose. For example "Always low prices" is the tagline for Wal-Mart.

3. Create a favicon. A favicon is that small graphic that appears next to the URL in the address bar of Internet Explorer.

4. Have a consistent look and feel in all your pages. Use a color scheme and layout that are clearly recognized across your site.

5. Have an About Us section, that includes all relevant information about you and your business.

6. Include a copyright statement at the bottom of each page.

TIPS ON WEBSITE NAVIGATION

7. Design your pages to load in less than 10 seconds (50Kb maximum size, including pictures). 8. Group your navigational options in relevant categories. 9. Use common names for your menu options: Home, About Us, Contact Us, Help, Products. Avoid "clever" or "trendy" alternatives.

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10. If your site uses Flash, also provide an HTML version for users who prefer a less fancy, faster site.

11. Provide simple text navigation links at the bottom of long pages, so users don't need to scroll back up.

12. Link your logo to your homepage, except in the homepage itself. Put a link to your homepage on all your internal pages.

13. Display a "breadcrumb trail"; it is basically the path from the homepage to the page where you are. A breadcrumb trail looks like this: Home > Section > Sub-Section > Page, and it greatly facilitates navigation.

14. If your site is too big, provide Search capabilities. Include a search box in the upper right corner of your homepage, and a link to a Search page from your interior pages. Freefind offers a free and powerful search engine for your site.

15. Set your search box to search your site, not to search the web.

16. Create a custom error page that displays a simple site map with links to the main sections of your site. That way, you will not lose visitors that have followed a bad link to your site or who have misspelled your URL.

Tips On Layout And Content Presentation

17. Save the top of your page for your most important content. Remember: good content must flow to the top.

18. Lay out your page with tables, and set the width in percentage terms instead of a fixed number of pixels. That way, your page will always fit the screen, without the need to scroll horizontally.

19. Optimize your page to be viewed best at 800x600 (the most popular resolution at the time of this writing).

20. Use high contrast for the body of your page: black text on white background, or white text on black background work best.

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21. Don't use too many different fonts in one page. Also, avoid using small serif fonts (like Times Roman): they are difficult to read from a computer screen. Verdana is the most web-friendly font, since it is wide, clean and easy to read.

22. Avoid long blocks of text. Use tools that facilitate scanability, like bullets, subtitles, highlighted keywords, hyperlinks, etc.

23. Avoid amateurish features like: numeric page counters, wholesale use of exclamation points, all caps, center justified blocks of text, excessive animated gifs, busy backgrounds, etc.

24. Don't use pop-up windows. They distract your visitors and are immediately dismissed as ads.

25. Test your site so that it looks good in different browsers and resolutions.

About The Author
Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest, a collection of web design and Internet marketing tips and resources to help you design a better website and market it more effectively.

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