When designing a website, there are a few items you need to consider, before you rush ahead and start building your website. The first item you need to address is; what is your website about? Is it for a commercial or a personal purpose? You must make sure your website follows a theme, allows users to gain information, and know instantly what your website is detailing.

Once you know what your website will be about, it’s then time to research. Research as many websites as you can looking for design techniques you like, content ideas you like, and also points you don’t like. Especially look at websites related to the field yours will be in; therefore you can size up the competition and see the ideas they had on how to present their information.

Planning is the most important aspect when it comes to any type of design work or production. Draw out a sitemap of every page that will be on your website. Do some design sample layout ideas, and content placement ideas etc. This way you are reducing the probability of coming across problems when you begin designing. Because you already have a sitemap planned, you will reduce time, and decrease opportunity for error.

Once the design process has begun, one main design feature you will need, is tables. Some websites only use one table to load all their content in. However this can often be a bad idea; because when users load your webpage, if it takes a while to load, and all your content is in one table, the webpage will show nothing for a while until it has all loaded. This can discourage users by having a long wait, and some will often leave the site. Try to use many tables to display your content, and have different content in different tables. Even if some tables take longer than others to load, at least your users will be able to see some of the content displayed, and are less likely to leave.

From having the obvious design features, such as a strong brand identity, good structure, and decent content, another feature you must adhere to; is to have a user friendly site, for it to be easily readable, and to have a simple navigation system. This allows your users to easily and simply navigate their way around your website.

Lastly I need to address the importance of Meta tags. The site description and keyword Meta tags are the most important factors in getting recognised by search engines, if successful it will bring your site more hits and raise the standard of your website. When writing the site description, keep it clear, concise and to the point. When thinking of key words, just use words that relate to your brand, and to think of the keywords you think people will search when typing in on a search engine.