The planning phase of building your website is so vital in the success of the end product. Keep your targeted visitor in mind as you plan the design of your website. You want to make the visitor’s experience on your website as easy as possible. That being said, let’s talk about 5 things to consider in planning your website design. This list is not all inclusive, but it’s a start.

1) Help people find things easily

Your navigation system has to be on point. Do not force your visitors to go on an Easter egg hunt to find what they are looking for. Your main navigation should be clear to the visitor the minute they land on your site. Additionally, make sure that the content under each menu item is in line with the label of the menu item. For example, if you have a services tab for an accounting firm, don’t have contact on that page talking about disciplining your children. While that sounds ridiculous, believe it or not people actually do it. Make it as easy and concise as possible for your visitors to get what they want on demand.

2) Where am I?

Don’t make things so complicated that people don’t know where they are on your website. Using some sort of breadcrumb system is very helpful especially if you have a larger site. At the very least, label each page clearly so that the visitor can quickly identify where they are within your site. Going back to the navigational system, make sure your visitor can easily get back to where they came from without searching all over the place. Label, Label, Label and then label again.

3) Scrolling Forever!!!

Make sure your design size is inline with what the average user has in terms of screen resolution. The worst thing in the world is scrolling forever to see the content of a website. Again, make things easier for your visitor. According the w3shools.com, as of January 2009, 57% of web users have a screen resolution greater than 1028×768. That’s a pretty high number. Only 4% still use a screen resolution of 800×600.  So with this information in mind, you should design the size of your website to suit the majority of users. This decreases your chances of people leaving your site because of the dreadful horizontal scrolling.

4) Entry Pages

Entry pages, better known as splash pages serve as somewhat of a welcome page for your visitors. You will usually have a brief message, nice image or even flash presentation to great your visitors. While it’s been known to be a deterrent for web visitors and they may very well leave your site, these types of pages could serve a good purpose. That’s the key, serve a good purpose. If you opt to use an entry page, make sure that it offers some sort of value to your custom. For example, if you are an artist and want to use an entry page to showcase your work, then that might serve a good purpose. Otherwise, if you have an information only website and the user has to take an additional step by clicking on something to get to the meat of your website, then an entry page doesn’t serve a purpose at all.

5) Advertisements

Once again, this is an element of a website that can serve a useful purpose to your visitors. However, content is key. You should use banner ads and advertisements sparingly throughout your site. After, people won’t click on your link just to buy stuff from other people. They visit your site to find answers to a problem they are facing. Also, make sure if you are going to use advertisements and banner ads on your site, that they are relevant to your content. Most people won’t click on an ad about dog food if they are reading your site to learn how to fish.