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3,608 Points
Posted 6 years ago
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3,608 Points
Color Scheme
- Choose up to 3 colors that work well with your logo, theme, etc
- As needed, use different shades of those same colors for tasteful variation
- Maximize your aesthetic influence to captivate your audience and drive sales
- Taken for granted, poor choices may cause your visitors to lose interest
- Keep it consistent and pleasing to the eye throughout your site
Background
- Use neutral colors and/or subtle patterns by today’s standard
- When matching your color scheme, be sure not to distract from content
- Tiled images are a bust with the exception of seamless patterns
- Keep it consistent with the general styling of your design
Page Headers (and/or general header area)
- Likely to convey the overall quality of your site
- Typically consist of wide images by today’s standard
- May alternatively include other eye-catching graphics
- Include your phone, business hours, and/or locale for convenience
- Are a pinnacle from which to place your logo on display
Logos
- Are simplistic by today’s standards
- A must for being recognized above your competitors
- May include concept graphics, or be implemented as text only
- Done well, are effective even without taglines
- Should make a lasting impression!
Call to Action
- Easily implemented with buttons
- The “X” Factor in customer conversions
- To be notably displayed on your homepage, and as otherwise necessary
- Encourage visitors to shop, download, subscribe, contact, etc
- Focus: What should be your visitor’s next action?
Connectivity
- Blog to provide important updates
- Guestbooks enable visitors to post positive feedback
- Contact buttons and forms provide a quick messaging option
- Add a “Subscribe” option for your newsletter or video channel
- Now throw in some social media icons... Boom!
Domain Names
- Should never be disclosed until secured through a registrar
- Correlate with the name of the individual or entity to which a site’s devoted
- The fewer characters used, the better for marketing purposes
- Afford professional email address personalization
Building Trust
- Use reputable payment integrations and ecommerce systems only
- Provide information about yourself, your organization, mission, and/or locale
- Present your credentials, experience, networks and/or trade associations, etc
- Getting good reviews?.. Publish comments from your satisfied customers
- Got VIP’s?.. Sometimes (especially locally) it’s about “who” you know!
Layout
- Create well-balanced pages with highly visible navigation
- All pages should be “properly centered” and the “same width” throughout
- Consistent content alignment prevents jumpy page shifts during navigation
- Limit page widths to common screen resolutions - no horizontal scrolling!
Content (in general)
- Focus: Minimalist design by today’s standard
- Please avoid lengthy pages to appease the short attention spans
- As needed, compress and/or resize images to prevent slow page loads
- Text color should contrast with its background for the visually impaired
- Limit off-topic content and advertisements to sidebars and footers
- Minimize the need to navigate for higher customer conversion
Content (specific to index page)
- Honestly, is your homepage “really” interesting?
- Try to grab their attention as soon as your homepage has loaded!
- Pictures are worth a thousand words, especially when added to image sliders
- Challenge: Clarify your product or service onscreen (before having to scroll)
- Written content focus: What makes you stand out from the crowd?
SEO
- A critical element to your success online!
- Keeping pages organized and uncluttered with extras is a necessity
- Use (actual) page names and inviting descriptions under “Page Settings”
- 250+ word minimum on homepage, 100+ word minimum per page thereafter
- Ensure that written content is relevant to each page to boost keyword density
- And tricking the search engines?.. Don’t even think about it!
Make no mistake, this is by no means an all-inclusive list of solutions to our design issues. It is simply a way to highlight some things that may be missed during the design process. But more importantly, it’s a way to get us to really think about how to design our websites more effectively, rather than simply adding text, images, and other content to pages, as there are inherent differences between the two.
By the way, I’m no expert so don’t be fooled (LOL)! Please let me know what I missed. And if you have any ideas, then I look forward to you contributing to the list.
SiteBuilderPros
Thanks in advance if you

Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
A better approach to starting your site is to begin with the logo. If you can't come up with a good logo on your own, it's probably worth hiring a pro to design one for you. Choose a logo as described above, then use a tool like the one on this site: http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/ as a resource for selecting a color scheme for the rest of your site.
I hope this helps!
Mike
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3,608 Points
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
http://www.homestead.com/blog/07/2013...
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
If you struggle with some of the more technical things, you may want to take a look at this SEO ebook. https://community.homestead.com/homes... It does sell for $50 but will be the best $50 a novice webmaster can spend when it comes to marketing a site.
Anyone who wants the ebook can reply here and I can contact you personally for the details.
Thanks!
Mike
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3,608 Points
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3,608 Points
Thanks so much!
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3,608 Points
Drew N, Alum
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262,816 Points
Thanks
Drew
Drew N, Alum
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262,816 Points
So a little more I thought about. When naming and describing pages, don't forget to actually name the page file something appropriate to the page content.
Also short domain names are better in some ways, but slipping keywords into the domain name can be a great help.
ex: icansellyouipadscheaperthaneveryoneelseontheplanetnomatterwhatyouread.com is not a good domain name, even if it is true. A better name would be cheapipads.com, or something similar.
Thanks
Drew
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306 Points
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82 Points
Needing Help.
I am building my first website to market and display unique jewelry. I am having a struggle choosing layout. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to find what i am looking for? There is no option specifically for jewelry that I see
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
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134 Points
Recipe template?.
I'm just setting up my website and I need a great template for recipe's and for archiving those recipes, along with a search engine so that recipe's can be searched by ingredient. Any idea how I can go about finding that?
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
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134 Points
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
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90 Points
You wrote recipes once, and recipe's twice. Obviously this is a word that will be appearing on your site frequently; best to make a habit of getting it right.
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82 Points
What page can I use for Catering Services?.
Im looking for a Catering sercive page that can help me out on my website, and give me an idea of it.
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
Mike
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122 Points
Trying to build website for aviation. I work on and fly airplanes. I have a shop I use to do inspections. Any idea for template.
Need help
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82 Points
Confused what to pick.
I sell foreign cd's and dvd's by mail order, I don't know what template would suit this purpose
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
Mike
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94 Points
I have a water company but I don't see any water designs. How do I go about getting a water design? Thanks.
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
Mike
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82 Points
i am new to all this and need help with it all.
i rely need help in getting started with all this can some one give me some ideas
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292 Points
Getting Traffic.
I signed up for the traffic booster on October 12th (approx. 5 wks ago) and have not seen ANY traffic to my site. I've done as much as I know how according to Google Webmaster Tools but I keep thinking I'm missing something- HTML markups or other pertinent steps. Would like some guidance and insight, please?
Drew N, Alum
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262,816 Points
If the content is copy/pasted from a source, you want to personalize it significantly. Many people used sourced material. Search engines see that and then penalize you for not being original.
Hope this helps improve things, but keep in mind that building page rank is very difficult and can take many months, depending on your location, business type, and the competition and what they are doing.
Drew
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94 Points
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
If you would like to speak with one of our consultants, you can reply here and I'll arrange for someone to call you.
Mike
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82 Points
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
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82 Points
Building My First Website For My Automotive Detailing Company Could Use Some Tips From Anyone PLus Im Using A Mac If It Matters Help Anybody.
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102 Points
new templetes.
hello
I am reconstructed one of my sites and building another. I was told that once my system was upgraded I would have many choices for templetes to use to build my site however when I click on it to change it there are only 6 choices for animals can you help Mary 406-581-5486
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
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82 Points
Hello. Which design would be best suited for building a corporate website..
I am just looking to build a site specifically for CPA network affiliates to get information on who I am and what I do. I will only be sending them here for the approval process. It will basically be used as a resume in a sense. I would like it to be a corporate built site for professional look. Thank you.
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92 Points
setting up my online buisness.
how to create a good domain? how to get traffic? how to put my pop ups on other sites? how to make the money? how to transfer it into my bank.
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
Let us know if you would like to speak to an advisor and we'll arrange for someone to call you.
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92 Points
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82 Points
we r gonna be displaying works of art by various artists and would like to know how to make the most effective layout.
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82 Points
how do i start building my web site.
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82 Points
I make and sell jewelry. I want to know the best template to compliment my business. Please help..
In your catagory list you only list retailer that would fit my business. We make and sell wire wrapped and hand beaded jewelry. What templates would best suit my business?
Mike F., Alum
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184,678 Points
Mike
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82 Points
good web page for singer entertainer with different venues.
good setup with guest page and upcomming events
Drew N, Alum
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262,816 Points
It looks like you are just getting started. Give this topic a read. It will help you get going.
Drew
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Here is a web site design checklist : http://www.homesteadconnection.com/We...
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