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Website hosting can cost a lot of money so it is imperative that your website effectively communicates its message to those that find it. Website design has come a long way from the days of those simple pages of the early days and can include pictures, videos, music, Flash animations, games and many other bits and pieces. But with all these options it remains important to keep your website user-friendly.

 

A website should be uncluttered and not too busy. Too many extra bits and pieces can turn into chaos making a website hard to navigate. Keep things simple and help users to find the information that they want quickly. An organised website can still be visually appealing without giving the user a headache and wasting your monthly website hosting fees.

 

Even on an organised website you can help users find the right information. Headings direct people to the most important information and make it easy to skim the information to find the relevant information. A useful tip is to place all important information near the top of the pages and placing less important information below that in order of relevance or importance.

 

Links are important for any website so make sure that users can see and navigate them. Links should stand out by being a different colour and underlined. The default colour is blue, but can be changed to suit the design of the website where necessary. If you are using pictures as links make sure that users are aware that those pictures are links. More links mean you need more space for website hosting so you want to make sure that a user can get to all the information your are paying for storing.

 

There are many other tips that need to be kept in mind for a user-friendly website such as:

• Make sure your site loads quickly or users will grow bored and move away.
• Use space to group items logically.
• Text should be simple and free of jargon to make finding information easier.
• Rather go for many pages than long pages that require excessive scrolling.
• Create a site map to help users find their way.
• Ensure that your website works on different browsers, specifically Firefox and Internet Explorer.
• Keep the design consistent throughout so as not to confuse users when they are navigating your site.

Making and maintaining a user-friendly website is a difficult task. These are just some general tips for keeping your website user-friendly but every website will have its own specific needs. That is why many people prefer to hire the services of a professional web design company to do it for them and to ensure that their website hosting fees are not wasted.

 

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