You’ve proudly created your website and kept it updated. Still, your counter doesn’t show very many visits, nor do you seem to get much feedback from your visitors. Puzzled, you submit to more and more search engines and join a few link exchanges.

The reason may not be in your advertising. It may be in the level of user-friendliness of your site. Sure, you may get compliments of your site from family and friends, but is your site functional, and is it pleasant to view? This is an important question, which should be high on the list of your priorities. In this article I’m going to share some tips and tricks that will help you improve the design of your site and make it more user-friendly, hopefully spurring your counter number higher as well!

Functionality

Some studies state that a website whose main portion fits on one monitor view is preferred by visitors. This way they can see almost all content without extensive scrolling. So, check that your site design is tight enough, with no loose space between text, images and links. You do need some spacing, so that your content is easily readable, but for example leaving several line breaks between portions serves no purpose. Tightening your site design also includes getting rid of every image and word that is not absolutely necessary. It will shorten page loading times, too.

Links should be checked at least monthly. Sites with broken links don’t appear very professional or trustworthy, and may appear not up-to-date to visitors. Check especially pages that aren’t linked from your main page, such as information pop-ups. It is much easier to forget to maintain those pages, yet if they are linked from a popular page, count on your visitors seeing them. If you are a business, check pages that are displayed to your customer after (and during) processing the payment. It is surprising how often you find broken links and outdated information in completing checkout at an online merchant.

Your pages should be networked intelligently. Try to be consistent and follow one scheme. If you decide not to crosslink your pages (that is, link individual sections to each other), maintaining links will be easier, but visitors will always need to come to the main page to visit another section of the site. If you crosslink, do it systematically. Don’t just link a few pages to each other, but insert crosslinks on all pages.

Frames are a design element that some hate with a passion and some love with a passion. If you use frames, always remember to make your links open in a new window, so that the visitor won’t be trapped inside your frames.

Colors

I can’t stress the importance of a pleasing color scheme enough. The web is full of colorful backgrounds, but try to stay away from them. Having a multi-colored background will make your text very hard to read, as will a bright solid color. Also, stay away from black background even if it would seem cool. Many colors jump on the eyes from black background, and after a while such a page gets tiring to view. The best solution is to have a light background and darker text on it. You can have a background image on a well-designed website, but make sure that it is light enough for text to show clearly, and that its pattern won’t distract the reader. The size of the background image should be small enough to load fast.

Choose your text color so that it coordinates well with your background color. You don’t have to have pure black text; you can have grey text or brown text, as long as you choose matte enough colors for easy viewing. Bright colors, such as pink, yellow and neon green are extremely hard to read on any background. If you use style sheets on your site, choose the “visited,” “hover” and other font attributes from the same color scheme as your main text color. Don’t take them too far from the palette, or they might distract instead of accent.

Sounds

If you’re like me, you have favorite songs, singers and bands that you would love to share with the rest of the world. Maybe you feel that having some music on your site will enchant the visitors’ experience and put them on a good mood. Don’t do it. Music files annoy many people, and some surf with speakers “off” for this reason. Music files are also large and take time to load, causing problems especially for surfers using modems. Midi files of course are smaller and usually load quite fast, but put yourself in your visitor’s shoes. Would you like to listen to beeping when you sit down for relaxing surfing after a long day at work?

Images and animations

The rule of thumb is to try to keep file sizes as small as possible. You can easily resize photos in any graphics program (Windows Paint can be found in every Windows system). Absolutely do not go to megabytes (“MB”) with your photo sizes, keep them at a maximum of a few hundred kilobytes (“KB”) per image. If you have many photos, consider making them even smaller. Remember that only 5 photos with the size of 200 KB each make one megabyte, and those are only your photos.

If you use web graphics, such as buttons and dividers, choose the GIF format. Web graphics in GIF format are smaller in size than JPEGs, and GIF also allows transparency. Consider using web graphics carefully, though. Are they absolutely necessary for your particular site, do they add something and are they well made? Grainy, distorted graphics in all colors of the rainbow will only make your page look amateurish. If you want to use web graphics, find ones that fit your overall color scheme without jumping on the eye.

You have likely seen animations (animated graphics) offered for free all around the internet. If your site is personal, well-designed and loads fast, sure, why not use a few if you like them (but check file sizes). If your site is a business, never under any circumstances use cheap web animations, not even for the “Contact Us” icon. They will eat away the professional air of your site.

Monitor resolution

If you have a newer computer, your monitor resolution is likely set to 1024x768, or bigger. However, keep in mind that recent polls show that many people still surf with a monitor resolution of 800x600. Design your site to look good with that resolution, and it will also work for the bigger ones. If you design only for the larger resolutions, your visitors surfing with the smaller size have to do a lot of scrolling, not only up and down, but left and right as well.

Java & Flash

There are many exciting scripts and gimmicks that you may feel tempted to use on your site, such as Java scripts and Flash animations. Always think of both your page loading time and your visitors’ experience when deciding whether to use them. Certain scripts may be useful, such as a source code encrypter to protect your HTML code. Others may be fun, but create huge file sizes, like applets that make the water in your photos ripple. It’s best to avoid those if they don’t directly deal with your site content (such as a site dedicated to visual water pleasures).

When you find a script you want to use, consult the site where you found it, and check its functionality. If it is only promised to work in Internet Explorer 6 onwards, think carefully if you want to use it. Many people still surf with older versions of the browser, not to mention whole other browsers.

Flash animations make great visual tutorials, and they are indeed recommended for that purpose. However, if your flash animation consists only of the company logo moving up and down and finally fading to the background, is it worthwhile to clog the page with a large file? Nevertheless, if you decide to use a Flash animation for example on your entry page, always put a visible link to “Skip” beside it.

Think like a visitor

When you do your web design thinking of your visitors, you will rarely go wrong. Many website counters offer detailed information of the visitors, such as the browser used, so utilize that wisely. The style and topic of your site count, too. If you have a Barbie dedication page, a few animations probably won’t make your visitors turn away, but if you have a business site, they might. The most important thing is that as large and varied group of visitors as possible can enjoy their visit and are willing come back again.