Parkside Web Development

The best websites are constantly improving. These sites build on their successes and rebuild the less effective areas. So, when considering a redesign of your existing site, you should take an inventory. Create a list of the things that your site does well and the things that it does less well. Some things to consider are navigation, graphics and text copy.

When evaluating your websites navigation, look to see if the navigation stays the same on every page. This is important because if your users have to search for the next link on every page, they’ll soon get tired and leave. You’ll also want to evaluate your links and ensure that each one is titled in an obvious manner. Try to anticipate the information that your users will want to get, then make sure you have clearly labeled navigation that goes there.

Quality of graphic elements can be personal preference to some extent; however, a poorly designed site will stand out and almost everyone will agree that it’s ugly. Things you may want to look for would be excessive animation, clashing colors, busy layout, or many font styles.

Your site should use plenty of descriptive text. This is important both to inform your visitors and to give search engines some content to index. Remember that content contained in images or flash movies isn’t accessible to search engines. This is important because people will only find you by searching for words that are on your site and that can be read by search engines.

After reviewing your website you should have a good idea if you need a redesign. Remember that you need to look at your site with unbiased eyes. Forget it’s your site and evaluate it on it’s own merits.