Your visitors will take your site seriously if you use a classy and yet simple design. Read this article to find out more about web design.
If you are not skilled enough to put a website together, you should think about creating a blog instead. You can either register a blog and connect it to your domain name, or choose a web hosting service with a blogging plugin, which is probably best if you get a lot of traffic. You should be able to choose from a certain number of existing designs for your blog and to make a few changes to personalize the different elements of your pages. Make sure you add a helpful menu, a search bar and links to your social networks.
If you decide to create your own website, your best option is to use CSS for your design. This allows you to keep your HTML code as clear as possible. Connect your HTML pages to a single CSS sheet by adding a line of code in the header and make modifications to your CSS sheet to create a similar design for all the pages of your site. CSS is rather easy to learn, and you can easily attribute elements to certain HTML tags. Keep things simple; you only need to divide your pages into different blocks and create a basic color pattern.
Using more complex languages allow you to create better designs. For instance, flash allows you to create interactive elements and all kinds of transparency effects. You could create a very original design, but your site might not be easy to navigate. Remember that your site should be functional, not artistic. Besides, search engine spiders will not be able to read through your flash content and your pages might not get indexed. This is why you should use a simple language, such as HTML with a CSS sheet to create your design instead of writing a more complex code. Ask yourself what the goal of your site is; you should probably stay away from flash designs and other complex languages unless you need to show your skills as a webmaster.
Create a design that makes certain elements of your site stand out. You could for instance draw attention to a link to your latest product page, a banner advertising a discount, social networks buttons or a subscription form for your newsletter. The best way to draw attention to an element is to place it on every page of your site and use a simple color patterns to make it stand out. You should avoid using images for your background or header since search engine spiders will not be able to analyze these elements properly and your design might become too busy. You should make frequent changes to your design so that your visitors notice the new elements and click on them.
Use these tips to design a simple but efficient website. Test your site extensively under different internet browsers before you launch it.