So what exactly goes into delivering an website structure? Is it just pictures and a few keywords?
Long gone are the day’s of just having a few pretty pictures and maybe an insertion of a keyword or two that may reflect what your website is about.
Today’s modern website designs have a lot of moving components that are not only necessary, but almost required in order to find favor with the search engines such as Google, Bing, or any other listing site.
So who sets the standards that a solid website structure should follow? The W3C or Word Wide Web Consortium is a community of web developers who have set forth the components that should be in play in any solid website build.
Furthermore, then you have to deal with what Google expects out of your website structure. Failing to not meet the vast majority of their criteria will find you not getting the love and attention you hope for from them when someone is searching for your products or materials.
Whether your website dev team or whomever has put together your website, has utilized some for of a codebase from which to begin the process of building out your website design.
Here at Ark Web Design, we are a centric focused agency that utilizes the power of WordPress to deliver a rock-solid design for your business, school, church, or personal website.
Having a solid codebase to start with provides the stability and usability that you may see on any website you visit across the Internet.
While we are hitting on that, let’s remember that not all websites are created equal in neither their design principles or proper schematic structuring that will deliver a solid performance.
This topic in itself could render a small book. However, we will dive in and take a look at the basics to ensure you have a solid foundation from which to begin thinking about your website design.
Let’s talk about one of the areas that so many diy’ers make when building a website.
Fonts. Font’s or the typography of your website can play a huge role in how well your site performs according to Google. I’ve come across plenty of site’s that utilize a whole fleet of font types on their websites.
Our agency prefers to keep it simple and straightforward. We utilize 2 or 3 at the most and stick to fairly common fonts across the web. In addition, we ensure that any fonts we utilize are loaded locally, thus reducing the amount of https calls they have to make in order for them to render on your site correctly.
Pick 3 to 5 colors max and make sure they have a harmony between visibility and contrast when used between various backgrounds.
Keep in mind that with today’s modern smartphones, people can switch between both light and dark backgrounds on their devices.
Having a website that works well on either environment will get you a lot of love from people that visit with you when they can view your content at the level that is comfortable for them.
There are several websites you can visit to both assist you in determining your color scheme to blending them together to ensure a harmonious use of them.
Okay, if you’re new to even thinking of a website design, I probably just blew your mind. So what is DOM and why is keeping the size of it small?
Think of DOM as the working architecture of your website. More or less like a tree of documents. The smaller you can keep that tree and trimmed up, the better it will grow over time.
When your tree begins to resemble more of an out-of-control bush, this is where your site’s performance begins to take a dump, thus resulting in slower load times and a weaker performance per Google’s standards.
Everyone loves a good, sharp, clean image. The problem begins when people begin uploading images that are 5000 pixels and bigger with huge MB file sizes.
Today’s website structures call for images to be highly optimized and delivered in what is referred to as “Next gen” formats or simply WebP.
So how do you get your images converted to WebP? Very simple. You can download a FREE desktop app called Squoosh.
Sure you can install a plugin on a WordPress based website that will help you convert your images on upload, or even for existing images that are there, but that places a huge task on your server.
It is much better to optimize your images prior to even uploading them into your website structure, offsite so that you do not have to worry about having to add-in any additional plugins that are not needed.
Let’s set the record straight right from the beginning. You simply cannot have a fast performing site if the server you have it on is bogged down because of other site’s that are competing for the same space. This is referred to as “Shared Hosting.” I don’t want to get on a bashing of who’s better, but there are those to simply avoid.
Personally, I prefer to avoid GoDaddy or BlueHost, as well as Hostgator.
If you want to get off to a solid start with your website build, then start with a quality website hosting provider, such as Ark Web Hosting.
Many people are extremely familiar with what is called a “Pagebuilder.” Basically, it’s a tool that allows anyone to build out a website and putting into play the core, essential, pieces that make up a website together without having to do the traditional hand coding as done in years gone by.
Can a pagebuilder help you achieve a solid website structure? Absolutely!
However, you want to make sure you have a solid understanding of how your chosen pagebuilder functions and the impact it may or may not have on your overall performance.
If you’re going to take on the build of your website on your own, then you want to spend a little time doing your research.
So the UI or “User Interface” is basically the way anyone visiting your site navigates around it. When focusing on your website structure, making sure that they can navigate around your website with ease is fundamentally crucial.
What is UX? This refers to the “User Experience” in the dev world.
If a site is pleasing in its layout and ease-of-navigation, this is a huge win across the board. This is particularly important for those who may be selling merchandise on their website.
A happy visitor, is a returning visitor, a returning visitor can quickly become a long-term and loyal repeat customer.
A dash of this and a dash of that just slapped on a page isn’t going to get the job done.
A well, though out, layout as well as the content that will appear across your website will go a long way in helping you to establish credibility of what your site offers to your end users.
If your website looks like it was put together by a 5th grader, the response from a potential visitor will be pretty much the same, which in short means they’re going to exit your website as quick as they landed on it.
Placing the most relevant information at the top of your website, will go a long way in helping people look for your specific content want to keep engaging with you.
If they have to dig for it, or it’s buried in a link-tree, chances are they will bolt. This in our world is referred to as the “Bounce Rate.” Not a good thing to have to endure.
When developing your website structure, when things are easy-to-find and in a clear order, you will begin to find favor with your potential customer.
There are people who think they need to have slider on every page of their website. DON’T DO IT!
One of the biggest killers of speed are sliders, as they run a lot of javascript, which can bog a site down quickly if not properly put together.
Another note, unless your selling products online, please tell me why you think you need them.
While I’m on the topic of things that slide, let’s try and minimize the amount of anything that moves across your website.
The more things that require a script to function, the heavier the impact on your site’s performance is. You don’t want your website structure to suffer from things that can simply be avoided.
I’m sure you do! Who wouldn’t. Come on to the top and click on Emergency Help and let’s talk about what our team can do for your online presence in helping you with building a solid website structure that will take your site into the next generation of designs.
Don’t get beat out by your competitors who are ahead of the game by ensuring they are using a solid website structure.
