If you’re designing a brand new website for your business, or you’re redesigning your existing business website, it’s important that you keep the following five tips for Seattle web page design in mind. These tips will ensure you avoid some common web page design issues that may cost you both website visitors and paying customers.

Choose A Color Scheme

Many do-it-yourself or inexperienced website designers fall into the trap of not choosing a color scheme for their website projects. Having a set color scheme for all of the pages of your website is critical to putting forth a professional appearance. When you have every color imaginable on your website, not only can it make your website look amateurish and sometimes even like it’s geared toward children, but it’s also straining on visitor’s eyes, which can cost you potential sales.

Choose one color scheme that includes three to four colors with one of those colors being white. You want to have some white a part of your website because it grounds your design. It also makes your website design easier on the eyes and easier to read.

Don’t Overdo The Graphics

Too many graphics on a website will make it feel cluttered no matter how awesome they are. Keep in mind that most people visit a website because they’re looking for information, not to look for images.

Having a lot of graphics in your web design can also negatively affect your website’s loading time. If your website is a storefront that needs numerous images to display the products you sell, consider using thumbnail size images that are clickable to open into large, zoomable photos.

Watch Loading Times

If your website takes more than two to three seconds to load, you have a problem. Most website visitors are impatient, and they won’t wait for website to load — not in the year 2012 at least.

Check loading times on different computers with different types of internet connections. If your web page loads slowly, you may need to reduce the size of the images and other files, or even choose a different hosting account that will better deliver your website.

Make Navigation Easy

The navigational links of your web page take visitors to the different pages of your website so you want to make those links easy to find. Don’t get too artistic with your navigational links. Most people prefer these links to be in the header section of the website, but you can also put them on the right or left sidebar.

Some website designers do both: add navigation links to the header design and include them in a sidebar. Whichever you decide to do, just make sure your visitors don’t have to scan your web page too long just to find links to your other pages.

Open Outside Links In A New Window

Whenever you include links on your website that point to another website, make sure you set them to open in a new window (or a new tab). Your own navigational links keep people within your website, so you don’t need to open those in a new window.

When you send someone away from your website, whether it’s to an affiliate link, a relevant blog post, or to some other source, you want to make it easy for those visitors to get back to your website. You don’t want to force them to retype your website URL, or have to continually hit the back button just to return your website. If you set your links to open in a new window or tab, your visitors can go straight back to your website easily.

These are just a few Seattle web page design tips that will help you create a website that works well for your business.

Need help designing a new website, or looking to make a few tweaks to your existing website? Contact Seattle SEO Consultant to schedule your free, no obligation, 30 minute web page design Seattle consultation today!