To have a good web design, it’s not always the looks and features that are important. Designers need to think it through on how to effectively design a good web page. Effective means a lot of things and here are some things that most designers overlook.

Web Design tips that you shouldn’t overlook

Fast loading – Always keep in mind, not everyone has a super fast Internet connection and not a lot of people really like over exploded designs that take a lot of time to load. Always, design a web page that is fast and efficient. Use little to none background images and optimize your CSS. It should at least load 15 seconds or less.

Simple Navigation – This is easily one of the least though about especially for a beginner. It’s really nice to have all those chromed-uber-Photoshoped buttons or those cool Flash animated navigations, but then again people won’t notice it much. Most people would just hover and click and not really care how it looks. Most people even like simple looking buttons. Also remember to put all your important links where a visitor would most likely look first (it’s usually at the top left). Try to link only those which are important but also try to link those links which you think a visitor might be interested in.

Screen Resolution – This is pretty important. You should also consider resolution aesthetics so that your design would fit in most (if not all) screen resolutions. Again, optimize your CSS and use percentages at most and not absolutes.

Browser Compatibility – Test your designs on different browsers. It should be compatible to most (if not all) browsers. As you know, browsers have different ways of displaying web content, it could look good on your IE but when loaded in Chrome it’d look messy. Common browsers that people use today are Firefox, IE, Opera, Chrome and Safari. There’s also Lunascape, it’s not a new browser but it uses different browser engines which means it’s a good browser to test your webpages – think of it like a 3 in one browser.

Readable Fonts – Yes, it’s the most basic thing that most people overlook. Using light colors as texts like green, gray, purple… it’s a pain to read. Even if the theme is high contrast, not a lot of people likes or used this kind of style. Just use regular ones like Verdana or Arial.

One of the reasons why some affordable web design fail or even those that were made by top web design firm is because they fail to put the proper things in their top priority list. Web design tips should be concerned not on what the web designer wants but more on what should be given most importance in terms of necessity.

Make sure that your site loads fast. Nobody wants to wait especially if they can find a faster service elsewhere. With our age and time, speed is one of the key components to succeed. Without speed, you will be left behind by your competitors. That is why it is important that your web design is structured to load fast.

Make sure that your navigation is easy to follow. Do not make your site’s navigation a detective story for your users. The easier to follow the navigation steps in your site, the better.

Make sure that your resolution is compatible to most computers. What good is a web design if it can’t be appreciated because it does not show well in some screen resolution? Consider other resolutions so that your site would look well no matter what kind of screen resolution your user has.

Make sure that your website is compatible with all the browsers available. There are already a lot of web browsers available. The same with screen resolution, there are some sites that may not register well in a certain browser. Thus, it is imperative to make your site as browser-friendly as possible.

Make sure that your fonts can be understood and look to mean business. Fonts carry the content of your site. They are the ones that relay the information. That is why your choice of font is very crucial. Stick to fonts that can easily be read and can look formal.

Make sure that your site is not crowded with so many images. Images make your site heavy, not to mention it also make your site look unorganized. Though images are very good techniques in relaying information fast, do not crowd your site with too many of these images. Or else, doing so might just defeat the purpose of images in websites.

Make sure that your site has spaces to breathe. Along with not crowding your site with too many images, it is also a must that you try to include as much clear space as possible. This tends to give your site a neat effect compared to overly cluttered websites that almost do not have spaces anymore.

Make sure that you get to fix all broken links. Links are important for navigation and spider crawling purposes. That is why if you a link or more is not working well, it hurts your site two ways: first, it creates a bad impression among your viewers giving them an idea that your site does not function well; and, second, it fails one of your SEO strategies.