What are the important elements of a Website?

The collection of web pages on the World Wide Web that is accessed by its own Internet address is called a Web site. Thus, a Web site is a collection of related Web pages. Each Web site contains a home page and contains other additional pages. Each Web site is owned and updated by an individual, company, or an organization. Web is a dynamically moving and changing entity, today web sites generally change on a daily or even hourly basis.

Elements of Website, are as follows

1. Good Visual Design

A site must be appealing and if required, must be professional. Your site reflects your company, your products and your services.

2. Screen Resolution

As we know that websites are displayed on the screen of electronic devices and every device has different resolution. Today, the average web surfer uses a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. However, you need to make sure that your website looks good at this setting and must work nicely for other resolutions too.

3. Colour Scheme and Text Formatting

To make the website presentable appropriate colour scheme must be used. Always use 2 or 3 primary colours that reflect the purpose of your site. Add contrast colours in your site, which helps the user to easily read the text. Use fonts that are easy to read and available on most of today’s computer systems. Keep the standard font size for paragraph text i.e. between 10 and 12 pts.

4. Insert Meaningful Graphics

Graphics are important, as they provide the site a legible and interactive appearance. However, don’t use too many images and that too with a high resolution. First, whenever user will try to download the website it will take too long to download and secondly, too many images with less text, lose the interest of the customer.

5. Simplicity

Keep your site simple and allow for adequate white space. Don’t overload your site with complex design, animation, or other effects to impress your viewers.

6. Relevant Content

Include relevant information along with style, to help the visitors to make a decision.

7. Navigation

Keep your site simple and well organized. Don’t use fancy Navigation Bar in your website. Place all the menu items at the top of your site, or above the fold on either side. Include Site Maps in your site to reduce the number of top level navigation items. Every component of your site should work quickly and correctly. Broken or poorly constructed components will frustrate the visitors. All the hyperlinks, contact forms, should be placed appropriately.

8. Minimal Scroll

While surfing the sites for information users do not like scrolling the page instead they need to see all the information on one screen. Even the Search Engines will reward you for this behaviour.

9. Consistent Layout

Always use a consistent layout in the whole website which will help you to retain the theme of the site.

10. Browser Compatibility

Today many open source browsers are being used by the users. Create a website which should be platform independent.