It's not as easy as it sounds.
There are many widely available website design tools on the market. Many of these pride themselves on being able to produce a website quickly and easily. But, these are mostly marketed to inexperienced developers who often make mistakes in their design and don't know to avoid them.
We measure our success by focusing on a few key rules for each website we build:
- Get a good domain name. Make sure it is easy to remember, easy to spell and reflects on the goals for your website.
- Keep your site layout clutter-free. Having a lot of fancy graphics and sidebars can make your site look impressive, but chances are you are only confusing your viewers by providing too much information all at once. Stay tidy and emphasize the important parts.
- Make important information easy to find and read. Viewers don't want to spend a long time hunting to find what they came there for. Put your main links in a highly visible place and keep content relevant to the section it's in. The faster your viewers can find what they need, the happier they will be.
- Keep your source code clean and well documented. This has to be done from the ground up. Having organized, consistent and documented source code will pay dividends in the long run, especially if you later need to fix a problem or make changes to your site.
- Test your design in mulitple browsers. Both Internet Explorer and Firefox are widely used and both are freely available. Don't design your site to look good in only one browser or you'll alienate a good portion of your audience.
- Be compliant with web standards. Standards are there for a reason, and not obeying them will only produce problems. To maximize the consistency of your website across multiple platforms, ensure your code is up to par.
- Keep your site fresh. A website that doesn't update content or appearance for a long time will quickly lose visitors. Nobody wants to return to a site only to find that it's exactly the same as it was months ago.