- What Type of Site Do You Want to Build?
- Learning from Sites You Go To
- Website Goals
- Organizing Websites
- Best Practices of Website Organization
Best Practices of Website Organization
There are some general rules, or best practices, for organizing a website that you should keep in mind as you organize your site. These rules are not the law but will help you avoid common mistakes.
Keep Your Website Simple
Above all, especially when beginning the planning for your website, keep things as simple as possible. Try not to make your website too complicated right away. You can always add things later. A simple website allows your message to be clearly understood and your goals easily attained (see Figure 3.8). If you get too complex too quickly, your visitors will get lost.
Figure 3.8 flickr is a clean and well-organized website.
Keep Your Website Consistent
Try to keep your website a unified whole. This makes it look more professional and helps the transmission of your message. A website filled with inconsistent pages makes for a mess that drives visitors away. A site that is unified and consistent from page to page conveys the fact that the creator of the website has invested a great deal of time to present a well-crafted and well-conceived site whose purpose is for your enjoyment. Keep your pages uncluttered and organized. Use consistent structures on pages (such as headers and footers) so your visitors can easily tell what your website is about and not get lost in a bunch of unorganized text and links.
Keep Your Website Easy to Maintain
Well-organized, well-designed websites are easy to maintain and improve. If your site is a disorganized haphazard mess, it causes you more work in the long run. And if you have a complex site, you need a lot of time to make sure all the parts work together. Starting simple and trying to maintain that simplicity can be helpful in the long run.