There are a few but important tips to keep in mind when designing a website layout.  Using these simple tips will help with having a great looking and professional looking website.  Also, another reason for having a great looking website is to improve the time a person stays on your website.  People can come and go within seconds of getting to your website so it is important to keep people at your site as long as possible.

The first rule of thumb is to keep it simple.  You will want a clean and easy navigation between pages.  The buttons for the pages should be easily viewable and provide a cohesive flow between pages.  Don’t use any complex navigational scripts.  Also, don’t use large images.  Large images will take a long time to load since most of America still doesn’t have access to high speed internet.  There are many websites out there that have templates that you can download for your website. 

Something is often overlooked in websites is the font itself.  You will want a font size that is about 11 to 12 pixels so that your readers don’t have a hard time reading your content.  Also, choose a font that is easily readable and professional looking such as Arial, Verdana or Helvetica.  Avoid using any fancy fonts as it may be distracting and very unprofessional if it is for a website that is geared toward business.

Another important design feature is to design your website layout by keeping in mind your webpage dimensions.  Many people out there use different size monitors so it is important to design a page for the masses.  Not everybody has 30 inch wide screen displays at home so it is important to keep your dimensions in check.  Most professional websites design their pages with a 600x600 pixel dimension.   This size ensures that scrolling horizontally is minimized.  Having a vertical scroll bar is not as much of a problem but you should keep this to a minimum as well. 

A vital aspect to any website is to have links that work.  Broken links will only add to the frustration of the user and will likely cause your customer to leave the webpage.  Make sure all your links are working and go to where they are supposed to go.  Nothing says unprofessional than broken links.

Lastly, you should minimize the length of time for a page to load.  Make sure that the image sizes are in check.  As mentioned earlier, most of America is still using a dial up modem instead of high speed internet.  So load times will be excruciatingly long for most users.  Flash elements will add to the load time of webpages.  It is often a delicate balance to design a great looking website with nice graphic and typographical elements and still keep a fast loading website.