How wide should i design my website

Lots of high-quality images might look great, but they can slow your site down. Where to find professional images for your website. Free image editors we recommend So, now you know what you want to add to your website, there are two things you need to think about: positioning and optimization. Optimization, meanwhile, is the process of tweaking content to help it rank higher on search engines, such as Google or Bing. In simple terms, this means that website users will scan a page in a shape that resembles an F.

This picture is taken from a Neilson study , where the group tracked the eye movement of readers on a web page. This is why navigation bars on websites are nearly always displayed across the top of the page.

Search Engine Optimization SEO, for short is when you make changes to your website in order to increase the quality or quantity of people landing on your pages. Think of SEO like this:. If you own a racing car, the aim is to win a race. It may look the same, but you now stand a far better chance of winning the race!

SEO is much the same. Images are typically quite large files. Source: Unbounce. So, what can you do about it? Why image compression , of course! There are tons of free online compression tools that will reduce the number of pixels in your images.

Alongside compressing images, another important part of SEO is to tell Google what an image represents. This is a big one. Most templates these days are mobile responsive, and will automatically reformat your content to fit various screen sizes. It is, however, worth thinking about if you want anything to appear differently to mobile users. Internal linking is where you direct users to another webpage on your site via a hyperlink.

This is generally done when you mention something that you have related content on. This tells Google and co. By writing in-depth about a subject and internally linking to more content related to it, you are showing search engines that you really know your stuff, which should in turn help you rank highly.

Website Architecture. Anchor Text. Ask your family, friends, and colleagues to test the site in preview mode all website builders and ecommerce platforms will have this , and see if they find anything wrong. You can even get members of the general public to test it too, and to offer their thoughts. For more details, you can find loads of UX user experience checklists online.

Always take the time to properly check your website before it goes live — first impressions count. You can kick back and relax now, right? Well, not quite. Without meaning to sound like a pushy personal trainer, you have to keep working and improving! Most platforms have their own built-in analytics, or at least have an app you can install.

Alternatively, you can connect your site to Google Analytics, so you can track things like:. These stats, known as behavioral metrics, help give you an idea of which web pages need some attention. They also help you spot where you need to improve your SEO. If you just sit back and admire your work, others will overtake you.

And… there you have it. Bookmark this guide as your website design manual. Many website builders offer free plans. It really comes down to three things: your skill level, your budget, and your requirements.

From our independent research, Wix came out as the best DIY website builder to use. Meanwhile, Shopify is the best platform for full-blown ecommerce sites, with a stunning range of themes and features.

Website builders are the simpler, beginner-friendly option. From simple things like selling products, to more advanced concepts like lead generation, anyone can make money online these days. To read about the different ways you can turn a profit, see our guide on the 8 ways to make money from a website. Want to know how to build a website? Summary: how to design a website. It sounds like such a simple point to make, but before you jump head-first into designing your website, you first need to be clear on its purpose.

Micro-interactions Micro-interactions are small animations which takes place when a user engages with a website. What about WordPress? Active Oldest Votes. Screen Size Higher screen resolutions ultimately make everything look smaller. Readability A blog, news site or any other type of content-drive site then take readability into consideration. Improve this answer.

Jonta 1 1 silver badge 5 5 bronze badges. Not a disagreement with the stats.. However, as of the majority of web users are now using mobile devices to access web content. I second you on that, px wide is just fine for a non-mobile-optimized site. I thought when OP asked "What width should I design for when creating a website? The real question is not "which document size? Don't stop your design at px, stop your content at px.

You should use a grid within your design, it's not required, but it'd help you in several things: Have the same column width between each section, same gap It'd be way easier to convert it to css if you plan to use a grid system You can install a Photoshop plugin to generate grid or download some. Thanks Stephane, i installed the grids plug in I am trying to learn UI designing.

Thanks for the info — Aby. If you work across UI, don't forget to design "states", for instance all buttons states disabled, hover, normal, active Webmasters will see significantly increased crawling by Smartphone Googlebot, and the snippets in the results, as well as the content on the Google cache pages, will be from the mobile version of the pages. Google Nov Google offers the following tips to check your site is prepared for the mobile first index, but essentially, if you are using a responsive web design template for your site you should have minimal issues with this change:.

Make sure the mobile version of the site also has the important, high-quality content. This includes text, images with alt-attributes , and videos — in the usual crawlable and indexable formats. Structured data is important for indexing and search features that users love: it should be both on the mobile and desktop version of the site. Ensure URLs within the structured data are updated to the mobile version on the mobile pages.

Metadata should be present on both versions of the site. It provides hints about the content on a page for indexing and serving. For example, make sure that titles and meta descriptions are equivalent across both versions of all pages on the site. No changes are necessary for interlinking with separate mobile URLs m. Check hreflang links on separate mobile URLs. Ensure the servers hosting the site have enough capacity to handle potentially increased crawl rate.

As the first criterion implies, scrolling is always a key consideration. So, when you design, you should consider how much users can see if they scroll only a screen full or two. Any more than five screens long could be an indication to you that there might be too much copy on the page. Of course, this is balanced with the view that some articles are meant to be in-depth information pieces and users would expect to wait a little longer to view some page content and content types.

Both scrolling and initial visibility obviously depend on screen size : Bigger screens show more content above the fold and require less scrolling. As many things to do with Google optimisation — having a mobile-friendly website is more or less to ensure you KEEP the traffic you are already getting , not necessarily give you any more free traffic from Google.

The quality bar is being raised — again — by Google, and its users — and if you want to compete in ever more competitive organic SERPs this is yet another hurdle for small businesses to get over.

Then test it, test it, test it. Look at every single page. It's tedious, but you'll be so surprised at that thing you thought would jus work on a mobile-sized screen looks terrible. Responsive means that it responds to a screen up to commercial maximum.

You might want to reread some of the information that people took the time to give you. A responsive website will be designed for any width of any device.. This is why it frustrates me that people got the terminology all butchered forcing 'fluid' to be a terminology.

In my eyes px is a good width for something of a boxed design, and then you can make it responsive to adjust to all the smaller resolutions. So if you do a responsive query around then then then you should cover pretty much all your bounds, maybe add a couple break points in-between if you need to bridge a gap with a logo or text or something.

The comment by Marjan Venema on the original question is the most correct. I always have to resize a Wikipedia window for that reason. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. How wide should a responsive-designed website be? Ask Question.

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