Good website design can make or break your company. Customers that are unable to use your website's features or understand your company's services, products or intentions will look elsewhere to fill their needs. Creating a good website is not difficult, fortunately, and following the guidelines below will help you make the best website possible.

1. Keep It Simple and Easy to Read

Despite your desires to be creative, the best websites are those that are easy to use and read. Keep your color scheme limited to using basic colors and use an easily readable, black font for the text. Do not overload each page with links, multiple photos or too much information. Putting too much on each page will distract customers from the skills your website is intended to show.

2. Be Clear

Clearly stating your services, product and what you can or cannot do is essential. The purpose of a website is to draw in potential customers. A website that does not clearly convey your company will not bring you customers or sales.

You should also clearly state your experience and education that makes you the best candidate for the services or product that you provide. If your business is for custom designed dresses, identify that you are an experienced seamstress by listing the classes, certifications and your number of years in the business. This will be a great way to show off your skills and draw in customers.

3. Do What You Claim

If your business is intended to provide a streamlined service or consult, make those tasks easy and doable on your site. If you are selling a product online, make the ordering process as easily understandable and usable as possible. If you are selling your consulting services, make contacting you easy. Basically, if you are claiming to be an expert, fulfill a need or provide advice, enable your website to do those things. Otherwise, it will look as though you are not telling the truth or are able to fulfill your commitments.

4. Don't Be Too Personal

Many websites make the mistake of being too personal with the information they provide. While you want to show off your skills and availability on your site, you do not want to share too much about yourself, your business or other private things to the public at large. Your website represents you and your business, not your personal life. Put only those things that relate to your business on the site and do not link or include private materials.

5. Make It Easy to Be Scanned

Many website users do not read all of the information presented on a site's page. Rather, they scan the paragraphs for the most relevant information and either take a quick survey or read only those portions pertaining directly to themselves. Because of this, do not make your paragraphs extremely dense with information. Paragraphs should share all necessary or important information even when merely scanned. However, avoid creating paragraphs filled with fluff or irrelevant materials.