If you're looking to create a new website - it's certainly worth doing a bit of research and ensuring you are building it correctly (if doing yourself), or picking the right developer if you seek one... Here are 5 very important tips to take home.

 1. Your website needs to be responsive.

In today's age - 2014 - onwards, no web developer, or web company has any excuse for building a website that is not responsive. What is responsive? well it is a user interface that adapts to the screen resolution you are using. In modern day society that is ruled by mobile phones and tablets, websites in particular need to cater for various screen resolutions and various interfaces. I still see many web companies that are getting away with murder on this point.

2. Your logo needs to be apparent on every page.

Your logo is your graphical image. It represents your business and it needs to be communicated. A logo that is clear and visible on each page will help your website look professional and provide the simplest measure of professionalism.

3. Your site needs to be clutter free.

In the 90's websites were all about putting as much information as possible on screen. Google changed all that when they suddenly appeared to go against the grain, by providing the all time simplest website, and paradoxically proved the most popular. People don't like a mess. Most people in the world aren't very computer savy either. A clean, simple yet flexible website will go a long way.

4. Ensure that your web developer only uses the latest standards to code your site.

While this may seem an odd one at first it's probably one of the most important. At the time of writing, no website should be designed with anything earlier than HTML5 and CSS3. Why? because using anything older than the latest standards means you are relying on browsers being backwards compatible to view the website - and it's only a matter of time before your website drops off the radar and will no longer become stable visually - or worse - operationally. The IT world is ridiculously fast tracked. And this is high speed environment where change is not only imminent, but constant, only the latest coding practices should be accepted.

5. Pay for advertising to get yourself off the ground if you are starting up!

If you are in an industry where you are competing with many on google rankings - it will do a power of good to spend several dollars a day for a placement ad. Not only will you get more exposure, but the extra linking to your website will raise it's own popularity which means your google rank will also likely jump a few!

Eli Afram -

Webmaster Studios