Looks are Everything

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Looks are Everything

In real life - where we should all be right now, enjoying ourselves, but instead we're in our dank, dark rooms looking at a too-bright computer screen - this does not apply. However, online, since you only know what you see on the screen, looks are literally everything. Morally, you shouldn't care how a website looks, as long as its overall feeling and content is good. But who wants to visit an ugly website? Wouldn't you rather get similar content at a much more visually appealing one?

If you own a fansite with a fair amount of solid content - proper spelling and grammar, it's useful, unique, but for some reason, potential affiliates hesitate to link to you, then you're one of the many websites that never makes it online before of their appearance.

You may be thinking a few different things now. One is, "Are you kidding me? I spent hours on my layout!" Another may be "You're... you're right. My layout is horrible. I'm a failure. I shouldn't even try..." Or maybe you're just reading this out of curiosity. But if your remark is even closely similar to the first two, then you have the wrong outlook.

A proper webmaster should NEVER be completely, 100% happy with their website. They may be satisfied, but there's always something you could change, or edit, or add. In this case, your site isn't that visually appealing, so we've now discovered.

Uhm, I know, we're getting off track here. Looks are Everything is the title; and so I'm explaining why they are. And, I'll give you some tips as to updating your look. So if you're lost with styling your website, read on. Otherwise... read on.

Navigation
The user experience is very important. If they can't find their way through your website, you haven't done a good enough job. There's a lot of ways to present your user with content; the most standard way (and highly effective) is to categorize your pages and put them on side columns along the content area. This navigation style is known as "3-column", and is the most common.

Another way is with drop-downs; again, categorizing your content, you can have the user hover or click a button with the category's name on it. A drop-down appears with all the pages in that category, and your user is set to navigate your website.

Or, you could have a horizontal link bar above your content area. I myself don't find this very appealing - I like it when there are line breaks after each page so that I can better interpret the messages. However, it's still an option to provide all of your links horizontally.

Colors
There's... a freakin' lot of colors you can use on your website! It's really up to you to decide which ones you want to incorporate into your layout. Some sites have a particular color scheme they always use, others have style-switchers, or some just change their layouts periodically (which we'll be getting to soon). But no matter what style or theme your site is being decorated with, ALWAYS make sure your colors:

Go together. Pink and Yellow don't.
Aren't too light or bright (there's a difference!) If your layout blinds your visitors, CHANGE IT.
Are different - keep the hues fairly close together, but you should alter how light, dark, or deep they are.
Don't always be monochromatic. One-colored layouts are fine, but if you overuse them, it's obnoxious.

Evolution...
... May be a highly debated theory, but online, there is only one true answer: Yes! Change is necessary for any website. For example, if you had the same Charmander-themed layout since Pokemon first launched, people are going to get pretty bored, and may even presume you inactive. Change your layout once or twice every month to keep things new and fresh.

Consider criticism.
Some people don't like pink layouts. If your layout is just TOO pink, with no other style option, maybe you should consider putting up a new one. Some people may think it's too hard to tell apart text and links, or that your fonts are weird, or too big or small. Take peoples' comments into account, and your site will be better as a whole.

"Proper" layout anatomy
This is something I've come up with myself - all layouts really do have an anatomy. If the banner is too tall, the left menu is too wide, or the content is just too smooshed together, you have what I call a "Physically Impaired Layout".

You know where I'm going with this... A lot of this is just common sense, but I've come up with a formula that can calculate how large your menus should be and how tall your banner & disclaimer should be.

Of course, this is just a suggestion and the numbers are all what I personally think are about right.

And that's it. ^__^ Questions, comments, criticism, etc.