Making the jump online with your business can be scary and exhilarating at the same time. This is a whole new medium of communicating with and serving your customers. Because of this you want to make sure that you get everything right as quickly as possible. Of course there are going to be a few hiccups along the way, one of which is a poor page layout.

Poor page layout is a sign of an amateur site builder. Once you’ve reserved your space with a web hosting service, you’re responsible for building what goes on that space. If someone came over to your office and noticed that all doors open up into narrow spaces then they might not want to navigate around it. The same can be said for your website.

This, however, can be easily solved with a proper page layout. Here’s how.

Cleaning Clutter

No one likes clutter, not really. Some might feel at home in it, but there’s nothing beneficial that clutter can do for you. When you’ve got your page setup you want to make sure that it’s laid out in a way that makes sense and looks neat. A customer shouldn’t have to scroll down past two ads just to finish reading what you’ve taken the time to write out on your pages. They wouldn’t want to wade through it all and will head out to another url.

This is especially true now that smart phones exist. Phones aren’t the same as computers, no matter how much they seem like it. They’re smaller and cannot process sites as well as a laptop or desktop. When you’ve got ads in the sidelines or middle of your pages, you’re going to keep your mobile customers from easily accessing what they need. So keep the layout simple with text and put ads on one side of the page without disrupting the margins.

Usability

If a customer cannot navigate your site, then they cannot use it. Page layout goes beyond how you setup an article or a page, it pertains to the whole website. All the pages should have an easily accessed navigation bar on the top. This would ideally contain all of the links and sections that you have for your users.

Keeping a navigation bar in plain sight will make your website more intuitive and usable for the customer. Just make sure that all the links you put in the navigation bar are working. While it’s easy to think of something to add to a site later if you forget, customers visiting your empty links could think that your site isn’t completely ready.

Having a good page layout is the strong base for your website. Building your website on a strong base ensures that it will be stable enough to cover everything yet have a good user experience.