Thread: Three Critical web Design Elements

Color - Almost all of us are aware of the color of a website when we visit it. Subconsciously or not, we will make the decision to stay longer on the site or click away immediately based in large part on color alone. The reason for this is psychological; there are entire fields of study devoted to color theory. Typically, site visitors prefer calming colors such as those from the blue family. Also, when reading a page of text, visitors prefer black text on a light background.

Texture - This is often an element that sets apart amateur websites from professionally-looking ones, even if they are not designed by a professional. Texture refers to the feeling of the page. Even on a website, you can create texture with patterns, special use of fonts, and even a creative use of placement on the page. For instance, overlapping two boxes of text gives the page some depth.

Direction - The way a page flows is its direction. Visitors to a website don't realize how much thought was probably put into the site they are browsing. However, there is a reason their eyes move they way they do, from the site's navigation to its advertising, to its content. Strategic placement of a website's material helps "direct" the consumers' eyes where the site owner wants the attention given.

I beleive that during 2010 more and more traditional search engine optimizers will have to move into a more decentralised "webmarketing" roll as the things that you point out in your post do drive search engine positions, albeit in a round about way.

What I mean is: if your User Experience (UX) is garbage, your bounce rate will raise - google will treat that as a pointer that the content on your website isnt up to scratch and punish you accordingly, if the user doesnt bounce however and navigates your site some more, he/she may well find some content on it they like, and submit it to a social bookmarking site like Digg/Reddit etc, they may also link to it from their own site or blog.

So, New Years resolution for 2010, sort out the UX on all your websites, it may have no obvious immediate SEO advantage, but in an increasingly diffucult marketplace it will set the winners apart from the losers!

Thanks for telling about the threee critical web design elements.