Rule 1: A good website design should have three levels of web pages - no more, no less!

This simply means that from the Home page of your website (Level one), there are two lower levels of linked web pages. Level two consists of the 'chapters', or topics, of your website, and Level three consists of the sub-topics of each Level two topic.

The reason for this is that it has been proven that humans are comfortable navigating down three levels on a website. Any deeper than this, and they can very easily become 'lost', which quickly results in them looking to make their escape! Alternatively, any less than three levels, and a website appears to be too 'light weight' to be worth spending much time looking around - end result, the same as when it is too deep!

Rule 2: A good website design has between 5 and 15 Level two web pages

The reasoning behind this rule is as follows:

Any less than 5 Level two web pages, and it is difficult for your website to 'get noticed' by the internet search engines, which also means that human visitors won't find it either!

Any less than 5 Level two pages, and it is unlikely that your website will have sufficient content to encourage human visitors to 'stick around', or to revisit in the future. Limited 'stickability' will have a detrimental effect on the profitability of your website!

Any more than 15 Level two web pages, and it is unlikely that all of your web pages will 'get noticed'(i.e. indexed) by the internet search engines. When this is the case, your time will be more profitably spent designing another web site!

Any more than 15 Level two web pages, and many human visitors will simply find your website to be too big and unwieldly to be bothered looking around - end result, they look for a quick escape!

Rule 3: A good website design has between 5 and 15 Level three web pages per Level two web page

The reasoning behind this rule is closely tied in with the reasoning behind Rule 2, which in simple terms is - too much, or too little, website content penalises you in terms of the volume of 'stickable' traffic (i.e. human visitors that actually 'stick around' long enough to buy something!) that is attracted to your website.

Rule 4: A good website design is easy to navigate

The reasoning behind this rule is very simple - if people have to spend time trying to work out how to navigate around your website, they won't bother! Everybody is pushed for time, and, unless you are very, very lucky, there will be a lot of other websites that supply similar information to your website - the trick that you must master is to link together the information on your website in a way that is very easy for your visitors to find.

A simple approach to achieving this rule is as follows:

1. Place navigation buttons for each Level two web page down the left-hand side of your Home page, and down the left-hand side of each Level two web page.

2. Place direct links to your Level three web pages at the appropriate points within the text of your Level two web pages.

3. On each of your Level three web pages place a link back to the Level two page that it was accessed from.

4. On each of your Level three web pages place a link back to your Home page.

5. On each of your Level two web pages place a link back to your Home page.

Rule 5: A good website design has an attractive 'Look and Feel'

The reasoning behind this rule requires no explanation! Your website must be 'pleasing on the eye'. In practice, this means:

1. Avoid using lots of bright colours.

2. Mainly stick to black writing on a white, or pale background.

3. Avoid patterned backgrounds.

4. Avoid cluttering up a web page with too much text or images.

5. Break your text up into small paragraphs - ideally no more than three or four short sentences per paragraph.

6. If your page contains a lot of text, break it up with headings to allow people to quickly scan it for the bits they are interested in.

About the Author

Gary is the owner and webmaster of www.profitable-online-business.com, which provides free, simple step-by-step instructions to enable anyone of average intelligence to build their own profitable online business.