Website Conventions

Websites have many different conventions that make them user friendly, and a great way to inform readers of new information. They are easy to set up as well as cheap to make, and they are the most common form used by youngsters today.

Logo- The logo on the website has to be eye-catching and have constant synergy throughout all pieces of work. It is usually located at the top left hand side, or middle, as this is easily seen when you first look at the screen. As soon as people see the logo, it allows them to know what site their on, and if its the one they are looking for, as on the internet one search may come up with lots of different links on a search engine (such as Google). The audience should also recognise the logo and be able to piece together what genre of site they are on. I will make sure the logo on my website is corresponding with all of my other products, so this allows continuous design throughout, and so readers become accustomed to my work.

Website Conventions

Uniform Resource Locator (URL)- The URL is always located at the top of the webpage and is usually the name of a product or company that the site is on. So, on my example the website is Vogue and the URL is WWW.Vogue.com. This is a necessary convention on all websites, and I will use it on my own. I will also make sure it is connected to the name of my magazine.

Navigation Bar- The navigation bar is also normally situated at the top of the page, but can either be horizontal or vertical. The bar has tabs which allows the viewer to see the different topics and pages on the site, and then hyperlinks to another page once they are clicked. I will make sure to include a navigation bar on my site as it allows the audience to click to different pages and see new content.

On- page Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)- The SEO is similar to a search engine like Google, yet only allows the them to search on the website. This could be something they are interested about or something that they can't find themselves. It also saves the readers time by searching straight away what they want to know rather than go through the whole website looking for their answer. I will make sure to include this when designing my website as it always creates a professional feel.

Advert- It is usual to see adverts on websites, as they are normally promoting something that may be intriguing on the page. For popular websites, big companies may pay them to advertise on their page, which will increase sales for them. I'm not too sure whether I will include adverts on my own site as I am not expecting it to be overly popular as I am only targeting my audience to the North East region.

Multimedia Content- Media Content can include photo's, videos, sound etc, which is something every website has. This makes the experience for the viewer a little more interesting that just reading text, and normally something needs an image to go with it for it to make sense. For example a description of a new music video, and then not linking in the video would be pointless. I hope for my website I have lots of my own images to use, as this will make my website a little bit more interesting.

Inbound Links- These are links that come from other sources such as Youtube, Soundcloud, and Facebook etc. They are similar to multimedia content, however they are sourced from another website. This may be a linking in videos from Youtube, or being able to connect to Facebook from the site. I will try and use as many inbound links in my work, to make it interactive for the reader.