You wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint, so why would you build your website without first figuring out how everything will fit together?

It’s pretty basic really, figure out what you want to show on the page, then put the pieces together in the way that makes the most sense for the viewer.

It’s like creating a floor plan.  Certain things go in certain places but you have quite a bit of leniency about where everything else goes and how it is styled.

Here are some standards:

• If you have a search function put it in the upper right.
• Keep your navigation on the left or across the top.
• Your logo should be top and center or upper left.
• Your body should be somewhere in the middle of the page and should be the largest section.
• Text navigation should be at the bottom of each page so people can get anywhere from any page at the site.

As you can see there are a few rules that should be followed, but a great designer will be able to work with your ideal design while still conforming to these web standards.

Viewers prefer to use websites that they already know how to navigate.
Unique layouts can make you lose visitors!

It all comes down to is comfort, if a visitor to your site can immediately tell where everything is because they are already familiar with the location of certain items from other sites – they will find your site easier to use, which means they’ll choose your site over someone else in the same field who has a fancy, non-user-friendly layout and design.