‘Easy to reach’ has little to do with website design. It says that simply having a good website is no good unless people know about it. People come to know about websites through search engines and sometimes offline advertising. Once you have readers yo your website, website design comes into play.
‘Easy to read’ has many parts to it. Readers will not like staying on the website if they find the content is confusing and not arranged systematically. The first point to remember is that the website must not take too much time to download on a web browser. It must load quickly on the browser lest a lot of a readers may not even wait for the website to get loaded because there are so many other options provided by the search engines.
Secondly, provide easy navigation to the readers. A reader may want to read other related articles. If inline links or a separate section labeled ‘related links’ is available on the webpage the reader is currently reading, there is a fair chance, the reader would continue reading and go on to a related article. Also, use links to describe the categories of the website. The home page should have links that reach out to all sections of the website. If the website has a lot of pages, a sitemap would do wonders to the design of the website where readers easily find what they are looking for.
A good website will be consistent in its design throughout i.e., it will have a similar layout on all its pages. A sense of uniformity in design develops a good feel about the website.
Also, most websites display advertisements like Google ads. A very important step is to arrange these ads in a manner that goes with the overall website layout. These advertisements should, in no way, hinder the flow of reading of the webpage.
The next is the primary step to be followed. Always choose a font that goes well with the overall website layout. It must be noted that the font size should not be too small and not too big to cause inconvenience to the readers. It should again be consistent throughout the website.
For reference, read an article by Katherine Nolan, titled Page Layout and Design, published on Outfront.net.
How to Use Website Templates
Many web designers and webmasters create handsome templates that can be used for site designing. A template can be very helpful if the website demands a specific type of layout. e.g., A website related to science would become more famous if it has columns and widgets which are having scientific images in the background.
These templates are provided free of cost by many websites on the internet. A website named free website templates provides various website templates for free.Also, if a website demands a certain type of template, then one can always contact a web designer and pay him a price to design the template. An elegant template matching the theme of the website can do wonders in making the readers belong to the website.
Summary
Not stating that these are the only things to keep in mind while designing a website, and not necessarily each of these must be strictly adhered to, yet, if these steps are followed to some extent, the performance of the website is sure to get better.