Recommended Website Page Widths

When it comes to developing new websites, web developers are often stumped when it comes to page width. The reasons why it can be difficult to choose a page width is because you want to please all your visitors from the web when it comes to the type of application your designing. There are 2 main types of sizes. They are the “fluid” and “static” website widths. In order to figure out which page width would be the most appropriate to your design, you can see the differences below and recognize which one could be the most suitable for your project. You must also remember the audience you are generating traffic from and hardware referrals from your website statistics.

The “Fluid” or “Liquid” Layout

The “fluid” layout is also known as a “liquid” layout, a website that stretches and shrinks upon browser resizing. This is the most common practice when it comes to powerful web applications, back end content management systems and customer relationship management systems. If you are developing very dynamic web applications, I recommend using this method. Also remember that these systems display amazing on wide screen monitors since big web applications have many dynamic options within them.

Another big trend in liquid layout designs are the use with mobile browsers such as an Apple iPhone. If you are developing an application for mobile phones, it is best viewed in re-sizable form since the resolutions will differentiate more often. If you are designing a mobile web based application, I strongly recommend learning more about CHTML (Compressed Hyper Text Markup Language). You can create a different section where the website will redirect to the mobile version when it detects the phone’s hardware.

The “Static” or “Fixed” Layout

The “static” layout is also known as a “fixed” layout, a website that is one fixed width. This is one of those widely debated topics and you can’t go by someone telling you to use a 900 pixel width or a 1000 pixel width, it’s your preference and I’m willing to share my personal experience in choosing the right size.

The 2 Most Common Screen Resolutions
800 x 600 and 1024 x 760 are the two most common screen resolutions however wide screen LCD monitors are starting to surpass the standard 1024 x 760 screen size. I recommend using either ≤800px or ≤1024. If you are displaying rich website graphics, advertisements and a lot of content, a wider width will be the most beneficial. If you don’t have many links on your website, then it would be wise to use a smaller website width. Using the larger widths, you will have more room for bigger advertisement units that convert better than smaller ones. With a smaller website resolution, you sacrifice the use of larger ad units, and content that depend on larger areas. Both MySpace and Facebook have totally changed both of their designs from ≤800 to ≤1024 designs. They both use a lot of dynamics, content ,and advertisements therefore it was wise for them to have gone bigger.

My Conclusion

I recommend going with a larger website width or using a liquid layout since most webmasters are implementing the web 2.0 styles for the web and many of these types of designs require a larger content area. Many computer systems out of the box will have a native screen resolution already set to 1024 x 760. It appears that technology is still unsatisfied by the native screen resolution since more and more users are starting to use even bigger resolutions so it is smart to go bigger than smaller!