We have all landed on websites where we’ve thought, “Gee, this page is sure narrow.” Or
“Good grief, how wide IS this thing?”
If you’re a blogger or website owner, you may have thought a lot about how wide your site or blog pages should be – what is too wide and what is too narrow? I’ve done a little research and have come up with some interesting and what I believe to be very valuable information. Read on . . .
As I looked around at the most popular websites, pretty much every top site fell between 750 and 1000 pixels.
Sites that are basically sales letters (no columns, making a pitch for one or more products) were at most 750 pixels wide. And that really is plenty because you have no left and right navigation columns so it makes it easier to read through the very targeted information.
Sites that are more newsy in content with several columns and lots of options, should be 900 to 1100 pixels. (rarely 1200) in order to accommodate the additional left/right columns. Just remember, really wide sites create too much of a distraction for readers and they will leave your site in no time!
Here is a list of a few of the top sites and their pixel widths:
- Twitter – 750 pixels wide
- Craigslist – 820 pixels wide
- eBay – 930 pixels wide
- Bing – 950 pixels wide
- ESPN – 950 pixels wide
- BBC – 994 pixels wide
- Yahoo – 994 pixels wide
By the way, Wikipedia was the one site I found that spread out the width of the entire screen.
So what I’m saying is that the ideal size for site width (and, of course, the page header), is generally 750 pixels for single column sites such as sales letters and 950 pixels if it is a content-rich site with navigation menus on either the left or right.
There you have it. I would love your feedback – what have you found and what has or has not worked for you?