It can be scary to create your website if you don’t use a template. However, it can also be very exciting. It can be hard to decide where or how to begin or who you should get advice from. You should go through this article to find out more about the basics of web designing and create the kind of design you always wanted.
Incorporate a tagline prominently on your website. This is a statement or motto to define your business. You only have about 10 seconds to gain and keep hold of your visitors’ attention from the time they first hit your site.
A good key to remember is that your site should load in 10 seconds or less. A well-designed, efficient site should pop up in visitors’ browsers in a matter of moments. Most visitors want instant gratification, so give it to them.
Do not use JavaScript more than you have to. Some of your website visitors may not have JavaScript, and others will not want to update it on a regular basis. The major web browsers differ somewhat in functionality, and they are updated frequently. Keep in mind that not every single person who visits your site has the most up to date browser version. Also, consider that JavaScript isn’t regularly enabled in everyone’s browser. These things prevent users from making use of your website.
You want your home page to be simple. This will cause people to want to jump ship early. Make sure that you provide a very clear description about your business or other purpose for your site. Other information on your site should be minimal, but still clear, so that you don’t overwhelm your visitors.
To help design an attractive looking website, use interesting photos that you have taken. This will make it more appealing to your visitors. Those pictures can lead to a lot more post views per visitor.
Skip the pop-up windows. Users hate them and they won’t add you any value. As a result, your users may just go away from your site, too angry to come back.
Use shortcuts. Nearly all facets of web design have shortcuts you can take, so the time you take to learn them once can save you time on everything over and over in the future. Some of these shortcuts include HTML codes that can help you quickly make changes to your web page.
Meta Tags
You need adequate meta tags on every page to attract more site visitors. Quality and relevant meta tags will provide search engines with information regarding your site. If you do not have good meta tags that describe your site well, you are not going to attract many visitors to your site.
Put together a nice page about you or your organization and title it “About” or “About Us.” Some websites “About Us” pages are very dull and boring. Make this area of your website more exciting. Give people an introduction to your own background, how you became interested in website design, your inspirations, and what your business goals are.
Publish a newsletter, to increase your likelihood of having repeat visitors. When you allow people to receive notifications about special events, discounts or updates, they are more likely to visit your site multiple times. Track the number of visitors who sign up, and position the sign-up form in your site’s sidebar. Send the newsletter only to people who opt-in or you could get in trouble for spam!
Broken Links
Make sure to check for any broken links. Make the check right before your upload it and make it available online. Broken links are one reason for web visitors to leave a site. In order to prevent this from occurring, proactively test thoroughly for full functionality.
Incorporating a traffic counter for your page is rather unsightly. Although it may be something that you find valuable, your visitors are not interested in seeing it. As you can see, the counter can be counterproductive and you can use other tools in the back office or online to check visitor count.
Even more important than a good looking website is one that loads fast, and that means all of your files should be small. File sizes are directly responsible for how quickly a website loads. You always want your site to load as quickly as it can. There are still people who will be using your website that do not have a high-speed connection. Your website should be tested on all connections, even a dial-up connection, to make sure it loads quickly.
When you have more than one website idea, reserve the domain names at the same time. Use your creativity and imagination when doing this. Many people have similar ideas and may take the name you want before you have a chance. As if everyone is connected in some way.
Practice each step of web design until you have it down pat. This is important so that you can make sure you are able to apply the knowledge you are gaining. You never want to read something great but not actually “get it” because you didn’t try it out on your own.
Always include a clearly visible tagline on each webpage in the domain and sub-domains. Use large text in bold that will grab attention, as this is the first thing seen by visitors when following links. The purpose of the tagline is so that they know what that page is about. This way the viewer can quickly decide whether to stay or move back to the previous page.
Use ALT tags on your images. This allows everyone to gain access to the intended information. If you use images as links, you can describe the link. The ALT tags will bring up the search rank of your site because search engine crawlers use them as well.
Website Design
Do remember that website design does not need to be costly. Every costly design application has a similar program that does the same job for much less. There is quite a bit of free, open source website design software available that performs admirably when compared to nonfree alternatives. You can save a lot of money by using freeware or open source software.
One of the most important, yet underrated, skills a web designer can possess is proper time management. There are a ton of jobs involved, so you can’t procrastinate. The next thing you know, the simple things you waited to finish become overwhelming because there are so many left to do. You will have the most success by managing your time.
It is important to remember to test your website’s design on various web browsers. Every browser will interpret the site slightly differently. Some of the slight differences can cause navigation to be difficult for the user. It is easy to discover the most popular browsers. Check your website on every one one of these browsers, and do not forget mobile web browsers that have become popular.
Now that you have the knowledge from this article to design a site, you can start taking those first steps to creating your website. You will need to draft a budget, look for advisers, and start making a sketch of your site. If you get started as soon as possible, it will be easier to build an efficient, visually striking website.