With a poor economy and not many good job prospects in the near future, many people today are looking to create a home business on the Internet. If you plan on having a business online, it pays to understand the importance of web design. Keep reading for web design tips that will help you build an online site.
When you design a web page, always choose the graphics that are appropriate for your purposes. PNGs are currently the best standard for graphics online. PNG is the right choice for non-photo images, such as text buttons and screen shots. If an image has in excess of 256 colors choose PNG. If it does not, GIF is another option. Use JPEG format for all photos on your website.
Users can navigate easier when you use fixed-position navigation. By locking the menu to a fixed point on the screen, you can make sure it is constantly visible to the user regardless of where they scroll to on the screen. This makes thing convenient for visitors and facilitates them taking advantage of your calls to action.
Easy navigation is critical to keeping visitors on your site. Ensure that links are easy discovered and displayed in a prominent location. Good menus make navigating your site much easier. Make sure you have links back to your main pages accessible on every single page of your website; that way, visitors are able to always get around.
Choose your color scheme wisely. Make sure that text can be easily read against background colors. A dark color for foreground text against a light background is often more readable for most audiences. Ask your friends to give you feedback on the colors you choose.
Speed is the governing factor of the Internet and it is imperative to ensure your web site loads at a fast pace. You cannot expect much patience from your visitors. If they are stuck looking at an incomplete page for minutes on end while your content loads, they are quite likely to close your site and find what they’re looking for elsewhere.
In order for your website to be successful, it must work properly regardless of the browser that is used. You should therefore make certain that all of your web pages are thoroughly tested on a variety of browsers. Your content may show up fine in Internet Explorer, but it may be unreadable or badly displayed in Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Test how your pages display with all major browsers prior to launch.
Use Photoshop to create professional looking graphics for use on your website. By using this type of program, a novice designer will be able to make high quality looking websites at a fast pace. When you do not possess a program like this one, it can be extremely difficult and time consuming to get enough information to build an appealing site fast.
Broken Links
Check for broken links before publishing a page. Visitors become frustrated easily when they click a link and find that it leads to the wrong place. Either use a program to check for broken links or check each link manually.
When you design your website, avoid using a variety of different fonts. Also, think about how fonts look on a screen. For instance, tiny serif fonts, like Times New Roman, are difficult to read. Most sites use Verdana, which is easily read in different colors and sizes.
Add a link where your visitors can send you feedback. This will give you a mechanism where your visitors can let you know if something is broken, doesn’t work as well as it should or is confusing. Making your visitors feel involved is a great way to ensure that they will visit your site again.
Be sure load times for your site are good. If visitors must wait a long time for something to load, they will want to leave the site. Minimize the amount of Flash, scripts and graphics on your site. Optimize the site with HTML, SSI files, caching options and minimize CSS and JS coding.
It doesn’t need to be difficult to master the basics of web page design. While some aspects are more difficult than others, these ideas can help simplify things. This advice will prove to be of help, no matter why you are looking to get involved in website development.