Building your own website from sketches to published product can be a scary and daunting endeavor. First-time site builders are often confused about fundamental issues like where to start, how to get advice and what their site will ultimately cost. This article is a great start for you, providing tips which will help you draft a game plan for creating the site of your dreams!
Visitors Cancel
Let visitors cancel actions if they want to. An action can involve filling out forms, registering for email notifications or newsletters, or browsing the site for various topics or archives. By not letting visitors cancel something that they don’t want to finish, you’re pretty much forcing them into doing something. This can harm your return visits or purchases.
Using a fixed position navigation will help your users use it with ease. This will make sure the navigation panel is locked in place as your readers move throughout the site. This is ideal for both visitors and marketers alike, as desired actions are executed much more quickly.
Pay attention to your background. You don’t want your text to be hard to read! A distracting background is…well, distracting. Select backgrounds that work in harmony with the site, not in competition with it, and visitors will find your material much more accessible and useful.
Do not utilize pop-ups. It’s annoying to visit a website and get ambushed with a lot of pop-up ads. It is not unusual for some people to refuse to stay on a website, and not return either, if it contains pop-up ads. Show some appreciation and respect for your customers, by avoiding annoying pop-ups. If your web host forces you to have pop-up ads, try to find another web host.
Despite the type of site you are going to have, you definitely want to keep the loading time under ten seconds. A great website should pop up without lagging delays. Many online users want instant gratification, so you should provide that.
Do not overdo the graphics on your site. They are good for making your site more professional, but too much looks messy. Don’t use graphics as a decoration for your site; they should be used to make it look professional. Having the right graphics improves your site all around.
Make sure that all the files on your website are small in size. You need these small file sizes regardless of the overall design of your site. This is because the size of the files dictates the speed at which your website loads. You want your site to load instantly. Remember, some of your website’s visitors will not be using a fast Internet connection. Test each section of your site to ensure it loads rapidly for every visitor.
Meta Tags
Good meta tags are a quick way to ensure your website makes it to a good rank on search engines. You need to spend some time on creating high quality meta tags so that search engines can classify your site properly. If your meta tags are poorly thought out and do not reflect your site’s content, then you will not get many visitors.
If you’re creating a large site, include search functions for your visitors. At the top right of every page in your site, incorporate a search box which will let visitors search for a term that appears on your site. You can use Google search or FreeFind, as they both give you access to an engine which is free and simple to use.
When you are creating a page that contains links, ensure your links use text content. Your visitors should know exactly what they’re heading for when they click on a link. If links on your site do not contain text, visitors may accidentally select them using keyboard shortcuts.
While using design tools provided by a web host is workable for establishing your website, it’s smart to add some unique, personal touches as well. You should be able to customize your website to reflect your taste and personality, so this means adding enhancements that the website builder may not offer.
As you select a hosting service for your website, you need to make sure you know everything that is included in the package. You should understand the issues relating to bandwidth, CPU usage, disk space and other aspects. Know what you’ll end up with, if you decide to go forward with it.
You must remember in order to index your images, ALT tags must be employed. These tags are very important for the handicapped segment of your target audience. If your images are used as links, ALT tags also provide a way for you to describe the behavior of the link. They can also be read by search engine spiders to boost your site’s ranking.
Consult with friends and those in the know, if you missed something when you were learning about HTML, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. You should ensure all the knowledge you have learned has been retained. You don’t want to be creating a website and get confused.
Avoid using Captchas, except in the case of new user registration. As soon as a viewer sees a captcha, they will automatically think that they will have to do to much work just too see your webpage. Unless they have already registered, they will probably leave your site and browse somewhere else.
When deciding whether to host online videos on a website, be sure to verify the propriety with your web host. Some servers do not have the ability to host videos. They do this because FLV files can take up quite a bit of space on a public server. Just make sure you check before doing this so that you do not waste a lot of time and effort.
User experience is the most important aspect of any website. User needs must be your main focus. Examples of this would be user interaction, accessibility, usability and the users overall experience. These are the most important considerations to be made. Seeing things from your visitors’ perspective will benefit you greatly.
Now that you’ve read this, you should be prepared for moving ahead to tackle your own website design. Create a budget and get some help from advisers while you start planning your site. When you take these steps, and apply the tips from above, you can easily create a website that is inexpensively done and meets your business needs, so get started right away!