There’s more that goes into creating a website than you may be aware of. From the start and initial design to the tiniest detail, website development may seem difficult for the uninitiated. The following tips will help you design an amazing looking website quickly and easily.
Choosing the right graphics can either make or break a website. PNGs are currently the best standard for graphics online. For simple text buttons or graphics that aren’t photographs, use PNG for files that are 256 colors or larger. Use a GIF file for anything less than 256. For pictures, use JPEG images.
When you design a site, pull it up in various browsers. If you just check it from you personal computer, what you see may be vastly different from what others see. Research every popular browser that people use, and adjust your design accordingly. It’s also a good idea to send your website to someone who’s using another operating system in order to see if their browser and yours are compatible.
Use a fixed-position navigation format for easy navigation for your users. 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. Not only do visitors find this convenient, but so do internet marketers who have calls to action they want in place.
A good website should be compatible with multiple browsers, so you should test your website in various browsers to ensure that any visitor can view it correctly. What works in Chrome might not appear the way you want it in Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari. Prior to formally launching your site, verify that it displays correctly in each of these popular browsers.
Maintain normal-sized pages. Some Internet users have slow connections, and they will grow impatient with your site. If the wait is too long, your visitors may give up and leave.
Do your best to store any personal information of your users so that they don’t have to enter it over and over again on your site. When a user needs to enter their information multiple times to sign up for various options you give them, make it so that they don’t have to enter duplicate info from beginning to end on their own repeatedly. Keeping information “sticky” like this will make it simple to sign up for things on your site, and visitors will appreciate that you have saved them time.
Visitors will enjoy your website, if they can navigate it easily. Your links need to be prominently placed, easy to understand and functional. Simple menus will make navigation easy for your visitors. Ensure that you have a link to your website’s home page on every page on your website so that visitors can easily return to you site’s main page.
Programs are available to assist you in creating an attractive website. Programs are available to assist you in creating your websites that look professional. People won’t visit your site unless they like how it looks and functions.
Keep the front page of your site simple. People judge a site and whether they want to go further by what the initial webpage looks like. Describe your business and offerings but minimize distractions on the page.
Search Engines
Check for broken links before publishing a page. The worst experience for a visitor is to have interest in learning more only to click the dreaded dead end link. You can manually check links or use a program that will find broken links for you.
To create websites that are enhanced for search engines, make sure frames are not included. This information will not be visible on the search engines. That means you won’t show up when people search for your content. If this does happen, your visitation may sink.
To design a more attractive site, include useful meta tags per each page. Using relevant meta tags on each page of your site will help search engines categorize the page and show it to people who want to know about your page’s topic. Not putting enough effort into their content can severely hurt your page rank and reduce your traffic.
Choose your fonts carefully. You should only choose fonts that look professional and are easy to read. A site that uses classic fonts will look more professional. Do not use Comic Sans, overly ornate fonts, or fonts that many computers might not have. In case your user’s browser cannot display the font your website uses, a secondary font can be set. This often looks terrible.
A search engine is an absolute must if your website is larger than a few pages. Put in a search box in the right-hand corner up on top of the homepage, as this allows the site visitors to type in a single keyword that shows up anywhere on your site. Google and FreeFind both offer search functions for your website.
For creating your own website, try using Adobe Dreamweaver. This program is very user friendly, even for beginners. It has lots of features, templates, and layouts to choose from. You can also test how the site will look before it goes live.
Keep practicing when you start learning web page design so that you can try out little things and remember them going forward. This is necessary as we often fall into a rut by doing what has become standard to us. Otherwise, you may try to do that step again several months later and forget how it’s done.
Join a good web page design newsletter. These offer some very useful, free advice and can also keep you motivated to stay on top of your site design. Both pros and novices can benefit from reading good newsletters.
Use free alternatives to pay web design software whenever possible. Don’t be fooled into believing that pricey software is what you have to use; there are many free tools that can get your site up and running. You just have to search a little to locate the free tools that best suit you.
There should be a tagline for each page in your site, that is clear and easy to understand. This slogan should be prominently displayed near the top of the page and be in bold text, so that visitors can’t miss it. A tagline of this type will clearly identify what is offered on the page and have a defined purpose.
If you can, you should include “site searching” on your home page, as well as any other pages. This increases the site’s usability five-fold, and makes it easier to get to anyplace on the site from any other place on the site. This feature is easy to include on your site, and the effort and time spent implementing it will provide ample rewards.
Captchas are great for user registration, but beyond this, they should be avoided at all costs. Captchas can trigger a negative response from a viewer when it makes them perform the task just so they can view a basic webpage. Most visitors will simply leave the website and use another resource instead.
Images need ALT tags so do this while you are setting up your website. These tags can describe pictures for people who cannot see them for one reason or another. ALT tags can also help out if your images link elsewhere. ALT tags are the only way your images are going to help you with your search engine rankings.
Understand that this article provides you with basic skills to get the job done. To become a real pro, you must keep learning. As you learn techniques and strategies, you can better understand site design and how to translate the knowledge into a well-designed site. Continue learning and you will be a pro in no time.