All businesses need a solid online presence. Your business is going to feel the effects of a non-functioning site. With the following tricks and tips, you will be able to design an excellent website.
It’s not the 90’s anymore, so stay away from using frames. Frames were of great use in the early days of web design, but it had a lot of flaws. Frame-based designs cause readers to have trouble bookmarking your site, and scrolling can also prove burdensome. There are many better alternatives to frames.
Pay careful attention to which colors you choose to use together in your website development. It is important to have text that is easy to read on your chosen background color. Dark text on light backgrounds are typically easier on the eyes than the other way around. If you are uncertain about the effectiveness of your color scheme choice, try it out on a friend and solicit feedback from them.
Look at your site in many different browsers. You have to make sure that you’re seeing your site through the eyes of all customers. Research all the commonly used browsers and design accordingly. You should also check your website from a variety of different computers to see how it looks as well.
Go easy on the graphics in your website development. You want the site to look professional and well-designed instead of cluttered. Graphics should be used to improve the site, not overdecorate it. Having the right mix of graphics will improve your site’s usability, too.
Date Information
Never allow dated or irrelevant content to remain on your website. If someone visits your site for up-to-date information and find that it’s discussing the latest event – which happened a year ago – they’re leaving. Visitors want to visit sites that have the most up-to-date information, and leaving up outdated information shows that you are not committed to that. Create a regular schedule for updating the content of your page, and weed out anything that has become irrelevant.
You must create a website that is easily navigable to attract and keep traffic. Ensure that links are easy discovered and displayed in a prominent location. Simple menus will make navigation easy for your visitors. Ensure that there are links to all of your main pages, such as the home and contact pages, in a prominent location on every page.
Stay away from using pop-up ads. Nobody appreciates new windows popping up automatically when they visit a webpage. It is not unusual for some people to refuse to stay on a website, and not return either, if it contains pop-up ads. So make sure you have happy customers, by not including these aggravating pop-ups ads. If you have a host that requires the use of pop-ups, then look for a new one.
Always keep your load times under 10 seconds. A great website should pop up without lagging delays. People browsing online like those instant rewards or gratification, so to speak, so this should be your focus.
Keep your homepage simple. People will quickly decide whether or not they want to do business with you by how your homepage looks. Use descriptions about your company and it’s goals.
Always take outdated information and content off of your website. If you have something on your site that lists an event that happened months ago, chances are you have lost some readers. Allowing information that is outdated to remain on your website is a sign to users that you have not taken the time to update your site and it implies that you don’t care about their time. Review your website often, to remove anything which isn’t updated with the latest content.
Always implement powerful site-searching capabilities when designing a large website. Try having a search box in the upper-right of your homepage that allows searching for terms on your site. You can get search functions to improve your website at FreeFind and at Google.
Research your subject thoroughly. For example, if you are creating a blog, don’t post without doing your research. Giving your customers unclear or false information will only cause you to lose readers. Figuring out your subject will help you blog better.
Make sure your site loads quickly through optimization techniques. Visitors will leave your site quickly if they have to wait on something to load. You can make your page load faster by reducing the amount of content, such as Flash objects and graphics, which both increase the page’s loading time.
Make it possible for users to cancel action if they want to do so. Actions may involve searching the website for archives or a variety of topics, signing up for newsletters and notifications, or simply filling out forms. If your visitors can’t easily change their mind and back out of registering for a site feature, they may feel forced to complete a transaction. This isn’t good for your web traffic or your reputation.
Incorporating a traffic counter for your page is rather unsightly. Take it off of your site if you want to look contemporary. Ditch the counter and use tracking software instead.
Hosting your own site is not a good idea. Designing the site yourself is a good idea, but when it comes to hosting, it’s usually better to use a third party. This will free up your time to concentrate on more important things.
Go ahead and invest into some books, that can assist you with learning how to become a successful web designer. You don’t want to pick books about specific software versions as they’ll become outdated quickly, but style guides and even SEO information will last you a long time.
Use shortcuts. In the topic of web design, there is a shortcut for everything. Knowing them will save you time and help you be more efficient. There are some codes in HTML that allow for faster changes to each page than re-uploading each one.
Perhaps you have heard about software like Photoshop and how you can create amazing designs with them. However, many overlook another program called Dreamweaver that is extremely useful for website development also. Do yourself a favor, and familiarize with Dreamweaver and the benefits it can provide.
Captchas are great for user registration, but beyond this, they should be avoided at all costs. While captchas may be useful in some cases, forcing them to do so for mundane tasks, will make them leave your site quickly. Most visitors will leave a webpage that requires too much personal information or the completion of difficult tasks.
Website development is not difficult. Once you understand the basics, you can create a great site. Use these tips to learn more.
Be certain to have a way to receive feedback from site users. By doing this, if you discover a missing item or if you don’t know how to properly utilize your page, it’s possible for you to fix it. You can encourage your visitors to come back to your site over and over by giving them the opportunity to contribute to the quality of it.