Gain Traffic And Attention With These Fresh Ideas In Web Page Design
Website development is a good thing to learn if you want to make extra money. You can make websites for yourself or others. The time you dedicate to working on these sites can be all on your own time, which is great if you want to be free while you make money.
When you design a site, pull it up in various browsers. What you’re seeing on your end may not be what others are seeing on theirs. This means that you need to understand which browsers are most widely in use today, and check the site in each one. Send your website to a bunch of friends to see if they have trouble.
Your front page should be simple and inviting. Internet shoppers do, indeed, judge your site by its cover. Be descriptive when you talk about your business and what you offer that is unique, but keep other information minimal to avoid your visitors getting distracted.
Help your visitors navigate your page via fixed position navigation. This allows you to lock the panel for navigation in place while users scroll. This is convenient for visitors and helps frequent visitors quickly find what they need.
Search engine capabilities are an essential part of a large site. 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. You can add search functions to your site with Google and FreeFind.
Free Software
You can build yourself a fine website using only free software. A lot of people think that they need to use costly software, but the truth is that there are a number of free, quality tools that can help you begin and keep your website running. Finding good free software does require a bit more legwork, however.
Don’t use frames. Frames were in heavy use during the beginning days of the Internet, but they were very flawed. Frame-based designs cause readers to have trouble bookmarking your site, and scrolling can also prove burdensome. It is simple to design your page so visitors can navigate through it.
Other than the aesthetics of your site design, one of the most important things to consider is keeping all your file sizes to a minimum. Large files take longer to load when people visit your website. Of course, having your website load quickly is the best scenario for visitors. Remember that not all visitors will have a high speed connection to the Internet. Test your website to ensure that it loads quickly even on a dial-up modem connection.
White is a great choice for a background color. It’s simplistic, yet has a lot of potential at adding flare and color elsewhere. If you use a white background, your content can end up being simpler to read — and build trust in your site. Conversely, complex backgrounds distract from your content and make your site seem much less professional. Make your background as simple as possible.
Make user needs a priority. The web designer must know what the readers are looking for at all times. How easy information can be accessed and the website use are critical. These are some important considerations to make. Try to see things from your visitor’s perspective when you design.
On the Internet today, speed is where it’s at. So you must make sure everything on your site loads fast. If someone has to wait while your site loads, there’s a chance they will get impatient and go to another site, and they might not visit your site again.
Text Content
When you are designing a page with links, make sure that the link has text content. This content tells the visitor what the link is. If your links don’t have text content, visitors might inadvertently click the link using a keyboard shortcut.
Be very critical of the fonts you choose. The font type on a website is a quick indicator of how professional it is. Stay away form Comic Sans or other fancy looking fonts that are not on every computer. If one of your visitors does not have your chosen font on their own computer, another font is substituted. Many times, the result is very unappealing.
Don’t use a lot of graphics. While you need graphics to create a website that looks well and works right, you don’t need a lot of them, because they can clutter things. Graphics should always be used to enhance the website, and not for decoration. Having the right amount of graphics will improve your site’s usability and reduce the clutter.
You don’t have to fill every pixel on the screen with content! Cluttering every pixel with design elements, will make your site confusing and hard to navigate. Leaving a sufficient amount of space in between the various elements on the webpage however, can give your visitors a more comfortable experience. There are many situations in which empty space makes a major impact.
Development Platforms
Development platforms can make your own code, but certain ones aren’t as dependable as a text editor. The concept behind development platforms is that once you choose your site’s features, you paste the code created by the platform into your website. If you hope to gain a real understanding of coding, though, then a text editor is a good learning tool.
Include photos into your website. Your own pictures will make your website more friendly and inviting. When the visitors seed that you spent more time putting together your site, they’ll look forward to clicking on your next picture.
After you have learned new programs, such as Dreamweaver or Photoshop, check with colleagues or friends to confirm that you have not missed anything. Obviously, you want to ensure that all the new information you have just learned has been remembered. It would be quite a nuisance to be halfway through developing a new site and find you can’t recall the details you need.
Now that you have read through these tips you have some new ideas on how to best design your site. Practice what you have learned, and you can become proficient with very little time invested.