A good design is the cornerstone of a successful website. Though the possibilities are endless, and design concepts are ever-changing, it is possible to arm yourself with solid information that will result in the perfect website for your needs. Fortunately, reading this article is the perfect place to start. This article is full of useful tips that will get you into the website development game.
Does your site pass the NoScript test? Activate this extension to assure that your sits is readable. Some ordering systems or other types of content cannot run script-free, but if the site is blank without the script on, that’s not good.
Search Box
If you are creating a website, make sure you view your site in different browsers. What you see on your side may not always be what the others see on theirs. Make sure to research the browsers available. Send your website to a bunch of friends to see if they have trouble.
Include a search element that allows visitors to search within your website content. If visitors to your website are searching for something in particular, they will immediately look for the search box. Without this tool, the visitor might leave and go searching on another website. People look for these search boxes in the top right corner of the page, so place the search box in that area.
Before publishing websites, check them for broken links. Visitors can get frustrated when they click a link and come across an error page. Use a program or check links manually to be sure you have no broken links on your site.
You want to ensure that your site is easily able to be scanned. Studies have shown that people usually quickly scan a website rather than thoroughly read it over, as they try to find the stuff that might be interesting to them. Emphasized text is more easily scanned and helps readers along, also better ensuring they return. Keep the most pertinent information near the top of the page. This gives your visitors a better experience.
Visitors will enjoy your website, if they can navigate it easily. Links need to be prominent and simple to find. Having a menu bar on your site can also make navigation 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.
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. This is because the speed of your website loading is directly influenced by the file sizes. You want your loading time to be as quick as possible. You must keep in mind that not all visitors will have a fast Internet connection. Try to test your site regularly, especially with a slower dial-up modem. This will help you to know for sure that it will quickly load in every situation.
Make sure you design your website with older Internet Explorer versions in mind. While it is often viewed as a sub par browser, a large number of users are still using old versions of this browser. You will have to use workarounds when dealing with this issue, so keep that in mind. For instance, IE has suffered a “box model bug” for multiple years.
The type of files you use for graphics on your site are related directly to the size of the file. This affects the load time of your site. Your best choice for graphic files are GIFs and JPEGs. Although PNG and MBP files might be the better options for web graphics, they take up way too much disk space. You can convert the larger graphics into a more manageable size to help your viewers have a better user experience.
Check your pages for broken links. When a visitor clicks on one, they’ll be frustrated. You can either check links manually, or use a program that will scan the website for you to report links that are broken.
Quality design for the web audience is of the utmost importance. Sometimes it can be nearly impossible to stay on top of industry trends and sort through the tons of information that is available on the subject of website development without becoming confused or overwhelmed. That is where this article fits in by helping build your knowledge base of information. Use the tips you just read to improve your current website or create a new one.