Even the most experienced web designer could use a review of the basics. Of course, this becomes more difficult to obtain with such advanced technologies popping up everywhere we look. However, you should not worry, as this article is full of some of the advice that you need. Read on for suggestions that will help you with aspects of website development in creating great websites.
Be careful with your color schemes while designing your site. Make text visible against the background hues. The better choice is using darker fonts against backgrounds that are lighter. Ask someone to look at your color schemes to ensure you are making the right choice.
People don’t like to wait when they browse the Internet, so your pages need to load fast even on slow connections. If your visitors are waiting forever while something is loading on your site, there is a good chance they will quickly leave and never return.
Look at your site in multiple browsers when designing it. Different browsers show websites in different ways. 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.
Easy navigation is critical to keeping visitors on your site. It should be painless to locate important links and other information. A navigation menu will also help visitors locate exactly what they’re looking for. Post links that lead back to the homepage on each page of your website to make navigation easier for your users.
Check for broken links before publishing a page. Clicking on links that bring you to errors is quite annoying. Use a program to scan your site to get the job done automatically.
Be certain that your website can be scanned easily. Many usability tests show that most online visitors do not read everything. They usually only scan for things that interest them. Emphasized text broken into easily scannable sections can help your viewers want to return to your site. Be sure important information is given top billing. These techniques assure that the visitor to your page will find what they want fast and this results in higher satisfaction for your readers.
A good website should display and function in any type of web browser, so it is vital that you test your website in every browser currently on the market. What works in Chrome might not appear the way you want it in Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari. Monitor how the pages look in major browsers before taking your website live.
Alt Tags
During the process of designing your site, use ALT tags for your images. The tags are important because they allow people who struggle with vision to better use your site by translating what the image is to voice, and this works in a similar fashion for those who have images disabled on their device. When links are used for images, having an ALT tag lets you describe the link’s behavior. Lastly, ALT tags offer search engines a target that will help in boosting your rankings in searches.
In your website design, keep in mind that web browsers are more friendly to websites that have independent CSS pages and provide conditional loading. These techniques can help you test and easily maintain them later. Every website requires maintenance and making it simple will save you time in the long run.
You must remember in order to index your images, ALT tags must be employed. These tags make it easy for those with disabled graphics and offer descriptions for those who are impaired visually and make use of translation tools for images. You can also optimize links further if the images you have are shown as links. ALT tags are also used by crawlers for search engines, so they can even boost your search ranking.
As you have seen, knowing the basics is imperative, no matter where your skill set falls in website development. There are many sources where you can learn the basic skills and this may make learning these skills feel overwhelming. The article above provided you with useful tips that you can use to begin to make great websites.