Take a look at a high-level professional site, then compare that to a personal site on a free host, and you’ll quickly see that not all websites are created equal. When you compare them, you will quickly notice the difference between well-designed and basic design. If you want to learn about website design, make sure you read these tips.
Make sure your website passes a test by NoScript. You can add this extension to Firefox, and then use it against your website. When your site is just a blank page, you have a problem.
One critical part of great website creation is ease of navigation. It should be painless to locate important links and other information. Menus will make it a lot easier to navigate around your site. Have your main page links located on every page so visitors can easily go through your site.
Watch your color scheme on your site. If the text fades into the background due to poor contrast, the text will be hard to read. Dark text colors on lighter backgrounds tend to be easier on the eyes than light colors on dark backgrounds. Ask your friends to give you feedback on the colors you choose.
Go easy on the graphics in your website development. While graphics are important to give your website a professional, cohesive and well-designed look, using too many of them can create clutter. Use graphics for improvement, not decoration. Your site will also be more usable if you don’t overdo it.
Alt Tags
Images need ALT tags so do this while you are setting up your website. This allows everyone to gain access to the intended information. Using ALT tags also help to explain what clicking on the link will do. Finally, ALT tags are used by search engine crawlers; therefore, using them can help boost your search rank.
Ease of navigation is an important factor in how appealing visitors find your website. Links should be highly visible and easy to locate. Menus render your website easier for users to surf. Post links that lead back to the homepage on each page of your website to make navigation easier for your users.
You don’t want to utilize any type of pop-up ads with your site. This can be very annoying to your users. Pop-ups will cause people to go elsewhere. You don’t need pop-ups; just keep the ads simple.
While development platforms can ease the coding process, many are not as efficient as a plain old text editor. The reason for a platform is to design all the features of the site, so that you can then paste the code that is generated. But if you want to cut back on the errors and get real hands-on experience, a classic text editor is the way to go.
Your best bet is going to be to start small, and move up to larger websites. This way you can easily see what you’re good at, and what you need to work on. Start with an index page that introduces your business and products, then use what you learn from that page’s feedback to build additional informational pages.
Despite the type of site you are going to have, you definitely want to keep the loading time under ten seconds. Efficient sites should be visible in seconds so the viewer does not get side tracked. Many online users want instant gratification, so you should provide that.
Buy books that can help you become a great web designer. Make sure that you start out with books that are around your website creation level. You want to progress, but not skip any information along the way, so you can be great at designing websites.
If you want to be a professional web designer, you need to set up a nice office. Remove distractions and set up your work station in a way that allows you to jump into work quickly, and accomplish tasks efficiently. Make your office supplies and tools easily accessible, and keep an optimized work space for your needs.
It is unlikely that you will be the next creator of a craze like Facebook or Google. There is quite a bit of amazing competition out there already! If you have the right skill set in web page design, you can develop websites that work just as easily as the major ones and yours will look better. Use everything you have just learned and start designing your site today!
Consider a free software package when you are setting up your website. 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.