How a website is designed is important when it comes to keeping a customer’s interest. Visit a few of the most well known websites to see how they are designed. You will find that there are major differences in the appearance and useability of these very different sites. To learn more about website creation, read through these helpful tips.
When you are working on your web page design, use the proper graphics needed for the task. Keep in mind that bitmap files are quite large and typically do not work well, but PNGs work okay. GIFs can be quite good for simple text buttons, screenshots, etc and PNGs are great for images with 256 colors and up. When using photos, make them JPEGs.
A great place to build your web page design knowledge is through forums. This will help you learn more about starting and maintaining your web page design. An Internet search on your computer will give you access to a lot of info.
Your website should include a prominently displayed tagline. This tagline should give visitors an idea of what your site is about. The tagline serves to entice people to linger at your website rather than just pass through. Research shows that visitors spend roughly 8 seconds deciding if a website is worth exploring further. So make your tagline count.
A site that is going to be successful must work with all browsers. This is why it is vital that you test all your pages to ensure that they properly display in all the various browsers. While a certain element may look wonderful in Firefox, it may appear incorrectly on Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Safari. Before you website is launched, test the display of each page in all major browsers.
Broken Links
Always look for broken links prior to publishing pages on the web. Error pages can be very frustrating to visitors. You could check for broken links yourself, or get a program that scans and reports broken links for you.
Does your site pass the NoScript test? Download the extension to ensure your website is readable. Certain content cannot be read unless scripts are present. A blank site without scripts can create big problems.
Try using a newsletter for getting repeat visitors. You can keep your visitors informed about important events, updates, and changes when they sign up for a newsletter, and the flow of information will often tempt them to revisit your site. Place the signup form in a sidebar on your site, and keep track of the people that sign up. Make sure the newsletter only goes to those who actually asked for it, or you’re going to get some serious blowback.
Alt Tags
Be sure you’re using ALT tags for the images while you design a website. These tags help describe images for those that use graphic-disabled browsers and for those that are visually impaired and who use tools to translate the images to voice. If your images are used as links, ALT tags also provide a way for you to describe the behavior of the link. The ALT tags will bring up the search rank of your site because search engine crawlers use them as well.
On the Internet, few things are more important to users than speed and efficiency, especially where page loading times are concerned. If a site visitor ends up waiting for a long time for your web page to load, they will definitely leave your site in search of a similar site that loads faster and will never recommend anyone to your site.
If you want your site to become more visible to online users, you must learn to use proper meta tags for each page. Good meta tags help search engines understand and categorize your website’s content properly. If your meta tags are poorly thought out and do not reflect your site’s content, then you will not get many visitors.
Optimize your website to ensure fast load times. People are more likely to leave your site if the load time is too long. Speed your website up by having less scripts running, few graphics, minimal amount of flash, use SSI files, tweak the HTML, use server side caching, and lessen the amount of CSS and JS coding.
Resist the urge to use pop-ups ads on your site. These are annoying to your users and they are less likely to trust your site. It will discourage people from visiting your website. Keep ads small and unobtrusive.
Take some time to learn about shortcuts that can be used to save time. Nearly everything in web design has a shortcut, and if you check them out carefully, you can find quicker ways to accomplish most items. For example, you can use certain HTML codes to make very quick changes without needing to re-load.
There are undoubtedly a number of existing site styles and designs that appeal to you, but it’s essential to harness your own unique creativity. Come up with your own ideas and features or improve upon some that you admired on other sites. By doing this, you are taking advantage of a wide range of website design options.
Keep the levels of literacy in mind when you are writing your content. Not every person that visits your site will have graduated from an ivy-league college or have been reading for many years. This means using concise, easy-to-understand content will help grow your visitors.
Make sure your site is secure. If you will be handling sensitive data on your website such as PayPal accounts or credit card numbers, you should purchase an SSL certificate. Additionally, you should consult your website host and look for security features that will be offered with your package.
A good key to remember is that your site should load in 10 seconds or less. Efficient sites should be visible in seconds so the viewer does not get side tracked. Most visitors want things to happen quickly and easily. If you don’t offer that to them, you will lose many opportunities.
The more often you check the site, the faster you can delete spam or negative contents. This is especially true for the blog owners out there and people with forums. Getting rid of any problems in advance is what a great site designer is paid to do.
Search Box
If you include a search box on your site, it should be positioned in the top, right-hand site of each page. The search field should accommodate 27 or more characters. See to it that button that starts the search reads “search”, as opposed to “go” or “submit”. These things will cause your search box to be easily seen and it will help the visitors on your site to find the things they are searching for.
The content on your website should be of high quality and engaging to your target audience. Although the overall look of your site is important, it is the content that keeps them coming back for more. When your content provides useful and valuable information that addresses the needs of your site visitors, those visitors are more likely to come back to your site in the future.
Design error pages that are helpful to your visitors. When a person clicks on a broken or moved link, they will be taken to an error page. Design your own error pages that give information to the visitor and add a link to the home page.
Be sure your logo appears in the heading of every page. Your logo on every page makes for a central place where you can link everything together. Also, this will build brand recognition for your site. Your logo should reflect the essence of your company.
It’s likely that you will not make the very next Twitter or Facebook. The odds say otherwise. Yet don’t be discouraged by this because you can create sites with high quality that millions of users can come to appreciate. Take the insights gained and here apply them to your great new website.
Make sure that your load times are up to par at all times. Visitors would rather leave than wait. Reduce graphics, scripts and Flash consoles on your web page, optimize HTML and utilize SSI files.