Did you know that anyone can build the website they have always dreamt of? Maybe you have dreams of becoming an online entrepreneur but your finances prevented you from having someone else build your online presence. The following article contains helpful tips to get you started.
Graphics are important for any designer but beginners should focus only on the standard graphics on their first several builds. Do not use bitmap for your images as they take up too much space. For screenshots, text buttons, and other non-photographic images, use PNG if the image has more than 256 colors, and GIF if not. Use JPEG format for all photos on your website.
If you want your website to cater to the needs of visitors, it must be user-friendly and simple to navigate. Important links should be highly visible on every page. Having a menu bar on your site can also make navigation easier. Link back to the homepage from every other page on your site; this makes it far easier for users to get around.
Speed is king on the Internet, so you need to make sure your web pages load quickly. You cannot expect much patience from your visitors. If they are stuck looking at an incomplete page for minutes on end while your content loads, they are quite likely to close your site and find what they’re looking for elsewhere.
Testing your website in every browser available is a great way to ensure it works as you wish it to for every visitor. Even though your website may display perfectly on Internet Explorer, this doesn’t mean that it will look the same on Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Verify the way in which your pages load in all major browsers prior to your official launch.
Create an opt-in newsletter to entice your visitors to return often. If you provide customers with an opportunity to keep abreast of upcoming promotions or events, they will be more likely to return. 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.
Keep your homepage simple. People surfing the web will quickly decide if they are going to delve into a website based on the front page. Be descriptive about what your business does, and your unique offerings, but keep everything else to a minimum to avoid distraction.
Set up your site so that visitors can cancel actions they initiate if they change their minds. These actions involve signing up for newsletters or email notifications, filling out forms, or searching the site for different topics or archives. You can deter people from coming back to your site if you don’t allow them the option of cancelling things they are in the middle of completing.
Research your keywords. Of course, you must provide valuable and relevant content; however, you can optimize it with judicious use of excellent keywords. Knowing what keywords people use to find your site via search engines is a must for your website to succeed.
It doesn’t matter nearly as much as what your website looks like as much as it matters that the files listed are on the smaller side. The size of the files making up your website is the direct cause of your site’s load times. Of course, having your website load quickly is the best scenario for visitors. Remember that there are still lots of people who do not have high speed Internet. Run tests to ensure that even dial-up users report a smooth user experience.
Leave pop-up windows off your website. While popup adverts can help you to generate some income from your website, they are also likely to frustrate your visitors. When you have pop-ups, the chances increase your visitors may get frustrated by them and choose to leave your website with no interest in returning.
There is a plethora of programs available to assist you with design. These programs are easy to use and will give you a polished result. People won’t visit your site unless they like how it looks and functions.
Alt Tags
As you go about setting up your website, make sure that you add ALT tags to all images on the site. These tags are important for your website and people that disable graphics. Even if you use links for your images, the ALT tags will help to explain what the link does. It’s also important to remember that search engine bots search for ALT tags, so they can aid in your search engine ranking.
Your website should be optimized to include older versions of web browsers such as Internet Explorer. Lots of people grumble about IE, but they still use it, and they often use outdated versions. They don’t render pages that have to do with regular standards on the web so you have to figure out a work around. Do a little research on the box model bug.
Stay away from pop-up windows as part of your design. Although you may think they are helpful, many people think they are annoying. When you add pop-up windows to your website, you run the risk of frustrating people to the point that they won’t come back.
When you are creating a page that contains links, ensure your links use text content. The content makes the link visible to the users who are on your site. It is very easy for visitors to your page to accidentally hit a link if it has no text content.
As you work on your site, make sure to incorporate both conditional loading and independent CSS pages. Doing this will make it easier to test and maintain your website. Every website requires maintenance and making it simple will save you time in the long run.
Site Yourself
When designing your site, use ALT tags when adding images. These tags provide several very important functions in that they describe images for people who browse the Internet with graphics disabled, and provide descriptions for people who are visually impaired and utilize tools that translate images to voice. If part of a link, you can include information about the link intention. It may also benefit your search engine rankings.
Hosting your site yourself is not really a great idea, no matter what amount of money you’ve decided to invest in it. Design the site, or most of the site yourself, but let someone else host it so that you can focus on its security.
As you learn more website development skills, you should practice each thing you learn repeatedly to make sure you are getting it right. When you practice, it helps you learn more about website development. You never want to read something great but not actually “get it” because you didn’t try it out on your own.
Ask your friends what they know about web design, in case there is something you’ve overlooked learning. The last thing that you want is to be deep in the design process and realize that you neglected to learn a key piece of information.
Don’t underestimate the importance of your “About Us” page. Dry or simplistic content won’t get your reader interested. Make it a little more exciting! Let your visitors know a little bit about you. Share tidbits of information such as your business goals, your beginnings in web design and the sources of your inspiration.
Use what you learned in this article and create a site that exceeds your goals. No matter if you promote a product or yourself, a website is essential for online success. Happy website building!