Most people don’t build cars from scratch. But we all have the tools necessary to design custom websites. Continue reading to learn how to build stunning pages and more. Start here with these tips to get you going in the right direction.
If you’re working on website design use the right graphics for the job. Do not use bitmap for your images as they take up too much space. You have two choices for your non-photographic images. An image using 256 colors or more works well as a PNG, GIF works for the others. For photos, you can use JPEG images.
Your site should be able to pass a NoScript test. Download NoScript and activate the Firefox extension. This will tell you if your website can be read. Some content, such as ordering systems for products, can’t work without scripts, but if your site is simply blank with scripts turned off, that’s bad news.
It’s not the 90’s anymore, so stay away from using frames. Frames worked well in the earlier days, but there are too many flaws in the design. Designs on frames can make it hard for people to get your site bookmarked and they won’t like scrolling either. There are better ways to allow your users to browse your pages easily.
Make your website easy to scan. Studies have shown that internet users scan pages to find interesting articles. Using text that is emphasized to break it into sections that are easily scanned ensures your readers are more likely to return. In addition, be sure to keep key information toward the top portion of the page. This will satisfy your visitors and have them coming back for more.
Utilize the software out there that doesn’t cost you a thing when you are designing your own site. You can use a lot of free tools to assist your building of your website, so check into the software that is available to you. Just do some research and see what you can find that can help you along the way of your website development efforts.
Search Engines
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. 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. Before uploading your site, give each page a look in each of the more popular web browsers.
Do not use frames on your website. Frames are not optimized for most search engines. This information will not be visible on the search engines. Your rating will not be very high if search engines can’t see some of your important info. If you don’t do what’s necessary to make sure that your site is not ranked very high, people will not find your site very easily.
It is very important that customers can navigate any website easily. Navigation links are important for visitors to stay on your site. Never forget that your design as far as ease of navigation is the most important thing you can do to retain and build traffic.
File types can affect the time it take for a website to load. Keep your graphics to GIF and JPEG file formats. PNG and BMP files take up a ton of bandwidth. Keep your graphics at a reasonable size to save space.
You should always make sure to implement a way that users can submit feedback to you about your website. This will give you a mechanism where your visitors can let you know if something is broken, doesn’t work as well as it should or is confusing. One way to make sure that visitors re-visit you site is to give them a feeling of involvement.
Test your site on multiple browsers, platforms (Windows 7, Windows XP, Linux, etc.) and devices (Mac, PC, tablets, cell phones, etc.) Every browser will interpret the site slightly differently. Some of the slight differences can cause navigation to be difficult for the user. It is easy to discover the most popular browsers. Make sure to view your site in the most-used web browsers and as many mobile browsers as possible.
Now that you’ve read this information, you can put it into practice. Playing around will help you learn the basics. From there, your skills will get better and better. Just be sure to use the tips you learned above.