Successful online businesses have great websites. A beautiful, highly functional site will tell visitors that you are professional, trustworthy and an expert in your field. Learn what what you need to do to design your site cleanly and efficiently.

Speed is critical online, so you have to be certain that your website pages load very quickly. No visitor is going to wait more than a few seconds for your page to load, so ensure they get what they want quickly so they don’t go to your competition’s website instead.

Do not publish any site pages without verifying all the links are working. Visitors become frustrated easily when they click a link and find that it leads to the wrong place. Feel free to manually check them or use some programs to scan and report the broken links.

Be sure to view your website designs in all the popular web browsers. What you see on one browser is not necessarily what others see on other browsers. Research the most popular browsers and fix your site accordingly. You may also want to view your site using a different computer operating system to make sure that everything is compatible whether they are using Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Understand what your purpose is. This means that no matter what information you share, do your research. Giving your customers unclear or false information will only cause you to lose readers. Figuring out your subject will help you blog better.

Internet Explorer

Don’t forget about Internet Explorer 7 and 8. Many people still use old IE versions. Unfortunately, many aspects of your site may not be compatible or displayed properly due to outdated rendering standards, so you may have to create some fixes for the elements that do not work properly. Familiarize yourself with the concept of the notorious “box model bug” which caused trouble for Internet Explorer for years.

Test your site to ensure it passes a NoScript test. The NoScript extension that is available for Firefox can be used to see if the site can still be read. Some things, like purchase orders, will not work unless your site contains the proper scripts.

The types of files that you use for the graphics on your website will affect the size of the files, which will also affect how fast your website loads. When it comes to graphics, it is normally wise to employ GIFs and JPEGS. Though better for the actual creation of web graphics, PNG and CMP files use up a lot of disk space. Keep your graphics at a reasonable size to save space.

An important web design consideration is reducing links that are broken. Make sure you do this regularly, before you even think about uploading it to the server. Broken links are one reason for web visitors to leave a site. You can prevent this by frequently checking that all links still work.

Avoid using pop-up ads whenever possible. Certainly it is important to include PPC ads on your site to earn some money, but pop-up ads that get in the way of what your visitors want to see is counterproductive. People won’t want to visit your website again. Ads should be kept simple, without the need for crazy pop-ups.

Always keep your opening page simple. Visitors to your site will decide quickly from your front page if they want to stay to look around or leave just as quickly. make your business description specific and provide unique offerings, just keep distraction to a minimum.

Sign up for web page design newsletters. These newsletters can help you stay motivated, remind you of basic website design principles and give you a foundation to build on if you get stuck or forget what you’re trying to achieve. Anyone can gain from the information contained in a newsletter, regardless of experience.

Proofread everything! You want your site to flow well, so that visitors can read it quickly without getting caught up in content mistakes. If your site is rife with errors, it makes you look like a rank amateur. Visitors will dismiss you immediately.

Once you figure out the basics behind building a website, you can then turn your attention to design. Use what you have learned here to help you as you create your layout, build up your navigation, and create content your readers will love. Continue learning how to increase your traffic and you’ll meet your goals in no time!

Photoshop is a good program for creating great content for your new web site. It is also novice friendly. Using a program like Photoshop can help amateur web designers create professional looking sites really fast. If you try to skimp on price by using a generic program that doesn’t do a good job, you may find yourself spending much more time than necessary to finish your website.