For business owners who want to operate online, hiring a web designer can be a huge expense. If you are new to the world of business, you can save tons of money if you design your website yourself. However, you should never cut corners. The following advice will help you build a site like the professionals do.
If you are designing a website, choose proper graphics. Keep in mind that PNGs are much better than large and poorly working bitmap images. For non-photographic graphics choose a PNG if the graphic has less than 256 colors. Otherwise, choose a GIF. JPEGs are ideal for photographs.
Eliminate pop-up windows from all pages on your site to create a user-friendly experience. They may seem helpful, but they are seen as more annoying by visitors than not. 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.
Pay attention to the background of your website. While some websites utilize moving GIF backgrounds, opt for simple background since these moving backgrounds can make text hard to read. Choose a background that accentuates what your site already has to offer, rather than works against it. This will help get your message across to your visitors.
Search Engines
To create a better-optimized site, avoid using frames. Many users like frames, but when search engines crawl your website, they will not see what is contained within them. If search engines cannot read your information, you will have a poor web ranking. This will lead to a reduction in visitors.
You need to make sure the links on your site actually show content. Your visitors should know exactly what they’re heading for when they click on a link. If the links don’t have text content, they may appear as a keyboard shortcut.
Make sure to preserve personal information that may need to be entered again by the same user of your website. For example, if someone registers for your site, and some of the same information is needed to fill out another form, make sure data that they have already entered is preserved, so users do not need to re-enter this information. If you use this data to your advantage, users will be able to save time as they navigate your site.
Learning about design on the web is much easier as you practice. The best way to learn is by starting up your own page and begin with simple scripts in HTML or PHP and upgrading as you become comfortable. You have to start some time, so you might as well start now.
While you design your site, remember you don’t have to use all the available space on every web page. Using every pixel available to you can make the website feel overwhelming or cluttered. Give your users a break by allowing space between different elements on each page. White space is often even more valuable than a flashy design and layout.
You really should have a dedicated space set aside, where you can design websites and manage your own site. Get rid of all distractions, and have you work space organized and ready for when you go to work. Put your office supplies where you can reach them easily, and set aside enough space to allow you to design your site.
Do not overuse JavaScript. Although it provides many methods of building a site that is more responsive, this can cause some problems for some visitors. Web browsers have different capabilities, and they all have new versions that come out regularly. Some of your readers are not going to have the most recently updated version of their browser. Also, not every person will keep JavaScript set up in their browsers. These two things mean that some users won’t be able to use your site.
Make sure your slogan is on every page of your website, including those that are housed in subdomains. Keywords will make your website more relevant to search engines and increase traffic to your site. The tagline should sum up the reason for the page’s existence. Visitors should know whether they have any business at the site just by looking at the tagline.
Avoid the use of CAPTCHAs whenever you can. While captchas may be useful in some cases, forcing them to do so for mundane tasks, will make them leave your site quickly. The only way they will stay on this page is if they’re already a member that’s devoted to the site.
Remember that you do not have to design the entire website all by yourself. Lots of knowledge from different areas must be known about website development, which includes user interface design, search engine optimization, web programming, content creation, and graphic design. It’s common to outsource some of this work, so don’t feel ashamed to do so. If there are areas that are unfamiliar to you, consider hiring a professional service to help you.
When designing your website, you should avoid using too many different types of fonts. Think about how the various fonts look on a standard computer display. Tiny fonts can be difficult to read. Many sites make use of Verdana, as it can be read in many sizes and colors.
Check with your host to make sure video hosting is allowed if you have the intent of hosting videos on your site. It’s not uncommon for hosts to prohibit videos being uploaded to their servers. The files (FLV) take up a great deal of space on servers, so do not waste your time and efforts including them on your site; learn the rules beforehand.
It is not easy to become an expert in website design if you’re just starting. There will probably quite a few mistakes along the way. It is simple though if you take all the information and advice from above and take the time to learn everything about website creation, soon enough you will create something that many people will want to see.
