If yours is a startup, online business, you may not be able to afford the expense of hiring a web designer. If you are new to the world of business, you can save tons of money if you design your website yourself. Don’t cut corners! Use the following tips to design professional-looking websites.
It’s imperative that you include a tagline somewhere that will be very noticeable on your website. A tagline is seen as a statement that tells people what a business’s site is about. This is important since the average user knows if they want to stay and explore a site within eight minutes.
Frames have not been used on websites since the 90’s. These flawed systems were popular in the past. Frame designs make scrolling frustrating and it makes sites more difficult to bookmark. There are a lot of better ways to get people to go through the website you have.
We are no longer in the 20th century, so try to avoid frames. Frames were of great use in the early days of web design, but it had a lot of flaws. Designs on frames can make it hard for people to get your site bookmarked and they won’t like scrolling either. You will learn, thanks to advancements in web design, that allowing your visitors to cruise through an easy flowing site is a simple as 1, 2, 3 and visually more attractive.
The speed at which your web page loads is an important design factor. If your website takes ages to load, they will wash their hands of your site and find one that loads in a reasonable amount of time.
Go through all links on any page on your website carefully to make sure there are no links that are broken before you upload the page. An error page after clicking a link is very frustrating for visitors to your page. Use a program to scan your site to get the job done automatically.
If users want to, let them cancel an action. An action can be classified as completing a form or registering to receive content, like a newsletter. If you don’t let visitors back out of an incomplete action, it can be perceived as forcing them to do something, which will probably make them go elsewhere.
Always keep the size of your pages to a minimum. Not all people using the Internet have a fast connection, and loading times can make visitors lose interest. There’s no reason to make viewers wait.
Different topics should not inhabit the same page. Be sure to use different pages if your site includes more than one topic for discussion. This will help your customer quickly find the information he or she requires.
Simplify your home page. People looking around will decide right away if they wish to use your site just by how your homepage looks. Explain exactly what your business specializes in.
Use some pictures on your site to make your site attractive. Pictures help your site seem more approachable and user friendly. Those pictures can lead to a lot more post views per visitor.
Let users cancel actions if they desire. This could be anything from filling out forms to registering for email newsletters. If visitors cannot cancel an action they are not interested in, such as providing their contact information, they will feel they do not have a choice and won’t buy anything.
Leave pop-up windows off your website. Users hate them and they won’t add you any value. When pop-up windows come up, you are quickly bringing frustration to your visitors. This may make them leave your website and not come back again.
Search Engines
Don’t use frames if you want to optimize your website. Although the information in fames may be attractive to visitors to your page, search engines can’t see it. If search engines are unable to see some of the key information presented by your site, your ranking is bound to suffer. When you don’t have a high ranking, then your visitor count will be lower.
Be considerate when it comes to your site background. If you have a GIF background that moves, your text may be too hard to read. Make sure your background doesn’t detract from your content, or make it hard for your viewers to read your font.
When designing your website, create independent CSS pages for the web browsers and use conditional loading. These two things make maintenance and testing simpler. Simplicity is key to success.
While utilizing the design tools of a host to get your website started is a fine idea, never rely on these tools completely. It’s important to have your personality show through on your website, and the way to do this is by adding extra touches the host site doesn’t offer.
When you’re just starting out with designing a website, it’s important to practice. When you practice, it helps you learn more about website creation. The last thing you want to do is think you’ve learned something but didn’t properly digest it.
Try not to use JavaScript too much. Despite the advantages of increased responsiveness and transparency, it may be problematic for many users. No two web browsers are the same, and each one offers up new versions on a regular basis. Some people accessing your website are going to do so with a browser that is not fully updated and compatible with your JavaScript. On top of this, some visitors will have JavaScript disabled in their browsers. In either case, you are preventing your visitors from using all or some of the features of your website.
Keep your early site building efforts small, so you can more easily identify what is working, and what is not. You need to begin with perhaps a few basic pages with just enough information so that you can determine how you feel.
Learning anything is never an easy journey, and that holds true for website design. Expect to make mistakes and learn from them. But, you should use what you’ve learned here and you will build an effective site.
