Have you always wanted to design a website but never knew where to start? Can you not afford to hire a professional? The tips and tricks here will help you learn what you need to know.
Speed is vital when it comes to the Internet; therefore, you should ensure that your pages load really fast. If a visitor to your site has to wait minutes for pages to laod, they’ll get bored and go elsewhere.
Go easy on the graphics in your website design. Though graphics are necessary for a professional look that is well-designed, too much creates clutter. Graphics should improve your site, not just pretty it up. Your site will be easier to use if it’s not overly cluttered, too.
If you want your website to cater to the needs of visitors, it must be user-friendly and simple to navigate. Ensure that links are easy discovered and displayed in a prominent location. Good menus make navigating your site much easier. Ensure that you have a link to your website’s home page on every page on your website so that visitors can easily return to you site’s main page.
Be sure your introductory page is clean and simple. A lot of people will only look at the front page. That’s where they are making the decision whether to spend more time on your site. Provide simple content on what you do and how to contact you.
You need to have content that moves and excites your visitors. The design of your website is important, and the content is too. When you have relevant content on your site that appeals to your viewers and takes into account what they are looking for, there is a good chance they will want to visit again in the near future.
File Sizes
Don’t overuse graphics. Even though graphics might give you a professional looking website, too many may result in a crowded site. Graphics should enhance what you have to say on your site. They shouldn’t be put there to just look pretty. Having the appropriate number of graphics that do not create clutter improves the usability of your website, too.
Make sure that all the files on your website are small in size. You need these small file sizes regardless of the overall design of your site. The reason behind this is because the file sizes will affect how fast your website loads. You want your site to load instantly. You should remember also that some visitors may not use an Internet connection that is high speed. Test your website to ensure that it loads quickly even on a dial-up modem connection.
Do not put pop-up windows on your site. Even if you believe it is a good strategy, most visitors will be annoyed by them. As a result, your users may just go away from your site, too angry to come back.
When creating pages that have links, be sure the links contain text content. This will let your visitors know what they’re going to click on. Textless links can easily be clicked by mistake.
Let users cancel actions if they desire. Whether filling out forms, signing up for email notices or even needing browsing options, users will find this useful. Not allowing customers to cancel actions that they do not want to follow through with is unfair, and it is forceful, which may prevent those visitors from returning to your site or making purchases from you in the future.
Make sure that your load times are up to par at all times. Visitors won’t wait around forever for pages to load. Reduce graphics, scripts and Flash consoles on your web page, optimize HTML and utilize SSI files.
Step up your creativity when you write your site’s “About Us” page. Dry or simplistic content won’t get your reader interested. Spice things up. Give visitors insight into you, the designer. Help them understand how you began designing websites, which other designers you consider to be mentors, and where you are going from here.
Use basic fonts which every user will be able to see. The quality of a professional website is measured by it’s fonts. Avoid fancy fonts that are hard to read or unprofessional fonts such as Comic Sans. If a visitor doesn’t have a font on his computer, his browser may display a default font that doesn’t look right. This could cause it to look bad.
Learn about shortcuts, and use them often. There are plenty of site design shortcuts so that you can save time. It doesn’t take that long to learn about the HTML code that you can insert into your website’s design to help you edit any page without having to upload the page again.
Make sure to check for any broken links. Do this often, and especially before uploading any of it to the server. This can be critical, since visitors are going to know that the information they are looking for is not available, and if that happens a lot on your website, they will stop going to your website. To prevent this from happening, do a quick check to ensure everything is working properly.
Resist the urge to use pop-ups ads on your site. Incorporating PPC ads can bring you some income, but pop-up ads distract your visitors and annoy them. It will cause people not to want to come back. Make sure you do not put up anything too annoying to others.
Practice website creation and you will get better. This is important so that you will understand well how each step fits into the bigger picture and becomes easier for you to handle. It’s great to follow printed directions, but it is even better to be able to design a web page anywhere.
Use a newsletter to gain repeat visitors. If you provide customers with an opportunity to keep abreast of upcoming promotions or events, they will be more likely to return. Put your sign up form on your site’s sidebar to keep track of how many people sign up. You can avoid some reputation-damaging trouble by making sure that your newsletter only goes out to visitors who have explicitly requested it.
Having a website and designing it yourself means, you need an office space. Remove distractions and set up your work station in a way that allows you to jump into work quickly, and accomplish tasks efficiently. Make sure your work area contains all the tools you need and make them easily accessible.
Speak with people you know just to see if you missed something when you learned things like Dreamweaver, Photoshop or HTML. You need to be sure that the information you have is ingrained and you don’t need to find yourself making a site when you suddenly get confused or lost.
If you use the tips from this article, you will have a great website for your business. Whether you’re promoting a product or a service, a website is a must. Best of luck to you!
Any links you place on your site should have text content. The purpose is to ensure that your customer or client is clicking on exactly what they are hoping to find. It is very easy for visitors to your page to accidentally hit a link if it has no text content.
