There are many things a website is used for. They can educate, entertain, provide social connections or even serve as a marketplace for goods. A well trained webmaster is the key to making any website successful. What follows is a handful of tips that will help you get started.
Graphics are important for any designer but beginners should focus only on the standard graphics on their first several builds. Remember, bitmap images are huge and usually don’t work well, PNGs work fine. PNG should be used for buttons with text and screenshots that have 256 colors or more. Photos require JPEG to ensure high quality.
Popular Browsers
Keep finding fresh information all around you to boost your knowledge of web design. Do an Internet search on web design to find numerous free sites and forums.
Unless your website can be viewed on a variety of browsers, it is unlikely to produce the desired results. Ensure that the site can be easily navigated on the most popular browsers. While a certain element may look wonderful in Firefox, it may appear incorrectly on Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Safari. Before your website goes live, check to be sure that the pages display properly in all of the most popular browsers.
Minimize your page sizes. Users with slower Internet connections may decide that the wait is not worth it if your site is slow to load. If the wait is too long, your visitors may give up and leave.
Make sure that every action can be cancelled if needed. This could be anything from filling out forms to registering for email newsletters. You can deter people from coming back to your site if you don’t allow them the option of cancelling things they are in the middle of completing.
You should never go live before previewing the site and ensuring images load properly and all links work. Visitors will be annoyed if they click on broken links. Links can be checked manually, and you can also find software that will check your site to see if there are any broken links.
If your site users will be registering to use your site, you should use their personal information to auto-fill forms. For instance, if a user registers at your site and another form requires the same information again, be certain your website preserves this data to prevent them the useless and annoying hassle of filling it in again. Developing “sticky” data like this streamlines the user experience, and your visitors will likely appreciate the convenience.
Consider a free software package when you are setting up your website. It is not necessary to spend a large amount of money on web designing software with the number of quality, free programs available. With a little search effort on your part, the kinds of tools you need can be found, and for free.
Avoid excessive use of pop-up windows. You’ll only annoy your visitors with this type of content, regardless of how important the information in the pop-up windows is. Many visitors to your site may simply exit the site when faced with a pop-up. If this happens, they are unlikely to return.
Despite the type of site you are going to have, you definitely want to keep the loading time under ten seconds. It is best if the page fully loads in just a few seconds. Many people browsing the web want instant gratification, so if you want to catch their attention, you need to provide that.
When deciding on a background color for your website, white is a very effective and good choice. White backgrounds give your site a professional look, as well as make the content easy to read. Complicated background designs on the other hand can be distracting, and can make your website feel less professional. A simple background is usually better than a crazy one.
Try making navigation as clear and easy as possible. Place all navigation links in areas that flow well and are easily visible so your visitors know where to go and remain on the site much longer. Navigating your site must be easy, consistent, and neat for visitors to have a good experience.
As stated in the introduction, websites are useful for a lot. You must understand design in order to fulfill it. If you implement the preceding tips, it is possible for you to develop a website that will help you attain your goals.
The type of files you use for graphics on your site are related directly to the size of the file. This affects the load time of your site. Generally you are better off using GIFs or JPEGs for your graphics. Just because PNG and BMP files can be more suited to web graphics, they can use a lot more disk space. Make your files manageable to keep loading times down for visitors.
