You must have a great looking website to be successful in today’s Internet world. You can gain a huge advantage on your competition by having a professional looking website. It’s not a given that design techniques that you heard about a year ago will work today which is why this article is so important to read. In this article, we present some of the top considerations when designing a website.
Add a prominent tagline to your website. Your tagline lets others know more about you or your business. Having a tagline is important; most users know if they will stay on a page after about eight seconds, so you need to do whatever it takes to keep their attention.
Pay attention to the colors on your website to make sure they match. If the text fades into the background due to poor contrast, the text will be hard to read. Dark text colors on light backgrounds are usually easier to read compared to the other way around. If you’re unsure about the color combo you’ve used, solicit feedback from a trusted friend before the site goes live.
Don’t use lots of graphics. While they’re essential to creating a cohesive and professional site, too many can make it look cluttered. Don’t use graphics as a decoration for your site; they should be used to make it look professional. Your site will also be more usable if you don’t overdo it.
Search Function
A search function should always be included when you develop a site that is very large. Make sure you add a search box allowing your viewers to search for terms in your site. FreeFind and Google both distribute a search function which you can use on your site.
Use ALT tags for your images when designing your site. These tags help describe images for those that use graphic-disabled browsers and for those that are visually impaired and who use tools to translate the images to voice. You can also optimize links further if the images you have are shown as links. Lastly, search engine crawlers make use of ALT tags, so employing them can help improve your search rank.
The file types that you utilize for your website’s graphics directly affect file sizes which in turn affect how quickly your website loads. Your graphics should normally be GIFs or JPEGs. You want to avoid PNG or BMP files as these take up too much memory space. Keep your graphics at a reasonable size to save space.
While development platforms are great for doing the job of creating your code, they are not always able to be relied on for classic text editing. A platform lets you choose the features you want for your site, and it then generates the code for you automatically. Use a text editor to reduce mistakes, and additionally help to learn the process for yourself.
Research is very important when it comes to website design. Research your chosen niche so you can better reach your targeted audience. Your goal is to incorporate the content that will bring in the most customers. This extra will pay off in profits at the end of the day.
Use graphics to increase the entertainment value of your website. You want to do things like wrap texts around images so that your site doesn’t look so bland. You are more likely to gain and keep loyal visitors if your site seems professional.
When deciding whether to host online videos on a website, be sure to verify the propriety with your web host. Some hosts do not permit videos to be hosted on their servers. The FLV files are big and take up a lot of space on servers, so check to make sure it is allowed before wasting your efforts.
When creating multiple pages in a subcategory of your website, the copy/paste feature of your PC is your best friend! You can save time when designing your website by using the same HTML code, with small changes, for each page. You can use the master copy of that main section of code as many times as you need to.
Learn from people who are knowledgeable in web page design. You need to diversify your skills as much as possible so that you can create a site for nearly anyone.
Stay away from using Flash with your website. Although it provides some unique effects and very snazzy aesthetics, there are many people out there using older computers that will start to lag, or even crash, when they visit a Flash-heavy website. Some phones and tablets, especially those made by Apple, won’t run Flash at all, which can destroy the user experience if there’s no alternative content.
A great site starts with knowledgeable web design. If done right, it can really help you stand out. Despite that, you must learn some things before designing online. Implementing the tips above can help you properly design a site.