If you want to have a successful website, you need to understand proper web design practices. Your website will be more appealing to look at, and easier to utilize by incorporating great web design. Your site will get more traffic and more repeat visitors. Here are some excellent tips for designing the most attractive and successful website.
Have a homogeneous pattern of color and fonts all throughout your website. Be consistent with the colors and fonts you use to avoid confusion. You can avoid this by making sure the graphics on your site are consistent. The company logo should be on each page of your website.
All the links on your site should be checked regularly. A good website is always designed with the user in mind, but if you have link errors, or broken links, it will drive your visitors crazy. Create a schedule of checkpoints at which you can test your links.
When designing a large site, always incorporate a search feature. In the upper right-hand corner of the homepage, include a search box that allows users to search for a single term that appears anywhere in your site. You can get free search boxes from Google or FreeFind.
A number of resources are available for anyone who is interested in learning about web design. There are thousands of well-written publications available to help anyone learn more about web design principles and strategies. They offer an easy way for you to increase your knowledge of web design, so that you can begin to create great looking websites.
Link your logo to your home web page. At this point, people expect that a logo is clickable and will return anyone to your main page. Static logos frustrate users because it forces them to search for the link to the homepage. Therefore, an interactive logo will enhance your site considerably.
PhotoShop is a popular application and web designers must learn it. Even still, many people don’t know anything about dreamweaver and the benefits it can offer to web designers. Check this program out for yourself.
Pay attention to the colors on your website to make sure they match. Make text visible against the background hues. In general, you want to use a dark font color and a lighter background. If you don’t know whether your color theme functions well, ask a friend or colleague to provide feedback.
When creating multiple pages in a subcategory of your website, the copy/paste feature of your PC is your best friend! Rather than taking the time to constantly start from scratch with HTML coding, just copy existing content and re-save it with a new name. By saving the master copy, you will have a tool that you can use ad infinitum.
Flash is a web design tool that you should generally avoid. Flash can appear high-tech and exciting, but it can make for long load times on older systems. Don’t forget that many phones and tablet PCs don’t have Fl;ash enabled, which can ruin the user experience for some and dissuade them from returning to your site.
This may seem obvious, but it’s still important to remember. Don’t upload anything to your website server until you’ve double-checked it for typos, spelling errors and grammar problems. If you publish content that is filled with obvious errors, your site will appear unprofessional. Nothing will send a potential customer running more quickly than a website that looks unprofessional.
Allow “site searching” on all of your pages. Site searching makes it easier for users to access information, and increases the overall usability of the site. It is not complicated to incorporate a site search, and it will pay off in a big way.
Hosting your own site is a bad idea, even if you’ve got the money to do it. Designing the site yourself is a good idea, but when it comes to hosting, it’s usually better to use a third party. This will free up your time to concentrate on more important things.
Attempt to give dedicated time on a regular basis to making your website improvements. Working for hours at a time is more efficient than focusing on your design for a few minutes here and there. Focusing on your web design efforts means putting in research and effort. However, this will pay off by helping you commit what you have learned to memory.
You want to have a site that is easy to navigate, if you want to attract visitors. It should be painless to locate important links and other information. You can also make navigating your site easier with a menu. Make sure you have links back to your main pages accessible on every single page of your website; that way, visitors are able to always get around.
Don’t have pop-ups. There is little worse than visiting a site and being attacked by pop-up ads or newsletter sign-up boxes. Many people will close a website that brings pop-ups as soon as they can, no matter what size the site is. Avoid annoying your customers, by staying away from these irritating advertisements. If you are required by your hosting service to have pop-up ads, you may want to consider obtaining a new web host.
Video is an increasingly important element to any website, so make sure that your hosting service can accommodate it. Many hosts forbid hosting video using their servers. This is because the FLV files can take up a lot of server space, so it is prudent that you ask first before you waste your time.
Be vigilant in policing your website for content that has become obsolete or outdated. If your home page features an event that already took place, people will not be interested in reading more of your content. The average online user values fresh content and attention to detail. Set a review schedule to update content and remove items that are no longer useful.
There are many benefits of using good web design practice. It will help your website look better, make it easier to use, and can also help convince visitors that your content is genuine and trustworthy. Never underestimate the importance of good design. The article above provided you with many tips you can use. With the ideas listed above, you will find yourself creating a great website in no time at all.
