If you do not know much about it, web design can seem like a mysterious and intimidating art. Once you know the basics of good design, however, you will begin to see how easy it is to create an attractive, professional site. With the ideas provided further in the reading, you will have a basic understanding of how you can design a site that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional.
With the amount of time that your visitors likely spend on social networking sites, it makes sense to add links to your site to let them share your content on their favorite social sites. Your readers will be more likely to share your content if they can post it on their Facebook page in a simple click.
Most visitors don’t like to come to a website that has pop-up windows. In fact, a lot of users have pop-ups turned off entirely. These are, therefore, techniques that you should avoid using. If you wish to use these for navigation, try thinking of what you can do to improve your navigation.
If you want to have a successful website, you need to design it in a way that works for all browsers. It is crucial you test out your site that and see that all pages show up properly in each browser. Some things that work in Internet Explorer might not work correctly in Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Test how your pages display with all major browsers prior to launch.
All web designers should always strive for perfection. Perfection may not be attainable, but you should keep that mindset and make every attempt to reach it. This is a great attitude to have no matter what type of site you are building.
Before you design a full website, start small. Make some smaller websites so you can easily see which areas you can do well, and which areas you may need more work on. You want to start off with maybe a couple of pages that are basic with just information and text, and see how you feel from there.
Be sure that you don’t have a design for your website that is too similar to that of your competitors’ sites. Go look at your competitors’ websites. A website that is too similar won’t stand out. You risk becoming known as the generic version of your competitors.
It is important for web designers to set realistic goals for themselves with regards to how long each task will take. When you have an unreasonable deadline that is too ambitious, it will lead to poor results, which will cause more problems going forward. Instead, give yourself enough time to allow yourself to work slowly and avoid careless errors.
Don’t underestimate the importance of your “About Us” page. There are a lot of websites that do not utilize compelling or original content for their “About Us” webpages. You can share personal information, education history and career choices that have lead you to this point in your life. Provide some insight for your visitors; tell them how and why you built your site and what goals you want it to reach for your company.
Build websites with fonts that are easy-to-read, professional-looking, and widely available. You can tell if a site is professional just by viewing their fonts. Overly ornate or obscure fonts should be avoided, as they may not display properly on site visitors’ computers. Your style should specify a default font in case a user doesn’t have your preferred font. Try to use common browser fonts so your users don’t see unexpected type layouts.
Never allow dated or irrelevant content to remain on your website. If the page a viewer clicks on is promoting something that happened a year ago, you just lost a reader. Readers want to read sites that are current. Keeping old information on your site demonstrates that your site lacks attention.` Mark a calendar for when you will sit down and update your website, being careful to take off anything that is not current or relative anymore.
Offer to store personal information for returning users. 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.
Avoid using Captchas, except in the case of new user registration. As soon as a viewer sees a captcha, they will automatically think that they will have to do to much work just too see your webpage. Most visitors will leave a webpage that requires too much personal information or the completion of difficult tasks.
Remember to create a search box at the top of your website and it should contain a minimum of 27 characters. The button you use to start the search should also say only “search” to thwart any confusion. These things will cause your search box to be easily seen and it will help the visitors on your site to find the things they are searching for.
A good web design tip for the newcomer to this field is look at all the tools that are available in the market. There are countless books and magazines dedicated to web design and they cover every aspect imaginable. They offer an easy way for you to increase your knowledge of web design, so that you can begin to create great looking websites.
Hiring a friend or family member to design your website can often be a mistake. Even if a friend or family member has good designing skills, you will find it hard to treat them like an employee and be honest about what you like and what you don’t.
Apply the knowledge you have gained about web design and start building your own website today. Designing the right website for you becomes easier as you learn more about web design. Use the guidelines from this article to create an effective and interesting website much faster then you might imagine.
