The faster a web page loads, the more it will be appreciated. You should minimize the loading time of your site’s pages. Visitors can quickly become impatient and leave your site if it loads too slowly. They will often move on to another site and usually never return to yours.
Do not hire someone close to you to help you with your site. Regardless of how much design experience your family member brings to the table, your close personal relationship will make it difficult or impossible to properly express your satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their work.
This tip is extremely obvious, but it’s vital. Proofread every word of content for informational or grammatical errors before uploading it to the server. If you post sloppily written content or content riddled with mistakes, you will appear extremely unprofessional. Nothing will drive customers away more quickly.
Make it possible for users to cancel action if they want to do so. For example, put a “clear” button on a form, an unsubscribe link on all newsletters and a “cancel” button on orders. Visitors do not appreciate not being able to cancel things that they are not interested in completing, and they may not wish to return to your site for future purchases.
White space is a key element in web design, so many sure you have some! Using white space makes your website easy to read. This makes your site’s message much easier to understand and process.
To create a well-designed website, you should pick colors that complement each other, and stick to them throughout the site. Visitors may become confused if a link takes them to a page with completely different fonts and colors, potentially thinking that they have been directed to an exterior site. Keep your graphics consistent, and you can avoid this problem all together. To achieve the maximum cohesiveness, also use the same font and color scheme in any brochure or literature you send out for your company.
Use free software to set up your own site. A lot of people think that they need to use costly software, but the truth is that there are a number of free, quality tools that can help you begin and keep your website running. Just perform a simple search and you’re sure to find some wonderful tools.
Pop-ups should not be used on your site. Many consumers are bothered when they visit a site and are suddenly bombarded by pop-ups. The majority of people will leave a site if it contains pop-ups, even if these sites are very large ones. Avoid those annoying ads to keep your customers content. As well, if your web host makes it mandatory that you have pop-up advertising, look into a new host asap. It’s not worth the annoyance level they create.
Have the data that users enter into fields preserved so that it can be transferred over to other portions of the site where the same information has to be filled out. For instance, if a person registers on your site and a portion of the same exact information is required for filling another form out, ensure that the information they’ve already put in is saved so that he or she doesn’t have to put in this information again. With this “sticky” information, you create a simpler, easier experience for your users, which will prompt them to stay on-site longer.
Try to avoid using Flash elements on your website. While Flash can make your website look futuristic and stylish, Flash will lag on slower computers, so not all of your website’s visitors will get the user experience that you want them to have. Don’t forget, some mobile phones and tablets don’t have Flash enabled, so they are going to be frustrated when they can’t view your site.
It’s fine to have a new user fill out a CAPTCHA when he registers for you site, but after that, he shouldn’t see another CAPTCHA. Captchas make viewers feel that they must jump through a hoop just to see a simple webpage. Only the most devoted members will stay on a page with captchas, while others will leave to go to other sites.
If you want to host videos, check with the web host to make sure that it is allowed. Many hosts do not allow for video hosting on the servers they provide. The files (FLV) take up a great deal of space on servers, so do not waste your time and efforts including them on your site; learn the rules beforehand.
Explore your website with different browsers and computer systems. Since each browser works a little differently, your coding could be interpreted differently on each one, and in some instances it could cause the website to not function properly. There are now many websites that you can visit to find out which web browsers are most commonly used by internet users. Use different browsers to test your website, even mobile web browsers.
There are many good books which can help you learn more about web design. Buy books that are appropriate to your skill level. You do want to increase your skill level, but since web design skills build on each other, missing things can be problematic.
While there will be plenty of attractive designs and strategies, you need to use your own imagination when designing your site. Make up your own designs or make other designs you have seen into your own. Implementing this technique will help you to create a quality website.
Web design is a wonderful thing to view and explore, but only when it is done right. It’s easy to distinguish good from bad in web design, but getting from good to better — or best — takes more subtle touches. Peruse the advice above to find out the elements of quality web design.