There are lots of things a website can do for you. It is used for information sharing, entertainment and other uses. No matter the site, every website needs a savvy webmaster to be designed properly. Here you’ll get some tips on web design that will help you make a great website.
Don’t use splash pages for your site unless required by law, and especially don’t use a Flash intro. Most people just want to get to your content as quickly as possible, and don’t care to look at useless splash pages. If you have some amusing content that you absolutely want visitors to see, integrate it into the homepage instead.
Visitors will enjoy your website, if they can navigate it easily. You should have links that are easy to find, as well as displayed well. Menus can also make it easier to navigate your site. Make sure that you have links posted to every page of the website. This will allow visitors to easily navigate the site.
Avoid cramming page elements together. Each section of your page should be naturally separated from each other, as this makes the purpose of each section more clear. The easiest way to separate sections is by using DIVs, but there are other ways, including absolute positioning (not recommended), the CSS margin command, and floats.
Pay close attention to the backgrounds of your site design. There are certain websites that utilize animated GIFs for their backgrounds. While such backgrounds can be attractive in some cases, they can also make it difficult to read the content on your website. Use a light colored background which fits into your site’s color palette.
Use a descriptive title. Many site owners forget to name their pages, or name them something generic, such as “Welcome Page.” Search engines do use title descriptions in their rankings, so make sure you are as descriptive as possible, without going overboard. Make sure it is usable for your viewers and the search engines.
If you have several pages on your web site, use a navigation bar at the top to help visitors find the information they need right away. Include contact information, so they can speak with you if they’d like. Headings should be clear and visible, and paragraphs should be concise as well as easy to read.
Make sure your website content is both interesting and compelling. Though the look is highly important, content is the key to return visitors. When your content provides useful and valuable information that addresses the needs of your site visitors, those visitors are more likely to come back to your site in the future.
If you desire feedback from your visitors, design your site to include a feedback form rather than a guestbook. A feedback form lets your site visitors contact you without having anything negative be shown to everyone else who sees your site. If you have a guestbook then everyone can read both good and bad comments, something you really do not want people to see, especially when the comments are negative.
If you are not feeling confident in any area at all when you’re designing a website then go ahead and ask for help from someone. You can either find help from a friend or from strangers on places like forums on the web. Just be sure you don’t tackle anything without knowing what you’re doing first.
To help make sure your website works as you are designing it, test it one of the browsers like Internet Explorer. When you test the website as you go along building it, you can quickly correct any problems that might show up once you live. When your website goes live you want your visitors to be able to see everything working correctly.
Have clear navigation. When a visitor comes to your site, make sure they can go through your site. You must have clear navigation to do this. Have all important links in prominent places. Try linking many pages in your site. Allow information be found from every part of the site.
Avoid putting ads in your website that pop up. These ads are always alluring with the promise of making extra profits; however, most visitors find them highly annoying. It will cause people not to want to come back. Keep ads small and unobtrusive.
When tinkering with your HTML, you always need to save a copy. You can save a copy of your code in a Notepad doc; just save it as .html and it will save as an actual webpage. This way, you can tinker around with things and know that there’s a backup should something go wrong. Failure to save pages may result in having to start from scratch.
Make sure that you periodically go back and try to remember all that you’ve learned thus far. One of the biggest problems people have when they first start out with web design is that they learn one or two things and forget them a couple of days later, which can hurt their website progress.
When shopping for hosting for your site, review all of the features of each plan before settling on one. Understand how much storage space you get, CPU usage limits, how much data you can transfer per month, and other important features, including server OS and SSH access. Know what you’ll end up with, if you decide to go forward with it.
Be sure to proofread everything you post to present a professional appearance. People should be able to read through the content quickly and easily. If you make a lot of mistakes, you will not look very professional or authoritative.
Site maps are an excellent piece of technology that allow users and search engines to get a better view of your site’s functions and layouts without extra work. Include a link to your sitemap from the homepage and leave it as simple as possible. The sitemap doesn’t need fancy graphics or fonts, just layout your website and update it when needed.
As stated in the introduction, websites are useful for a lot. If you want to set up a site, you have to have some knowledge about design. When you use what you have read here, you can easily design any site, to do anything you want.
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