Web design can seem interesting at first and then lose it’s luster once you start to give it some real thought. If you’re ready to take on the challenge and create a website, continue reading to find some simple tips which will help you to get down to business!
Don’t make page sizes too big. Some users have slower connections and will lose interest if a website takes too long to load. You don’t want people to have to abandon your site because the pages won’t load.
Make your website easy to scan. Many readers online look for information that is interesting to them. That’s why it is smart to break your information into smaller, more easily comprehended chunks. You should put the important stuff on top. In this way, your visitors will have a good experience and get the information they need.
Do your best to store any personal information of your users so that they don’t have to enter it over and over again on your site. When a user needs to enter their information multiple times to sign up for various options you give them, make it so that they don’t have to enter duplicate info from beginning to end on their own repeatedly. Creating information that is “sticky” simplifies the entire process, and visitors are certain to appreciate all the time that they have saved.
Regardless of your target crowd or your site’s purpose, you always want to aim for a ten second loading time or better. It is best if the page fully loads in just a few seconds. Many users crave instant gratification, so you should give it to them.
To help make your website more attractive, incorporate some pictures that you took. Putting pictures on a website adds a more personal touch and helps the user relate better to your information. People spend extra time on websites with photos because they look at the pictures.
When designing a site, use free software. Oftentimes, people erroneously believe that shareware is inefficient for certain tasks. However, there are many free programs designed to help you keep your website neat and current. Do some research and try different software to find the tools you need the most.
When you design a site, try to stick to just a few web fonts. You must also consider how different fonts appear on the standard computer screen; smaller serif fonts (Times New Roman, for example) are somewhat hard to read. Many websites use Verdana, which can be simple to read in various sizes and colors.
Your site should be optimized to handle older Internet Explorer versions. Lots of people grumble about IE, but they still use it, and they often use outdated versions. Many elements are not in compliance with web standards, so finding a workaround will be required. Specifically, you should get up to date about an issue that plagued IE called “box model bug”.
Be sure you take care of the people that use your site’s needs. A web designer must focus on the needs of the end user all the time. For example, many users are concerned about accessibility, usability, user interaction and user experience. These are important considerations to make. Look at things the way your readers would see things when you go to design a page.
Meta Tags
To help you design your site to attract more visitors, you need to include good meta tags on each page. You need to spend some time on creating high quality meta tags so that search engines can classify your site properly. Meta tags that don’t accurately reflect the content of your website will negatively impact your traffic.
Make sure your site navigation is simple, well-maintained, and transparent. Where your links are will determine if visitors can get around your site. The navigational part of your website should allow users a great experience.
When creating pages that have links, be sure the links contain text content. Visitors can easily see links that provide content. If your links don’t have text, they may not be helpful.
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. Site features are designed within the platform, and then the generated code is pasted in. It makes things simple, but it can create some bulky, messy code. To make things more error-free, working the old fashioned way, via a text editor, is the smarter approach.
You should feel better about your decision to become a web designer, now that you’ve learned what it entails. Keep researching website creation, because new knowledge comes out all the time. Skill and enthusiasm, coupled with resources like those found here, will jump start your web design projects and bring you much success.
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