Whether for personal or business reasons, many people have a website these days. But, the most common problem they face is coming up with an eye-catching design for their website. With some helpful advice, like what you are about to read, a site can look better than ever imagined.
Keep the size of your web pages small. A lot of modern web pages are full of unnecessary elements, including huge images, Flash advertising, and lots of AJAX. Many people, especially those in rural areas and other countries with less-developed internet infrastructure, don't have high-speed Internet and will have to wait forever for a large page to load.
Test your site to ensure it passes a NoScript test. This is a Firefox extension you can download, and it will check your site's readability. Some ordering systems or other types of content cannot run script-free, but if the site is blank without the script on, that's not good.
Include a search element that allows visitors to search within your website content. For people who look for specific things, they'll look for a search box first. If your site is not equipped with one, visitors may go to an alternate site. Always place the box at the top right of the page, as this is the first place visitors tend to look for one.
Provide a navigation menu on every page of your site. While this menu does not have to link every single page of your site, as this could be an exhaustive list if you have a very large site, it should provide links to the main pages. This ensures that your visitors do not have to return to the home page and start completely over when it is not necessary.
Try to make sure that any music or pictures that you're linking to is hosted on your own web server. Do not hotlink to any other website images. This can be construed as bandwidth theft and it could put you in violation of a copyright too. It's not worth the risk.
Be sure you're using ALT tags for the images while you design a website. ALT tags are used to provide a description of the images on your site, which will help any visually impaired visitors. When links are used for images, having an ALT tag lets you describe the link's behavior. Finally, search engine crawlers like ALT tags as they are useful. So, your search rank might improve as a result.
Use custom error pages to make your site more informative. For instance, if you want people to report dead links on your site, either put a server-side script on your 404 page or have a form or email address that visitors can use to report the error. You should have custom pages for 403, 404, and 500 errors, at the very least.
One thing you should always take into account when you're thinking about web design is the latest technology that is out today. As technology advances to does the web, so be sure you are always up to date with what is changing so that you're that much more understanding of how the web works.
Don't load rich content automatically. Rich content mainly refers to music and videos, but anything other than text or graphics qualifies. Many people read more browse in work environments where sounds suddenly playing is a big problem. Also, many people find such rich content annoying in general. Rich content should require some interaction from the user before playing.
To be updated on the new web design tricks, you should join an online forum. When joining these message boards you meet people who usually have an understanding of all the new web design technology. Without this new web design technology you could end up with a site that is completely outdated.
Even if you see designs you are attracted to on other sites, it is better to be creative on your own. Come up with interesting new design elements and website features. Don't be afraid to also improve on features that are considered best practices, however. This is a good way to develop your own understanding of web design.
A clean PC is a happy PC when you're building a site. Some software programs will use up a lot of disk space, so having junk files on your PC will bog you down. Besides, it's hard to remain neat and organized if you have files strewn all over the place. Keep your PC free of junk files and clutter.
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.
Focusing on your target audience is important even for website design. For instance, if you're designing a site in order to sell winter coats, you're not exactly going to have a beach themed background with Joe Strummer tunes playing upon entry. Keep your site closely related to its targeted audience.
As stated before, just about everyone, including you, has wanted to create a website. People have had ideas on what their website will be like for years, but become stuck in the actual creation process. This hurdle can be easily jumped from using the web design tips mentioned in the article above.