It is a mixed bag of feelings when you consider designing a website. You may not have much, if any, experience in doing something like this. Read the tips presented here to find out how easy it can really be to design your own website.
For multimedia presentations, take advantage of the new HTML5 standard. Although HTML5 isn’t quite as robust for animation and games as Flash, it has the advantage of working stably on mobile phone browsers, including those contained in Apple hardware. HTML5 is also quite a bit leaner than Flash, so load times will improve, as well.
Always mark files that must be opened in an external program with an icon. Many sites host PDF files, and less commonly, DOC files, that must be opened in Foxit Reader and Microsoft Word/OpenOffice, respectively. These files should be marked with an icon representing the file type, and a link to download the appropriate viewer if the user does not have it.
Make your links obvious. Customers do not like spending time wading through your site searching for something they are interested in. Having a site map, as well as providing big, prominent links will help your viewer find what they are looking for without wasting time in a hunt. Lead them to your information.
To help keep your site visitors happy, do not underline words. Underline words on the internet signifies that the word is a clickable link. If you have too many words on your pages that are underlined with being clickable links, then your visitors will be frustrated after continuously trying to click on them.
If you want your website to be more attractive, consider adding your own pictures. Having pictures on your website gives off a more user-friendly approach to your site. People spend extra time on websites with photos because they look at the pictures.
When you design a site, try to stick to just a few web fonts. Learn how to use generic fonts to make your site look more uniform. Most websites opt for sans serif fonts, like Verdana, that looks fine in different sizes and colors.
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.
Add a search feature to a website. When visitors come to your website, they want to easily be able to find what they are looking for. A keyword search feature will make it easy for people to find the right page on your site, especially if the website you are designing is very complex.
You constantly want to test your page to ensure it is functioning well. You have to be sure you’re working on how users interact and use your site while you’re designing the basic layout of it. Make sure to keep improving and testing it as your website continues to grow.
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.
Web design can be a fun way to get to your target audience, and promote your company or product. When something is down correctly, it can be beneficial to your promotional skills. Begin now, and use what is in this article to help you succeed.
