When you are creating graphics or photos for your website, be sure to keep the file size small. If your graphics are too large, your page will load slowly and your visitors will leave. You can find many free or inexpensive graphics programs online that will optimize your images before you load them to your website.
Make sure you have a tagline that shows up well on your website. Your tagline lets others know more about you or your business. You only have about 10 seconds to gain and keep hold of your visitors' attention from the time they first hit your site.
Don't force users to install strange BHOs. Many tech-savvy users won't do it. Common offenders include unusual video players, image viewers, and platforms for interactive games. For most standard use cases, there is a trusted plugin, such as Windows Media Player or even Flash) that will do what you want without driving away users.
Learn the basics of HTML and CSS. Although there are many templates that allow you to just fill in the blanks, in order to create a web page, these templates provide only limited design possibilities. Understanding how the mark-up language and stylesheet work together will enable you to customize your website to your heart's content.
No matter who your target audience is or what your site is intended for, you should always aim to keep loading time to ten seconds or less. An efficient site that is nicely designed is going to load properly and quickly. Most visitors want things to happen quickly and easily. If you don't offer that to them, you will lose many opportunities.
If you're creating a large site, include search functions for your visitors. Place a search box visibly on your homepage that helps your visitors search single terms that may appear anywhere on your site. You can get search functions to improve your website at FreeFind and at Google.
Leave pop-up windows off your website. Although you may think they are helpful, many people think they are annoying. In fact, you may drive them to leave your site out of irritation and frustration with your pop-ups. You could lose a visitor for life.
Every page of your website should have a way to return to the main page, or "home." This ensures that when users navigate deeper into your site, they always have a way to start over if they lose place of what got them to the page they are on currently.
Make sure your business logo is well-designed and prominently on every page of your site. Your logo is a key component of your brand, and it should be one of the first things people see when they go to your website. If you can't come up with a good idea for a logo, there are design firms that will make you one at relatively low cost.
Pages of a website are very important for even the smallest sites, so make sure that you really have an eye for detail. You need to make sure that the latest page you have added to your site has the same dimensions and features of your previous pages. The last thing you want is a hodgepodge of different styles and themes on one site.
It is better to start your website with a small amount of good content. A huge amount of content may be hard for you to organize and may confuse and annoy those who come to your site.
When designing a website, you want to keep the privacy of your customer's information in mind. Set up proper encryption for submitting data, and never store customer passwords and such in a text document. Make sure you set up your website properly so that your customers know that visiting and interacting with your site is safe.
Always utilize media and content that is both relative to your site's goal, but also interesting to the potential consumers who will be viewing your site. A site that has relative info, but that is not interesting, won't captivate its audience. A website that uses fun, but non-relative information, will captivate the wrong audience. Both methods equal profits that you are losing.
Offer a sitewide search option at the top of every page. A search form is critical for a site because it is user-friendly and functional, allowing a visitor to easily find information they want without leaving your site. Site searches are fairly easy to implement, and the reward will far outweigh any time or effort spent.
Try thinking about the literacy level you want when writing your content. There are differing levels at which people read and you will not want to approach all visitors as if they have had a college education. To reach the widest possible audience, your content must be suitable for people at a wide variety of levels.
If you're going to choose a software program to aid in the design of your website, you can save some serious cash by choosing a free, open source program. Open source programs are great not only because they're free for public use, but also because they're constantly updated and improved by users with a lot of web know-how.
Don't pay for any literature when you're wanting to learn more about building websites. It's true that it's not always a poor investment. There have been many great books written about web design. The same content is available online free, though. It can be a silly thought to believe a retail book has better information than most that are offered for free.
Now that you've reached the end of this article, you are probably itching to go out there and design a killer website. Armed with the knowledge that you've gotten from this article, you should be able to do just that. Use this information and your best instincts to design the site of your dreams.
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