If you’re someone who thinks all sites are exactly the same, you just have to go to a social networking site, such as Facebook, and then view hosted sites, including Yahoo or Google. When you compare them, you will quickly notice the difference between well-designed and basic design. Check out the tips below to expand you web page design knowledge.
Continue to learn about web page design. There are countless websites that you can find with a quick search through Google that can help you.
You want to keep the website page size minimal. Not everyone online has a fast connection, and if your website takes too long to load, people will lose interest. Reduce your load times so visitors have no reason to leave.
Keep your website fresh and free of dated content. For example, if your web page is promoting some event that occurred a year ago, you’ve probably lost a lot of your readers. Users want to spend their time on sites that are cared for, and leaving up old information shows a lack of attention to the site. Set up a review schedule so you are able to update the content, and remove the items that have nothing to offer anymore.
Let users cancel actions if they desire. For example, allow users to cancel registration for newsletters or easily back out of a search. You will inevitably lose repeat customers if you force them to follow through on a purchase that they have decided against for now.
You want your home page to be simple. Visitors to your site will decide quickly from your front page if they want to stay to look around or leave just as quickly. Provide a good description of your business and its function. Minimize other information. This will reduce distractions.
Know everything you can about your subject. If you’re going to use your site to blog or something like that, you must know what you are talking about. If you give customers information that’s no good you may lose the readers you have. To create a blog that draws visitors and keeps them interested, knowing what you are talking about is key.
Your website should be optimized for the older versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, such as IE7 and also IE8. Lots of people grumble about IE, but they still use it, and they often use outdated versions. These require the use of some workarounds. Specifically, you’ll want to know about IE’s “box model bug.”
Keep your font selection professional and readable. Many times you can tell a site is not professional because of the fonts they have chosen. Skip the fancy fonts such as Comic Sans, since people may not be able to read them on many computers. A font can be subset to the default font on your user’s computer if they don’t have it. That will appear worse.
Avoid putting ads in your website that pop up. This can be very annoying to your users. Instead of clicking your ads they will just leave your site. You don’t need pop-ups; just keep the ads simple.
When you set out to do your own website development, you will probably not end up creating a super-popular site such as Twitter or YouTube. The odds aren’t in your favor. Fortunately, anyone who has a solid understanding of website design fundamentals can create an attractive, functional website. Implement the ideas and insights of the preceding paragraphs and get started!