As more and more of our lives take place online, any business that wants to succeed needs to make sure it has an effective Internet presence. However, if your website does not work properly, your business will suffer. Learn how to design a great website with the following tips and techniques.
Web designers would be wise to use products such as Microsoft OneNote and EverNote as a way to jot down any ideas they have. These programs are great for organizing your thoughts and putting them all in one place. It's a great starting point when trying to determine how to build your site.
Optimize your site for older versions of Internet Explorer (IE7 and IE8). Everyone loves to hate Internet Explorer, but the sad fact is that a large minority of internet users still use these old versions of IE. They don't render many elements in compliance with web standards, so workarounds are required. Specifically, read about the "box model bug" that plagued IE for years.
Try designing for all screen resolutions. A simple website can always encourage visitors to remain and read the content. If your site doesn't look good for a specific resolution, the visitor may leave since they cannot view it. Designing a stretchier layout that fits any screen resolution lets you know that all visitors can enjoy the content.
When you are designing your site, be aware of how many links you are using. The more links you have on your site, the more links you are going to have to monitor for "link rot". You do not want to have a bunch of dead links on your site because you included too many to monitor when you were developing the site.
To help your visitors be able to easily read your site, you should design it using contrasting colors. If you use colors that contrast, it makes the text stand out. If you have black text with a black background you will not be able to see the information, but if you have black text with a white background it becomes simple to read.
Keep things as simple as they can be on any given page. Web surfers are known to have limited attention spans, and the more things you pile into a web design, the more lost and confused you may make your visitors. Instead, follow the 'less is more' mantra. This will also help your search engine optimization, as the more focused your page is, the more likely the search engine spiders can rank your page effectively.
The file types that you utilize for your website's graphics directly affect file sizes which in turn affect how quickly your website loads. In general, it is best to use JPEGs and GIFs for your graphics. While BMP and PNG files might be better for creating web graphics, these file types tend to use significantly more disk space. Convert your graphics into file types with more manageable sizes if you want to ensure that your visitors have a great user experience at your website.
As you have seen, web design does not have to be a difficult task. Once you know more about the basic principles involved, you should be able to construct a website that will appeal to your visitors and help them find what they need.
Use the tips you have read in this article for the best results.
