Learning to have skills on for the Internet is a sure way to get on the road to a great career. Website building and design is one of the favorites and a field that is extremely crowded. Check out these methods to help you stand out.
Does your site pass the NoScript test? The NoScript extension that is available for Firefox can be used to see if the site can still be read. Some stuff won’t work unless there are scripts.
Keep your pages to a reasonable length. Add content through new pages on your site, instead of tacking it on to the end of a home page. For the most part, readers are hesitant to keep going on a page that seems to scroll on forever. If you must have a lot of content on one page, include hyperlinks at the top and in sections throughout the page. This allows users to navigate through the available content without excessive scrolling.
If you want your site visitors to spend as much time as possible on your site, make text easy to read. One of the most common design mistakes is using graphic backgrounds with patterns or dark colors; combine this with equally dark text and you have a recipe for disaster. Unless the text is clear and easy to read, your site will not be a success.
Make sure that you include efficient search capabilities when you’re designing a large website. Try having a search box in the upper-right of your homepage that allows searching for terms on your site. FreeFind and Google can help you install a search function on your website.
When designing your site, try to come up with three or four keywords that you expect users to input into search engines as they try to find your page. These keywords should then be repeated frequently throughout the title, page body and description meta tag. This will make it easier for users to locate your site on the web.
Use breadcrumbs and make it so that clicking on the site logo returns you to the homepage. Breadcrumbs are markers that show where the visitor is in the site structure. For instance, the breadcrumbs might read “home > furniture > beds.” When the user clicks a link in the breadcrumbs, he can return to a page further up in the site hierarchy. Clicking on a business logo should generally take the visitor back to the homepage as well.
If you already have a particular web hosting solution that you know you are going to use, keep its limitations in mind as you design your website. For example, do not create a website that relies on specific programming languages if your web host does not support these languages. It is fairly simple to find out which technologies are supported by your web host. Make certain that your design is something that is within the limitations of your host.
Don’t put pop-ups on your website. Generally people who use the Internet find pop-up ads annoying, so it is best to stick to more traditional ads on your website. People will not want to visit or click away immediately. Keep the ads simple since you don’t need any wild pop-ups.
A visitor counter on the page is unattractive. It adds nothing to your website and is an outdated feature. Therefore, it is a useless feature to display.
Make sure that you periodically go back and try to remember all that you’ve learned thus far. One of the biggest problems people have when they first start out with web design is that they learn one or two things and forget them a couple of days later, which can hurt their website progress.
Selecting a good domain name is a very important aspect of website design. When you type an address in the web browser, do you use the famous www sub domain? Most people like to just type the address without using this, meaning you must design your site to be able to accept both.
Website abound by the millions, but many of them are too similar. Setting yourself apart is how to rise above other Internet sites. When you are ready to start web design, keep the tips you’ve just read as a handy reference.