There are many people becoming increasingly interested in designing websites. With that being said, there are a lot more people who are going to be your competition when you’re trying to make a profit with web design. Read these tips to learn how to be ahead of the competition.
Look at the site you are designing in many different browsers. What you’re seeing in one browser may not actually be what other people are seeing. So keep up with the latest browsers an test them out and check out your website on them. You will want to have a person using a different computer operating system check on your site as well.
Remember that your site should pass the “NoScript” test. Try downloading the Firefox extension and activating to make sure your website is readable. Some content isn’t going to work without using scripts, but you don’t want to have a blank site with scripts turned on.
Be careful with the color combinations you use when designing your website. You have to be certain that your text will be readable on top of the background colors you use. A dark color for foreground text against a light background is often more readable for most audiences. Ask someone to look at your color schemes to ensure you are making the right choice.
Successful websites work well with any browser, so you’ll need to do some testing of your paging using various browsers. Even though your website may display perfectly on Internet Explorer, this doesn’t mean that it will look the same on Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Before you set your site to go live, look at how every page shows up in all the major browsers.
Try not too overuse graphics. Having graphics are good for anyone who wants an attractive and professional site, but an abundance of them makes your page look cluttered. Graphics are not meant to be used as mere decorations; they’re meant to better your site content. Using an adequate amount of graphics keeps clutter away and helps you focus on site usability.
Choose a good background. There are sites out there that use animated GIF images for their backgrounds. This might be OK for a personal site, but it can also be a serious distraction that makes it hard for readers to focus on the text. Chose a background that complements your website’s content, rather than a background that clashes with your website’s content. Your website’s visitors will then find it easier to read your website’s content.
Make sure all topics are clearly divided. Be sure to use different pages if your site includes more than one topic for discussion. It’ll help people find what they are looking for easier, and search engines will have an easier time ranking specific pages.
Don’t use frames. Frames are good for some situations, but they don’t allow your content to be indexed. When information isn’t seen, your ranking with the search engines goes lower. If you don’t do what’s necessary to make sure that your site is not ranked very high, people will not find your site very easily.
Alt Tags
You must remember in order to index your images, ALT tags must be employed. Tags such as these are key because for those who browse without graphics or who are vision problems, the tags provide descriptions of the images. ALT tags can also help out if your images link elsewhere. Also, search engine crawlers use ALT tags, so your site is going to rank higher.
Your site’s files sizes are all affected by things like your graphics, and all of those can affect your site’s loading speed. In general, it is best to use JPEGs and GIFs for your graphics. Although PNG and MBP files might be the better options for web graphics, they take up way too much disk space. Convert to smaller sizes to make visitors happy.
If you have links on your page, those links should have text associated with them. Links with content should be visible enough to show the viewer what they’re clicking. If links on your site do not contain text, visitors may accidentally select them using keyboard shortcuts.
Make sure to check for any broken links. Check links on a regular basis as you are designing, and make sure to perform a check before uploading your site to the server. It’s necessary because many visitors will see that the information that they’re interested in is no longer available and if that occurs frequently on your site, they’ll leave. In order to prevent this from occurring, proactively test thoroughly for full functionality.
Having problems with web design? Know that you can get some ideas off the Internet. A plethora of websites are available that can help spark your inspiration. Find websites you like, and figure out which aspects make the site appealing, then think about ways you can borrow or improve the idea on your own site. Remember that proper web designing is more than borrowing ideas. You must also improve upon them.
Learn what you can regarding web design to stay competitive and become better then the competitors. Of course, you should put the above tips to use, but continue to learn about the subject in order to be successful.