There’s a lot more involved with website development than you think. From the initial planning of the site to ensuring that even the smallest border around a block of text is aligned correctly, website design can seem daunting if you dive in unprepared. Read the following tips to glean a great understanding on how to build a great site.
Speed is critical online, so you have to be certain that your website pages load very quickly. If a visitor has to sit and wait for several minutes while your pages load, they are almost certainly going to click away from your site and go somewhere else, and they probably will not come back to your site.
Learn what you can about site design shortcuts so that you can use them. Many aspect of webdesign are not as hard as they seem and have shortcuts on how to do them. There are some codes in HTML that allow for faster changes to each page than re-uploading each one.
Before publishing your website, check it over carefully for any broken links. Nothing is more frustrating to a visitor than clicking on a link and being taken to an error page. You can manually check links or use a program that will find broken links for you.
When a user enters personal information into a form on your website, give the user the option to have the server retain that information should it be needed again. For instance, people may already register with your site, and you should have it set up to preserve their information if they choose so they don’t have to register again. This information retention and re-use makes site transactions much easier, and many people will appreciate that.
Your content should be useful and interesting. Design is certainly important, but the content is the reason that people will come back to your site. If visitors are able to find what they need, they will come back again at some point.
Keep your front page as simple as possible. People looking around will decide right away if they wish to use your site just by how your homepage looks. Spend time describing your business and what it offers, but keep the rest to a minimum so that people do not get distracted.
Loads Fast
Even more important than a good looking website is one that loads fast, and that means all of your files should be small. Your file sizes have a lot to do with the speed of your site loading. You want your site to load as quick as possible. You must keep in mind that not all visitors will have a fast Internet connection. Perform tests on your website to make sure that it loads fast, even when a dial-up connection is used.
When deciding on what background color to use for your site, white is a good and effective choice. Having a white background tends to make the website easier to view and read and it also gives it a professional look that makes it appear more trustworthy. Complex backgrounds distract your readers and visitors, and might slant your page towards an unprofessional image. It is best to stick with a simple background when you are designing your website.
To create a site that is well optimized for most search engines, don’t use frames. People like frames, but search engines will not see your info if it is inside a frame. If search engines can’t reach some information on your website, your rankings will be 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.
Your site should be optimized to handle older Internet Explorer versions. There are many people on the Internet who still utilize Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, many aspects of your site may not be compatible or displayed properly due to outdated rendering standards, so you may have to create some fixes for the elements that do not work properly. Looking up “box model bug” can be very helpful.
Website Development
The main focus here is about getting your feet wet with website development, not waking up as a professional in the morning. When you have learned some tactics, your understanding of website development will increase and you will create better features on your site. Refer back to these tips as need be.
Put ALT tags on your images. These tags are important for your website and people that disable graphics. No mater whether you use image links or not, the use of an ALT tag gives a better explanation. Also, ALT tags help you boost the search rank.