Are you wanting to be an excellent web designer? Do you know what your goals are, but have no idea how you’re going to achieve them? If you said “Yes,” this article will help you get started.
Make sure your text and background has the proper contrast. There’s evidence showing that white text on a black background is easiest for most people to read, but other colors are fine so long as they’re readable. Also keep in mind that people with visual impairments may not be able to read your site if the contrast is poor. Check to see if your site complies with various contrast standards using the tool at http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html .
When you’re thinking about how to design a website, you need to be sure to think about the navigation. You want your navigation to be easily accessible and easy to use. Put the navigation bar on every page in a noticeable place. Also, make sure that it flows well with the rest of your page and doesn’t distract visitors.
Although it is common to see the www. at the front of a website URL, you should try to make sure that you can access your site whether you choose to include it or not. This will make it much easier for anyone to access regardless of how they type it.
Be sure to do good keyword research. Although you want to mainly focus on providing relevant content to your viewers, it is important to first establish a healthy customer base. Knowing which keywords will help visitors find your website will help.
The beginning web designer can use Photoshop to make their website look great. Photoshop and similar programs enable amateurs to design sites quickly. Although a copy of Photoshop represents a significant investment, the time it will save you and the improvement it will make in your results can easily justify the program’s cost.
The best web sites communicate a lot of information in a small amount of words. If you are long-winded, people will easily get bored and find another site that is more concise. Make sure any content is relevant and easy to understand – newspapers use an eighth grade reading level, which is the most common literacy level.
Make sure that all the files on your website are small in size. You need these small file sizes regardless of the overall design of your site. This is because the size of the files dictates the speed at which your website loads. Of course, having your website load quickly is the best scenario for visitors. Remember that some of your visitors are going to be using slower Internet connections than others. Test each section of your site to ensure it loads rapidly for every visitor.
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.
You need adequate meta tags on every page to attract more site visitors. Having meta tags that are quality will help show the search engines what your site is about. Poor or useless tags that are irrelevant to your site will deter future and returning visitors.
Now that you have read some advice about website design, do you feel able to handle this subject? You should have a much better idea. If you don’t, continue rereading this article until you can understand web design better, in order to increase your confidence in the subject.