Don’t let your trepidation at the thought of creating a website diminish your excitement at starting your new business. First-time site builders are often confused about fundamental issues like where to start, how to get advice and what their site will ultimately cost. This article is a great start for you, providing tips which will help you draft a game plan for creating the site of your dreams!
For those just starting out in web design, save money by using either grid or shared hosting. VPS or dedicated hosting is not necessary for the small websites newbies make. You will not get enough traffic to justify paying for dedicated hosting at first and shared hosting will work fine until you start getting more traffic.
Design your website so that your design isn’t incredibly similar to websites offering the same product as you. An easy way to watch for this is to check out the websites of your competitors. Remember that if your website is too similar to that of one of your competitors, you will not seem unique, and you might even accidentally send business to your competitor. You will only be seen as a copycat of the one that was up previously.
Be careful when you upload video content for your site; remember that a lot of Internet users are still operating with very limited bandwidth. While it’s tempting to upload your multimedia at 5,000 kb/s, this speed may be too much for some people’s internet connections to handle. You will end up giving them a video that spools and buffers constantly, and the viewing experience will be quite slow.
Each page you design should be validated. A lot of the WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get programs) add junk coding into the website design. You’ll need to go ahead and have your code validated by a service if you’re going to use these applications. It doesn’t have to cost anything; the W3C, or consortium for the World Wide Web, provides a free validation service.
Your best bet is going to be to start small, and move up to larger websites. This way you can easily see what you’re good at, and what you need to work on. Besides keeping them small, your initial efforts should also be simple. Avoid complex multimedia and advanced structures to begin with, and stick with basic pages of text and pictures.
A well-written “About Us” page is worth the effort. Some websites “About Us” pages are very dull and boring. Try to give it a bit of personality. Provide some insight about your own story. How did you get inspiration? What are your goals? What led you to web design?
Try to include some “site searching” on your index page and sub-pages if you can. This makes your website more usable, content accessible and leaves visitors fulfilled. This feature can be included with ease, and is a worthy addition to any site.
Pop-ups should be given a wide swerve. Viewers hate pop-ups; they are annoying and unprofessional. Even large, popular websites can lose visitors by mistakenly employing pop-up ads. You can prevent visitor frustration, and improve your reputation, by avoiding pop-up advertisements entirely. If you have a host where pop-ups are mandatory, then perhaps you should be out looking for a new one.
Consider the portfolio of any design organization, before agreeing to hire them for your own website. Some things to look for are: a record of working with well-known designers and a high standard of quality in their work. By viewing the firm’s portfolio, you will gain a clear understanding of their capabilities and accomplishments.
Make sure your website is attractive as well as easy to use. If your website is ugly and difficult to navigate, visitors will not stay for very long. Give your visitors any necessary information, but make the site easy to navigate so that visitors buy your products or perform whatever other action you might want them to perform.
Retain user information so that people don’t have to waste valuable time re-typing information into forms. When a user needs to enter their information multiple times to sign up for various options you give them, make it so that they don’t have to enter duplicate info from beginning to end on their own repeatedly. Doing this will make everything much easier for the people that visit your page, and they will definitely appreciate the time saved.
If you are a web designer, it is good to be an artist. Inspiration can strike at any time, so be ready for it! When a great idea pops into your head during a meal out, scribble your thoughts on a napkin. Even if you’re busy with something else, at your job, for example, you can preserve a new idea by calling yourself and leaving a reminder on your voice mail.
Many hosts have website tools available. While you can use these tools for basic design, it’s not a great idea to completely rely upon them. If you stick with the plug-and-play site creator given to you by your host, your website is never going reflect your unique personality the way it should.
Use empty space to your benefit in highlighting the things that actually matter. It makes your site easier to read, and your content easier to remember.
Make sure all your links are working properly. Make the check right before your upload it and make it available online. If your visitors cannot access the information they need because of broken links, they will get frustrated and leave. To maintain your site integrity, test it every time you make a change.
Learning to work with more than one platform is in your best interest if you plan on designing more than one site. Learning many different web platforms such as Java, MySQL and PHP will only serve to make you better going forward. Whether you’re a hobbyist designer or a grizzled professional, knowing a lot of different web technologies is sure to make you more in-demand.
Now that you’ve read this, you should be prepared for moving ahead to tackle your own website design. Create a budget, locate all needed resources, and start to draft a visual plan for the site. If you use these tips, you can design a great website without having to spend a lot.
