The 90s called. They want their web frames back. While frames were helpful in the field of web design back then, they were also problematic. Using frames makes it hard for viewers to bookmark your website and can make scrolling a chore. A number of better ways exist that make it easy for users to navigate your site.
Avoid using too many graphics. Graphics are essential to make sure your site is pleasing to the eye, but overusing them just clutters the page. Graphics should always be used to enhance the website, and not for decoration. Having the right amount of graphics improves your website’s usability.
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.
Regardless of your target crowd or your site’s purpose, you always want to aim for a ten second loading time or better. Properly designed sites ought to pop up in browsers almost immediately. Most people who use the Internet want instant gratification, so it is best that your website provides it.
Keep the sizes of your files and images small. Excessive loading times are a death knell for any site. The larger the files are that must load, the longer a user’s load time is going to be. Most users will click away if the page doesn’t start to load within the first few seconds of opening your page.
The types of files that you use for the graphics on your website will affect the size of the files, which will also affect how fast your website loads. GIFs and JPGs are your best choice for graphics. Although there are a number of advantages to using PNG and BMP files for web graphics, these types of files take up much more disk space. Try converting images files to smaller sizes to make sure everyone that visits your site has a good experience.
Try including real customer testimonials. Very few want to be the first to try a product or service, so let customers know that others have tried your wares and that they were pleased with them. Try asking some clients that have done projects with you to create a short paragraph about their experience with your company, to put on your site.
Make use of your grammar and spell checker. Yes, some mistakes may get passed some of your audience, but it will not get past everyone. You could lose some of your audience because of this, particularly if you make mistakes frequently. Do your best to correct your grammar and spelling on your site.
Always utilize media and content that is both relative to your site’s goal, but also interesting to the potential consumers who will be viewing your site. A site that has relative info, but that is not interesting, won’t captivate its audience. A website that uses fun, but non-relative information, will captivate the wrong audience. Both methods equal profits that you are losing.
An excellent way to find out how appealing your website is, is to look at the site’s statistics each time the site is updated. You’ll see what pages your site’s visitors are going to the most. This will point to what you need to update in order to keep visitors returning.
Be sure that the content on your page isn’t overwhelming for guests when they come to your webpage. You don’t want to overload a page with a bunch of images or videos that can slow people’s computers down. You want people to enjoy the experience they have on your site, not be frustrated.
Don’t use too many different fonts or text colors on your web pages. Word processing or web authoring software may present a dizzying array of specialty fonts or wacky colors, but if you use too many, the text on your website may become unreadable. A good practice is to use just one or two fonts per page and avoid excessive use of bold or italic text.
As you read the above article you now see it is not so difficult to create web pages as you might have once thought. You probably aren’t as confused as when you first started out because the article here gave you great advice you can use to help you design great looking websites.