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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Tips On How To Get Better At Web Design

By Julio Jennette

Web design can be attractive when the designer is aware of what they are doing. A good design can make the difference between a successful website and an unpopular one. The more you know, the more capable you will be of designing a great site. Try expanding your own knowledge of web design, by using the tips that are listed below.

Ask others around you about concepts and skills in programs such as Photoshop or WordPress. It's a good thing to know that you actually remember all that you were taught, because something you don't want is to be halfway through designing your site and then suddenly stumble over a lost fact or point.

When putting videos on your website, remember that some people may not have a high Internet bandwidth. You might want to convert your videos at 5,000 kb/s, but that may be a lot faster than someone's connection. Videos with extremely high speeds like this will load slowly and buffer frequently for visitors on slow connections.

At this point, it can be difficult to find an appealing domain name that has not already been taken by larger companies. In this case, sites like Sedo may be your best bet; these sites auction off used domain names. There you'll find many interesting domain names for sale.

If you want your site to become more visible to online users, you must learn to use proper Meta tags for each page. High-quality Meta tags will let the search engines know what your website is about. Meta tags that don't accurately reflect the content of your website will negatively impact your traffic.

While development platforms generate code for you automatically, they cannot duplicate the reliability of classic text editors. Platforms allow you to design the way your site looks, and you can then simply paste the code that it generates for you. But if you want to cut back on the errors and get real hands-on experience, a classic text editor is the way to go.

Come up with a design concept for your website, and sketch it out on paper ahead of time. Show some people your designs, and get their feedback.

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. If you begin by creating only a few pages, it will be easier to gradually build your confidence.

Perform a thorough error check of your site, including checking for broken links. Make the check right before your upload it and make it available online. This is necessary because when you have visitors come to your site they will find that the information they want to see is not available anymore and if this is to happen a lot on your site, they will leave. To avoid this, check to make sure everything works.

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. Of course, having your website load quickly is the best scenario for visitors. This is because not all of the visitors you're going to attract are going to have a powerful operating machine or high speed Internet. Take the time to test your site, and make sure that various connections speeds receive quick load times.

As you select a hosting service for your website, you need to make sure you know everything that is included in the package. Disk space, bandwidth and CPU usage are some of the things you need information about. Be as informed as possible about the service you are receiving.

When seeing professionals to help you in web design, try hiring someone that you have no relation with. Don't hire relatives or friends to design your website. If for some reason their work is poor, you may find it difficult to let this person go.

Do not underestimate the value of a website that loads fast, with no slowdowns. Your visitors are more likely to lose interest in your website and leave the page if they have to wait for a few minutes before having access to the content.

Aspiring web designers should avail themselves of all the web design resources out there. So many books exist about web design and each of them goes over a multitude of aspects. Picking up a copy of one of these books or magazines will teach you a lot about effective web design.

Successful websites work well with any browser, so you'll need to do some testing of your paging using various browsers. The most popular browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome and what works with one might not work with the others. Therefore, you should check how all the pages of your website display in all the major browsers on the market, before turning your site live.

Most of the time, visitors go to a website to learn something or to do something, rather than ooh and aah at the site's design. Stay true to your original purpose and use imagery to help you achieve that; in other words, keep design simple and make sure it communicates your message. The simpler the page is, the more likely it will load in a quick way.

Excellent web design isn't optional; it's absolutely necessary for a successful website. A prominent issue of recent times is that there is both an abundance of information as well as a constant flux with regards to technologies and approaches to web design and as a result, it can be a bit overwhelming when trying to keep your knowledge concurrent. Hopefully, this article gives you a lot of helpful advice and inspiration. Use the tips and tricks in this article, and apply them to a website that has already been established or to a brand new one.
 
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