Simple Website Design Ideas You Can Use

Many people desire to get really good at website development, or even dream of doing it as a career. However, of the many who hope to become great, few will take time to learn the skills that they must possess in order to become a master at website creation. This article will focus on some of those skills and help to get you started on the right path toward website creation success.

Be sure to select the correct graphics when designing your website. Do not use bitmap for your images as they take up too much space. Consider PNG files for non-photographic images, text buttons or screenshots that require over 256 colors. If not, use a GIF. When using photos, make them JPEGs.

TIP! The speed at which your web page loads is an important design factor. 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.

Your site should be able to be scanned easily. Usability testing has shown that visitors are interested in scanning the content for items of value, rather than reading every word. Text that is easy to read will ensure you have visitors that come back. Put important facts near the top of the page. Doing all this makes your visitors’ experience more enjoyable because they can find the information they want without any problems.

Make sure all topics are clearly divided. If you’ve got a few discussions going, put each on its own page. This not only eliminates customer confusion, but it also helps you out with search engine crawlers and your site rankings.

Pay attention to your background. Backgrounds that include animations or intricate patterns often make it very difficult to read important text content. Choose a background which coordinates well with the message that you are trying to impart, it must blend in well with the balance of your website design.

Load Quickly

No matter how flashy your website is, it is vital that you keep the sizes of your website’s files small. Large files take longer to load when people visit your website. It is critical that your website load quickly for everyone. The other factor to bear in mind is not all visitors access through high-speed connections. Check your site, and make sure that it can load quickly even with a slow dial-up internet connection.

Buy web design software to help you build a nice site. Professional programs are easy to use, so you can create a beautiful site rather quickly. If you don’t have a good site, you won’t have a large number of visitors.

TIP! Make sure you research the keywords that do well. You definitely want to focus first on providing relevant content, but keywords should be planted appropriately to help you grow that customer base.

White can be a highly effective color for your background. When you have a white background, your content will be easy to read, and it will also make your site appear more professional and trustworthy. Colors, patterns or other designs are distracting and don’t have a place on a website. Simple backgrounds are usually a better choice.

You always want to make the user’s needs your top priority. This is one of the most important aspects of website design. For example, many users are concerned about accessibility, usability, user interaction and user experience. Always prioritize your visitors. Therefore, it is important to look at the site from their angle.

Add pictures to your site to make it look better Pictures can give your site a friendly feel. People will spend more time on your site looking around when they see pictures they want to click on.

TIP! Consider using free software to design you website. Investing in powerful software packages like Photoshop is only worth it if you think they’ll pay off in the end.

When you design your site, you can make some independent CSS pages. This will allow web browsers to use conditional loading. These two things make maintenance and testing simpler. All sites require maintenance from time to time and making that easier will save you time.

Be sure to always look at the links on your site, and make sure none are broken. Do this frequently, before you upload it to your server. This is important, as visitors who click on your links expecting useful information, only to find a 404 page, will leave your site in disgust. Give all of your links a double check before uploading in order to prevent this problem.

Make your content compelling. The actual site design “look” is important, but content is king. Visitors are more like to return to a website that offers useful, pertinent information.

TIP! Leave pop-up windows off your website. Even though you may find a reason to have them, your visitors will find them annoying.

If you find yourself stuck in the design process, remember that you have the entire Internet at your disposal to look for examples. There is no shortage of websites from which you can draw inspiration. There is nothing wrong with using a feature or design idea that you like from another website and making it your own. Remember that proper web designing is more than borrowing ideas. You have to make yours better.

Website counters are unattractive. While you may like to see how many visitors you’ve had, most of your visitors do not want to see the counter. Get rid of the counter and monitor your traffic by other means.

Your website’s load times are effected by which file types you use for images. Ideally, graphics should be made from GIFs and JPEGs. PNG and BMP files take up a lot of disk space. Make your files manageable to keep loading times down for visitors.

TIP! Sign up for newsletters that can help you learn about web design techniques periodically. These are great for both pros and beginners.

By now, you should have an idea of what you will need to know in order to excel in the website development industry. No matter if you profit through designing websites or design your own website for your business, knowing how to make an attractive and effective web page can help you become profitable.