Building Webpages
Web Design mistakes
by cloud on Dec.07, 2008, under Building Webpages
Every designer, in whichever stream he is proficient in, is bound to explore possibilities. But the greatest advice that a designer for a web page can be given is to make it short and simple. This is perhaps the universal advice given to web designers worldwide. Simplicity is the best way to cater to an audience of all types and making the website less confusing and easy to navigate. Web designing is nothing about art work. It may be about a great idea.
The main points which a designer must keep in mind when he begins to design are the following. Firstly, the user of the site must know what it is all about in a matter of seconds. If the site takes too much time to figure out, the user might just go some where else. Therefore the first and foremost task is to convince the user to stay on in the site.
Scanning the material is the next issue on the task list of the designer. The webpage is not a novel, and this is very important for the designer to understand. Therefore, easy readable tables, banners and pointers must be provided for a bored user, rather than long paragraphs or text body for simple information. The reader must be able to easily filter through what he wants to read.
The usage of fonts is very important for a good web design. Web designers may try to use fancy fonts or small fonts to fit the overall theme of a design idea. But this is a really bad idea. The main objective of a web designer is to get the target audience to read the material on the site, for this the font has to be legible and comfortable for the visitors to read.
The over use of flash is another huge mistake that web designers make. It does make the page look attractive and can help to bring forward a design theme, but it increases the load time of the website and may ultimately end up annoying the user. It can be used if there is practically no other way out or static images can just not serve your purpose.
Jamming your website with music or other kinds of audio such as tutorials and information can be a huge mistake. Most users are averse to loud noise and might immediately switch over to a different site. Thus if an audio track is absolutely necessary for the site, the user must be put in control of pushing the play button for it if he needs it. Otherwise a forced music file can be very annoying.
A good designer must always keep in mind that he should provide allowance for a user to be able to search the whole website and he should be able to explore it as much as he can. Search engines should be located in crucial points of the website and it should be useful for the audience. A design lacking in search engines doesn’t help the site and its popularity.
Another important no-no for a sensible web design is not to allow advertisements to merge with the content of the site. This will definitely reduce the readership, as advertisements only prove to be distractions for the reader and will only increase the click-through rate of the visitor.
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Don’t do what you shouldn’t do while designing a website…
by cloud on Aug.07, 2008, under Building Webpages
It is not quite right to come up with all the hard work and then finding out that the whole creation has been a farce and have been rejected on the basis of not being able to keep up with the times. The web designing is a hard process and people often tend to make mistakes. These mistakes could be fatal as they would decide the fate of the website. One must be utterly careful in what he or she must include in the website so that the design becomes a premium of sorts. A major idea of a website can be reduced to total nonchalance if the designing does not come at par with the total lot.
Some search engines within the website can be very traumatic to people because not even a misplaced ‘A’ or ‘E’ will do and the name of what the visitor of the website wants has to come with total correctness. These engines are unable to handle typos, plurals, hyphens and other variants of the query items. Elders are very disturbed with such a result as they tend to make the mistakes of the spellings more and more. A search engine as a whole or within the website must display the best bets once a keyword is typed.
Online reading is a business that many deal with whenever one starts to deal with the information that is present on the website. A PDF file for reading becomes a real headache at times as they are unable to browse properly through the web page. Moreover, a PDF file cannot be copied in partial and also there are many other restrictions that irritate the general web surfer. PDF is great for printing, but for reading purposes on the web one must resort to the normal HTML edited web page as that provides much more flexibility.
The developer of the website must also be the savior of the web surfer. When the surfing of a particular link is completed it is expected of the website to mark the link with a visibly changed color. This makes it easier for the surfer to decide where he or she had gone before and where it is feasible to go next. Unintentional revisiting saves a lot of time for the users. A navigational disorientation is evident if colors of the links do not change.
It is extremely crucial to document the text on the web page with proper symbols. A long writing on a web page becomes extremely boring and the user bars himself from visiting the site again. There must be subheads, bulleted lists, short paragraphs and keywords should be highlighted for the better visibility. The font sizes should be adjusted accordingly so that the visibility can be maintained throughout the website.
One must be fully aware of the search engine optimization techs as that result in the popularity of the website and the number of the internet traffic depends on the availability of the website on the search engine keyword search. The tags and keywords for each of the pages must be set prior to upload the website to the internet domain. All the pages should not start with the same keyword or else the visibility of the website is greatly reduced.
It is also very unprofessional and utterly irritating if each and every new link opens in a new window. That becomes frustrating for the user trying to handle all the windows together. The developer must be aware of the problem and must resolve the issue as the user might get confused with the absence of the back button on the web page. Along with all this the developer must interact with the queries and in not doing so lies the failure of the website.
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Some things in life need pl@nning…
by cloud on Jan.07, 2008, under Building Webpages
It is said that the thing that is done without planning sometimes gets the best result. The most important word in the whole sentence is sometimes as the people who phrased it kept in mind that there are certain things which cannot be achieve without planning. Web designing falls under this category whereby planning forms the basic most integral part of the creation process. The need of the website varies according to the traffic that is intended and the product or a service that is intended on the website. One would be easily able to distinguish the comment that the website wishes to state by the first look of it. This is how planning becomes a major obsession to the developers of a website. The purpose and the content precede the planning of the website. Everything from that point on falls right into place; which software to use, how to include important information and how to be more interactive so that a good internet traffic can be maintained and many such questions are answered once the planning is done.
There are some basic guidelines which one should follow while planning for a website.
• Purpose – one must be fully aware of the purpose of making the website. It is better to have a purpose statement which would focus on what the website wants to achieve and how the users will be benefitted from it. Through this initial process the nature of the traffic is determined and therefore the developers can clearly set goals for the website. Future expansion, modification and improvement come within this particular arena.
• Audience – one of the utterly important steps in planning is to determine the audience. The targeted group is the audience who will be visiting the website for a particular reason and thereby it becomes essential to know what the audience expects from the website. The clearly defined values or the purposes of the website helps the people understand the website better and can then identify the needs with the website.
• Content – the content of the website is very important for the evaluation and the organization of the website. The specific website on a specific topic needs to be arranged according to the need of the viewer. Here comes the importance of the survey by which the developers can collect the evidence of what and what not the viewers would like to see in the website. Any items that are unsuited to the website must be deleted and the important points of reference should be highlighted to develop the content of the website better. The basic information is to be organized and the content should be categorized according to the needs of the audience.
• Compatibility and restrictions – one must keep in mind the target audience and the ways in which the website will be available to the user. A valid XHTML 1.0 is limited for the maximum of the web surfers. One has to make the website compliant to other web browsers apart from the Internet Explorer like Firefox, Opera and Safari. Image file formats becomes another thorn as the various browsers come with different technology behind them.
• SEO – the Search Engine Optimization is one of the last steps of the planning process where the keywords and the tags are to be picked up after a long scrutinizing process so that the website can be tagged with those keywords and the search engine would provide the website proper space when a related keyword is searched on the internet.
All these are very essential for the development of a good website.
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Web Designing with the Right Style
by cloud on Mar.07, 2007, under Building Webpages
When you are choosing to web design choose something that is considered with your target clients. So make the font appear bold and clear and keep the style innovative and precise. Make sure you have a banner that really speaks for the business that you are into. You will also need a great logo that speaks for the company you are representing. If you are a solo entrepreneur then make it evident that clients are only to get you and don’t make a false assumption of a “we”. If you work in a team then make it clear it is the rest of the team that you are talking about then feel free to introduce them. About the introduction it is almost very evident that you be authentic with pictures and bio. Almost everyone finds out everything on the internet and you don’t want a scam to ruin your business. Also there is no point and you would not gain people’s trust if you are to present with some false notions about who you are and who you are not. Authenticity will always attract the bigger clients and keep your business on a steady flow. You will also be able to communicate with your clients in a better way. Always keep a direct response process in your site through which clients can reach you straight. You may have a link towards most commonly asked questions to your website to help things be clear to your clients. Remember that the internet is full of several identical items and services today but what you want is only an authentic and original thing presented for your clients. The more customized and tailored your plan is the better are your results. Don’t try to focus on pleasing a wider range of people. Rather focus on your niche and you will find a great way of dealing with your business with the effort.
About the style and formatting of your website, you can actually set the environment with your style sheet format. So in order to change or alter the look you will soon find that changing the style sheet really works for you. You will have saved a lot of effort and time keeping it unique but simple. Don’t go in for complicated web design formats as this only confuses your clients. You will notice that with crisp and simpler styles you are better able to interact with your clients. Also always remember that larger font types make for great impression for those who come to your site. This is really important for you to understand as you would surely like to communicate in an impressionable way.
When you notice to make the text contrast with the background you will find that it looks really attractive. So black against a shocking fuschia or cherry red appears really dapper and attractive. People retain the information better when you have such a striking contrast affecting your vision. You will not of course create clashing colors that irritate the readers so much that they run away from your page due to eye strain. So keep it fun but soothing. Always do a test with friends about how things are working before launching the website.
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Creating the Kind of Webpage that People Like
by cloud on Feb.07, 2007, under Building Webpages
Whatever may be your business, you can now have a steady and solid internet presence and create a wealth by targeting international customers or your niche market. You will be thrilled to find how targeting in a focused venture really makes all the difference and you will be amazed to find a whole new world of customers that you might have never imagined before. However it will all be efficient if you go easy on your web design. Don’t try to make it complex and whatever may be your subject, you would be better off if you are focused on a specific thing only. People will get mixed feelings if you are thinking of a wide area of coverage. So make the site neat and focused. You will be able to expand later when your popularity soars but for the beginners the intention should be to get the message across in a succinct but effective way. Always keep your ideas presented in a simple fashion. No matter how complex the material is, people will grasp things when presented in a friendly fashion. You can reserve the details for an e-book or for special articles. But make your primary sales page or ad page really easy to comprehend. If you have some of the claimed softwares of web designing basics you will be able to create a rather ace page. When you can market it well you would reap the benefits that generate the income. The results will certainly be obvious if you have linked it well. Understanding SEO marketing comes to play at that stage.
If it is a nice and easy style with easy to build sheets such as that of CSS there will be plenty of space for you to create the kind of environment you are looking forward to create in your page. You will want to make your website friendly and compatible with most browsers. Make the resolution that easy that text and pictures get loaded easily. If it takes time to load then you will not be able to catch the ideal clients. Check with your screen resolutions first then to be able to generate a cool line of followers. You will want to have a direct registration to newsletters or freebie list when anyone visits your site. This is another way of increasing traffic to your place.
Your site should have the specific intention in place. It must speak of what it is looking for. If it is something you want to sell, be specific on it and make the sales pitch absolutely confident and gorgeous. With very little investment you will have a great marketing tool that reaches out to international audience. If you are going to offer some package, make that clear on the singular sales page it self. You can give the details of the different packages later but the combinations or several offers should be clearly made mentioned on the very basic sales page. If you want you can add a video or two but then make it in a resolution that streams faster. People would be so bored if the video takes ages to stream like most web pages that are yet not making that great hit!