Keep your taglines visible, and include them on every page in your domain and sub-domains. You will want every person who visits your website to see this text in bold, with a large font. The tagline itself is for informative purposes. It should quickly define the current page or its purpose, if you will. This can easily make or break a visit to the site.
Getting help in designing your website isn’t a failure. Content creation, web programming, user interface design, graphic design, and search engine optimization are just a few of the specialized sub-skills that can contribute to great web design. Feel free to enlist professional help to make your website better. You can hire a professional to help you with any areas that you do not know well.
Do regular checks to make sure none of the links on your webpage are out of date or broken. Sound web design favors the user, if you have links that are broken or go to error messages, users will go away. Check every single link on your web site on a regular basis so you know they all work. Remove any broken links immediately.
Most likely, your site visitors will want to see content as opposed to overwhelming design features. Keep things simple. Put only the photos and information that your visitors need in order to understand what you want them to know. The simpler your content, the more quickly it should load.
Try and write a decent “About Us” page. Some websites “About Us” pages are very dull and boring. Make yours exciting and interesting! Give people an introduction to your own background, how you became interested in web design, your inspirations, and what your business goals are.
To design a more attractive site, include useful meta tags per each page. Good meta tags help search engines understand and categorize your website’s content properly. Meta tags that don’t accurately reflect the content of your website will negatively impact your traffic.
Have you considered writing a newsletter? If you provide customers with an opportunity to keep abreast of upcoming promotions or events, they will be more likely to return. Your website’s sidebar is an ideal location for the signup form, and you should make certain to stay on top of who has registered. Make sure you only send off the newsletter to people that want it, or you’re sure to find yourself in some trouble.
Allow users to cancel an action if they so choose. Actions include registering for any e-mail notifications, browsing the site, or filling out forms. If your visitors can’t easily change their mind and back out of registering for a site feature, they may feel forced to complete a transaction. This isn’t good for your web traffic or your reputation.
Make sure all your links are working properly. The best time to do this is just before you FTP the page over to the server. Links that lead to the wrong place or nowhere at all are frustrating and visitors will soon lose interest in your site and stop visiting it. You can prevent this by frequently checking that all links still work.
Use a basic, simple layout for your website so it’s easy to change and expand. You can advance beyond the basics when you are more comfortable with the web design process.
Free software exists that can help you set up your site. Oftentimes, people erroneously believe that shareware is inefficient for certain tasks. However, there are many free programs designed to help you keep your website neat and current. Hit your favorite search engine and do research to find a piece of software that suits your needs.
Make it simple for your viewers to share things they find on your site, such as great products or special promotions. This can help to boost traffic to your website, as it allows your customers to brag about the great business and products they’ve found.
Avoid wasting time by programming your domain and user name into your file server. This will allow you to quickly choose your settings from the menu when you log into your server. You will find this to be a time saver.
Tap into your creative side during your website design. Always be prepared for inspiration to strike. Be prepared to write down your thoughts as they strike you. If you think of something great during the workday, leave yourself a voicemail detailing the idea so that you can revisit it later on.
Get signed up for a design newsletter to stay current on web design trends. This way, if you ever are at a loss for ideas, you will be able to find inspiration through the newsletters. Anyone can gain from the information contained in a newsletter, regardless of experience.
Validate your code before uploading each web page to the server. Lots of WYSIWYG technicians will tack on unneeded code to what you’ve done. If you use a WYSIWYG editor, go the extra mile and validate your site code through a service. Go to the WWW Consortium website to validate your pages for free.
Make sure you have different designs from other designs of those in your particular niche. Check around and visit similar websites. 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.
The beginning of this article stated that great web design can really be something to behold. It is easy to distinguish a great design from one that is bad, but there are steps you can take to design a great website of your very own. Utilize the tips provided in this article, and learn how to make your web designs fantastic.
