3
Website Design Strategies To Enhance Your Online Presence When people design a website, they often forget to include a link to their homepage on their secondary pages. If you do not have a homepage link then your visitors may never be able to get back to the main part of your site. This article contains a number of tips on how to properly add a homepage link, so your visitors can always find a way home! 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. Make sure all of your webpages actually have titles, and make sure they are descriptive. A surprising number of webpages out there are called "untitled document" or "new document". This not only denies visitors a useful piece of information to remember your site, but also absolutely destroys your SEO, since search engines weight page titles heavily when ranking sites. Use a tracking service, rather than displaying your visitor counter for all to read. Many websites still display their counters, yet they do not serve any real purpose. There are many high quality tracking services available, and some are even free. Use these instead of showing off how many people visit you. Avoid creating user interface (UI) controls that mislead your visitors. These controls include elements, widgets and more that create an interactive experience, such as a link, drop-down list or button. You do not want to make visitors think that clicking on an underlined word or phrase for example, will lead to a new page if it is not actually linked to something else. When your visitors have expectations of something working a certain way and it does not, they are more likely to assume there is something wrong with your site and leave. Build your website using a content management system. Knowing how to build a website using just HTML and CSS is good foundation knowledge, but this can only produce a static website. Web design has evolved into providing dynamic content. If you couple your coding skills with the use of a content management system, you can practically build any type of website that you desire. Organize your links and avoid putting too many links in one area of your site. Doing this can confuse visitors and make them leave your site. If you do have many low- to mid-importance links, emulate the "blogrolls" seen in many blogs and tuck them away in a column on the right side of the page. Use breadcrumbs and make it so that clicking on the site logo returns you to the homepage. Breadcrumbs are markers that show where the visitor is in the site structure. For instance, the breadcrumbs might read "home > furniture > beds." When the user clicks a link in the breadcrumbs, he can return to a page further up in the site hierarchy. Clicking on a business logo should generally take the visitor back to the homepage as well. New web designers who are aiming to create an appealing website, should utilize Photoshop. This software will ensure that you have all the effects and tools you need to create graphics which look like they were completed by a pro. You will expend a lot of extra time and lessen your chances of creating a professional site if you neglect investing in programs such as Photoshop.

Website Design Strategies To Enhance Your Online Presence

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Website Design Strategies To Enhance Your Online Presence

Website Design Strategies To Enhance Your Online Presence

When people design a website, they often forget to include a link to their homepage on theirsecondary pages. If you do not have a homepage link then your visitors may never be able to getback to the main part of your site. This article contains a number of tips on how to properly add ahomepage link, so your visitors can always find a way home!

Keep your pages to a reasonable length. Add content through new pages on your site, instead oftacking it on to the end of a home page. For the most part, readers are hesitant to keep going on apage that seems to scroll on forever. If you must have a lot of content on one page, includehyperlinks at the top and in sections throughout the page. This allows users to navigate through theavailable content without excessive scrolling.

Make sure all of your webpages actually have titles, and make sure they are descriptive. A surprisingnumber of webpages out there are called "untitled document" or "new document". This not onlydenies visitors a useful piece of information to remember your site, but also absolutely destroys yourSEO, since search engines weight page titles heavily when ranking sites.

Use a tracking service, rather than displaying your visitor counter for all to read. Many websites stilldisplay their counters, yet they do not serve any real purpose. There are many high quality trackingservices available, and some are even free. Use these instead of showing off how many people visityou.

Avoid creating user interface (UI) controls that mislead your visitors. These controls includeelements, widgets and more that create an interactive experience, such as a link, drop-down list orbutton. You do not want to make visitors think that clicking on an underlined word or phrase forexample, will lead to a new page if it is not actually linked to something else. When your visitorshave expectations of something working a certain way and it does not, they are more likely toassume there is something wrong with your site and leave.

Build your website using a content management system. Knowing how to build a website using justHTML and CSS is good foundation knowledge, but this can only produce a static website. Webdesign has evolved into providing dynamic content. If you couple your coding skills with the use of acontent management system, you can practically build any type of website that you desire.

Organize your links and avoid putting too many links in one area of your site. Doing this can confusevisitors and make them leave your site. If you do have many low- to mid-importance links, emulatethe "blogrolls" seen in many blogs and tuck them away in a column on the right side of the page.

Use breadcrumbs and make it so that clicking on the site logo returns you to the homepage.Breadcrumbs are markers that show where the visitor is in the site structure. For instance, thebreadcrumbs might read "home > furniture > beds." When the user clicks a link in the breadcrumbs,he can return to a page further up in the site hierarchy. Clicking on a business logo should generallytake the visitor back to the homepage as well.

New web designers who are aiming to create an appealing website, should utilize Photoshop. Thissoftware will ensure that you have all the effects and tools you need to create graphics which looklike they were completed by a pro. You will expend a lot of extra time and lessen your chances ofcreating a professional site if you neglect investing in programs such as Photoshop.

Page 2: Website Design Strategies To Enhance Your Online Presence

A great web design tip is to ensure that your site is able to be found with or without the subdomain.You should be able to find your site by typing www.mysitehere.com and also http://mysitehere.com.Sites that work like this are also able to be found without a prefix at all. You can type mysitehereand find it.

Make sure to check for any broken links. Do this from time to time, before uploading it to the server.This is very important because visitors will be put off if they repeatedly click on broken links on yourwebsite. To avoid this, check to make sure everything works.

While development platforms generate code for youautomatically, they cannot duplicate the reliability ofclassic text editors. The reason for a platform is to designall the features of the site, so that you can then paste thecode that is generated. If you hope to gain a realunderstanding of coding, though, then a text editor is agood learning tool.

Once your site is online, do not assume your work as adesigner is over. Keeping on top of your website will helpyou to ensure it's always current. You don't have to updateevery day, but you should keep it fresh. This goes double ifyour site covers fast-moving topics like politics or hosts

videos. Making changes to a website requires more work than posting on a blog. It takes quite a bitof work.

To help make sure your website works as you are designing it, test it one of the browsers likeInternet Explorer. When you test http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ the website as you go alongbuilding it, you can quickly correct any problems that might show up once you live. When yourwebsite goes live you want your visitors to be able to see everything working correctly.

Keep in mind that your entire website doesn't have to be all designed by you solo. Web page designrequires knowledge of many different areas including graphic design, user interface design, webprogramming, search engine optimization and content creation. It's common to outsource some ofthis work, so don't feel ashamed to do so. If there are areas that are unfamiliar to you, considerhiring a professional service to help you.

Design your website as an artist would. By that, we mean you should be open to inspiration all thetime. If an idea for your website strikes you while you are out eating dinner, make a note on anapkin. If http://websitedesignportstluciefl.us you don't have a way to write it down, you can alwayscall your phone and leave a text or answering machine message with details.

Avoid adding too much content on your page that will make your site lag which can deter peoplefrom coming back to your site. You want people to have the feeling of wanting to come back to yoursite, not the other way around. So be sure to check your site from time to time to make sure whatyou add isn't lagging it up.

While bright and bold may be your style, you have to remember that designing a site is just as muchfor your visitors as it is for you, so take it easy on those bright, bold color options. Having a brightsite might just scare people away. The last thing you want is a blinding shade of neon green making

Page 3: Website Design Strategies To Enhance Your Online Presence

it hard to see your content.

You see, it's not that hard to design a website. If you take the time to learn a few fundamentalprincipals, the whole process starts to become much easier. Apply the tips from this article to helpyou figure out the basic fundamentals of web page design, so you can start to incorporate somegreat elements into your website.