Technology moves at a rapid pace and keeping up can be frustrating. The fact is that a company without a website is missing out on many customers that they won’t be able to get any other way, so implementing technology in your favor is important. Read on to find some techniques and secrets which will help you get into the game.
When you are creating graphics or photos for your website, be sure to keep the file size small. If your graphics are too large, your page will load slowly and your visitors will leave. You can find many free or inexpensive graphics programs online that will optimize your images before you load them to your website.
A good website should be compatible with multiple browsers, so you should test your website in various browsers to ensure that any visitor can view it correctly. Your content may show up fine in Internet Explorer, but it may be unreadable or badly displayed in Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Before you set your site to go live, look at how every page shows up in all the major browsers.
Always mark files that must be opened in an external program with an icon. Many sites host PDF files, and less commonly, DOC files, that must be opened in Foxit Reader and Microsoft Word/OpenOffice, respectively. These files should be marked with an icon representing the file type, and a link to download the appropriate viewer if the user does not have it.
Use JavaScript only when necessary to avoid losing some potential viewers. Even if JavaScript opens up interesting possibilities for your designs, not all your visitors will be able to see your content properly. Web browsers have different capabilities, and they all have new versions that come out regularly. It is often the case that people don’t rush to get the latest version. In addition, not everyone keeps JavaScript enabled within their browsers. In either case, you are preventing your visitors from using all or some of the features of your website.
Be an expert on your subject. Research your subject before posting anything. By providing your viewers with information that is murky or false, you lose traffic. Having a thorough understanding of your subject matter is vital to having a successful website.
To help you create a website, you should learn HTML. Knowing HTML helps you understand how a website functions. When you understand how a website works, you can incorporate your own HTML code into your site. This helps you to easily correct changes without having to rely on outside programs to build your site. In other words, you have more control over your site’s content.
Include strong meta-tags on every page of your site, if you want to get more visitors to your site. Quality and relevant meta tags will provide search engines with information regarding your site. If you use irrelevant meta tags, instead of tags that describe your website’s content appropriately, search engines will classify your site incorrectly and you won’t get a lot of traffic.
Be sure the websites you’re designing are cross-browser compatible. You must check your site in the most popular versions of every top browser. Some examples include Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Many users use these browsers for surfing online, so you need to be sure your designs are being seen correctly on whatever they use.
To help you design a good site, you need to make it so it is simple to navigate. Navigation encompasses everything and is the backbone of your site. So construct a site that flows easily from one area to another, otherwise your site will be very confusing and people will not visit it.
Learning web design gets easier when you practice often. So, learn the basics, then create some simple webpages using HTML to reinforce your understanding. Practice should start sooner than later.
In the end, web design has become so simple that anyone can do it. From your 8 year old neighbor who has her own Pokemon site to my 90 year old Grandmother and the Quilting forum she set up, everyone seems to be active online. Get your company set up with its own presence and enjoy the profits it brings!