The Typography Rules That Every Web Designer Should Follow

What do you think visitors to your website care most about? The colours? The images or sounds? Chances are that the only thing most visitors really care about is the text - this is where they will find the information that they're looking for, after all. This revelation only makes typography (the art of arranging type) even more important for every web designer to take into account. The following rules are the ones that should not be broken when it comes to typography:

1. Read through your text

It seems that most web designers believe their role when it comes to text is to simply copy and paste content that has been provided by the client from a text file. What every designer should be doing, however, is read through the text to get, at the least, a basic idea of how it can be integrated into the website. Reading through the text once you have uploaded it to the site can also give you a good idea of whether you have gotten the spacing correct.

2. Show a hierarchy

Every website should display a clear hierarchy of where a visitor should begin reading and where they should continue on from there. Typography is a great way of creating that hierarchy, as you can use font size and typeface to clearly define what parts of the content are more important, which design alone can fail to achieve. Whilst there is more to the hierarchy than just text, designers should still begin here.

3. Pay attention to macro and micro typography

Firstly, what is macro and micro typography. Macro refers to the overall structure of the type, how it appears in comparison with the entire design, and its appeal when considered on its own. Micro refers to the finer details, such as spacing and whether it is easy to read. If a web designer were to ignore either factor, it would more than likely be to their detriment.

4. Choose type colours carefully

Whenever web designers are asked to work with coloured typography, it is imperative that they tread carefully. This is because it can be very easy to loose the text in the background of the website, especially if similar colours are chosen. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to choose a type colour that is vastly different to the colour of the background, such as black text on a white background.

There are, of course, other rules that every web designer should be following when it comes to typography. The four outlined above, however, can be highly beneficial in helping your website to become successful with very little effort on your behalf. The most important thing to keep in mind is that typography should never be forgotten and tacked on at the end - it should be taken into account from the very beginning of the project.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   How to Choose a Graphic Design Professional for Your Website   Why We Need a Good Web Design   

Why Space Is Just As Important As Words In Graphic Design

One of the key components when it comes to any sort of graphic design work - from websites to business cards and pamphlets to blogs - is the type that you use. Choosing the font, size and colour of your type can form a major part of the project. An area that should be of equal importance, however, is the spacing around each of the letters in your type and the leading that is used in the block of text as a whole.

Firstly, what is leading? Pronounced ledding, the term refers to the spacing between each of the lines of type. It is often confused with line height, but this actually refers to all of the space from one baseline to the next (the baseline is the spot where the letters sit). Leading is the smaller space that exists between the bottom of a letter on the first line and the top of a letter on the line below. It could be looked at as being the line height minus the text height. It's importance for graphic design lies in the fact that leading can have a big effect of the readability of the text - if the letters are too far apart or too close together, the text will fall sharply on the eyes.

Unfortunately, there is no secret formula for deciphering how much leading your work will need. This is because there are actually a number of graphic design factors involved in making this decision, including: type size, colour, readability and the desired effect of the text as a whole. Using the same point size of the font you are using for your leading is often a good starting point, but it may still require some tweaking to get this spacing just right.

Tight (or negative) leading is the term used when the lines of text are closer together than the point size of the type. Even if the spacing doesn't appear that close together, if it is below the point size it is considered as being tight. On the other hand, loose (or positive) leading is the term used when the lines of text are further apart than the point size of the type. It is also important to keep in mind that the background colours used in your graphic design project can have an effect on your leading. For example, darker backgrounds tend to read better with loose leading, whilst lighter backgrounds can benefit from tight leading.

Now that you understand why space and leading are just as important as the words that are being used in your graphic design project, you are in a much better position to use this to your advantage. Try experimenting with different types and leading to see what sort of spacing tends to suit your style of design better and what sort presents your work in the best light.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Does Your Website Seek To Impress?   Proper Website Design Can Really Improve Your Leads   

How to Build an Online Store: Making the First Impression

The 3-second Test

It only takes 3 seconds for anyone or anything to make an impression. The first three seconds of looking at your site should build a good impression.

• Clear Online Store Niche

Will your customers see and understand what you are trying to sell them clearly within 3 seconds? An online shopping store should clearly convey what it is about to sell to the customers in the 3-second test.

Some Elements to Enhance to Say It All in 3 seconds

Site Colors or Theme - Colors play an important role in creating an impression. Black and blue is good for online stores selling vehicles, medical supplies, and jewelry. The color orange is highly recommended for site selling food and other goodies. Green is great for online stores selling organic products and health supplements. Since colors can be worked out in order to make a good impression, use colors appropriately.

Site Header - The website header is the place where you can show your site logo or images that will strengthen the impact of your website. It is a place in the website where you can display product images that clearly states what products you're selling.

• Establish Rapport and Credibility

Credibility starts with the name of your website or business. It is important that your domain name or website name sound with authority. Choose a business name that is relevant to the niche of your website that is easily understood by customers in one glance. To establish rapport, your website layout should be organized and neat, but as well as engaging because you need to make your customers feel that they can trust your website with their confidential contact and credit card information.

• Online Shopping Website Menu

At first look, online shoppers need to see where they should start right away. Place the navigation menu where it is obvious, use fonts that are legible and simple, and lastly, use colors that relates to the overall theme of your website.

• Speed

According to Jupiter Research, online shoppers using a high-end internet connection only gives a website 2-4 seconds to wait for a website to load. Otherwise, they will be happy to go to other websites that give the satisfying website download speed to complete their purchases.

The three-second first impression test is very hard to establish as not all web designers have the ability of creating a website that gives users a good and comfortable feeling that makes them want to pursue online shopping. Get help from usability and functionality sites in order for you and your website designer to get a good kind of feedback before launching your online store.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Ways To Increase Customer Engagement On Your Corporate Website   How to Choose a Graphic Design Professional for Your Website   Why We Need a Good Web Design   

The Changes That Website Design Has Gone Through

Initial Stages Of Website Designing

There have been plenty of changes that have taken place as far as website design concepts are concerned and it has evolved as the time progressed. The first page was just a black plain text that was uploaded as a webpage on a website. There was no use of color or any graphics in the earlier times and even photographs and images were used in a website only after few years. The introduction of color text and pictures in a website design was accomplished only in the 90's era. It was only in the late nineties that the website looked more like a colorful brochure with all colored tests and colorful pictures and drawings in it.

Popularity Of Internet

The growing demand for internet paved way for more and more designers to create good and attractive websites for their clients. As the number of people who wanted to make the best out of online business mushroomed, so the demand for good and professional and out of the world thinking web design programmers started to also mushroom. Many people started to pay good amounts to the web designers to get excellent and eye catching websites created and the internet world was never the same again. Though the HTML, DHTML and Flash concepts were used to carry out web design works, there was certain coding as well as picture representation limitations with the table design that really caused a hindrance in the smooth creation of websites.

Latest Trend Of Website Designing

The latest trend that are utilized for website design purposes by professional and qualified website designers is the Cascading Style Sheets options that does not need long codes for adding text as well as graphics or pictures in the website. Nowadays, the need for table design is absolutely zero and the CSS concept is what is used by web designers to create attractive looking websites that has the right combination of textual mater as well as pictorial representations. Nowadays, website designs give huge importance to the content of the website and only add graphics or pictures in the website whenever the need rises. The layouts that are created for the websites are really eye-catching and enterprising to look at. It is important for you to hire good and reputed website developers who know how to attract the people to your website with excellent layouts and make them go through your content rather than just see the designs that your web page contains. It is ideal for you to provide a simple and not flashy and boring backgrounds as the visitor to your website might be put off by such flashy or boring layouts that he or she does not read the good content that is printed o the website.

Conclusion

So, with proper emphasis on good and attractive yet simple layouts, good content with proper spacing and use of pictures and photographs wherever relevant is the ideal website design option that you can ask your website developer to create for your business in order to attract a lot of visitors to your website and hence increase your online business.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Choosing a Website for You: For Therapists and Small Business   Why Your Business Needs a Professional Website Designed   

Web Design Tips Centered on Usability

Websites should always be easy to use. Studies show that the reason a viewer abandons a website is either because the page will not download or they are confused by the website. Don't make the mistake of underestimating the power of usability. Here are a few tips on making your website as user oriented as possible.

We Hold These Website Design Elements to Be Self Evident:

Everything on your website should be visually clear to the user. Create a visual hierarchy using font size and prominence. The headlines should always be larger than the content and they should stick out to the user. Always place a headline or a main idea higher on the page so that the user knows it is important. If you want certain content to receive visual priority, place it higher on the page. Also, make sure you group your pages according to similar content. Each page should have a clear theme, idea, and purpose. Each page should also have similar style, but at the same time be definitive so that the user knows the difference between an FAQ page and the shopping cart checkout page. Links should be clearly defined and clickable items should be obvious.

Break it Up:

When users are searching for something in particular, they will seek the page link that corresponds most to their needs and ignore the rest. Separate content by page and make sure there is little or no overlap. Also, avoid hiding advertisements in your content; keep ads separate as they can distract from the content and force the user to ignore the page altogether.

Follow Conventions:

Breaking from convention is good in many instances, but web design isn't one of them. There are certain things users expect when they go to a website. For instance, navigation links are usually on the left side of the page, log in and username input is located at the top right of the page, and navigation links are usually at the bottom of the page. Hyperlinks are underlined in blue (or some other color that stands out) and, if you are selling online, always use a small shopping cart logo in the upper right hand corner. Following these conventions will prevent users from having to search for elements of your web pages that should be obvious to them.

Don't Underestimate Simplicity:

It's tempting to create a web design that is a work of art with lots of colors, font styles, and words. But to make your website more user friendly, tone down the number of words, font styles, link styles, colors, and images. Keeping it simple will allow the content to stand out while the design serves as a compliment. Minimize the use of background images and background colors. Don't be afraid to use white space and allow the text to speak for itself without the help of too many additives.

User friendliness should be the number one priority when you design your company's website. Creativity and captivation are important, too, but the user wants to feel welcome and confident when they visit your website. Follow these tips on maximizing usability on your company's website and ensure that your website gets traffic and viewer satisfaction.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Learn To Develop Android Apps Using Google App Inventor   

How To Get A Great Looking Website

Why would you want to make a website? There are actually several different reasons and many people will actually turn to professional web developers. The fact however, is that you can do it all yourself, and you don't need to spend a lot of money -- at least not during the construction process.

Choose your Tools

When you are ready to build a website, you will need to choose the tools with which you will create it. Some tools can be purchased, and others will be integrated into your browser. If you are simply trying to create a personal site, then using a browser based application might be the best solution. For those who wish to create a business website however, using a standalone application might be better.

Decide your Direction

What direction would you like your website to go in? For example, what will be the primary function? If you plan ahead, you will not end up with a lot of junk pages. By creating an outline you will be able to push through and create a decent website right off the bat.

Page Layout

What kind of layout will your page have? You can choose to have a navigation bar, and you will need to choose where that navigation bar will sit. some people will actually opt to have a navigation bar on the top of the page, as well as on the bottom. This is okay so long as you make each one look a little different, and do your best to avoid placing a navigation bar on both the top and the side. There are many different layouts to choose from, so have fun with it!

Choose a Host

Choosing a host for your website is one of the more important things you can do toward the end of the development process. Make sure the host you select can support any plugins you use, and of course make sure it has the right amount of bandwidth. Shared vs. Dedicated hosting must be considered as dedicated hosting will allow you more control over your hosting solution.

There are clearly a lot of things to think about before you get started, but you do NOT need to seek a professional webpage designer. Instead, you can find advanced tools, read some tutorials, and ultimately create your own outstanding website. Whether it is a business page or a personal page, you have options, and you need to exercise them. Your digital future is in your hands.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Why We Need a Good Web Design   Does Your Website Seek To Impress?   Proper Website Design Can Really Improve Your Leads   

Top Five Web Design Considerations

These days, creating a website design from scratch is an important decision that many small and large businesses have to make every single day. Most organizations know that an effective web design will grow your customer base and increase your overall sales. By following a few easy web design tips your website design can be used as an effective sales tool in the growth of your business.

1. Try and Keep it simple

At a glance visitors to your site should easily be able to understand the content purpose of your website. This is accomplished by ensuring that the web design is as simple and as uncluttered as possible. Try not too over burden your visitors by adding too much information and excessive small text. Simple, clear sign posting and navigation systems will aid your visitors and enhance their experience which can result in longer stays and more contacts.

2. Create a Colour Scheme

If you limit the amount of colours your web design uses the final design will be more together and professional looking. A common colour scheme is to use a single colour plus white, black and shades of grey (not 50 shades). Most websites derive their colour scheme from their logo, staying consistent provides the visitor with a much more robust experience helps maintain the overall appearance of the website.

3. Keep the Navigation Simple

If your website has a lot of content split into many categories, clear and transparent navigation is an absolute must. You should also think about adding a comprehensive sitemap. It's imperative that your visitors can easily access your content in as few clicks as possible. Many websites also display their navigation systems in the sidebar and at the bottom of the website.

4. Use High Quality Collateral

Try to ensure all your images are of the best quality possible and your videos of the highest resolution possible. If you can, try not to use too many effect laden graphics as they can distract the visitor from the pertinent information you have on the page. They also add to the time it takes your pages to load.

5. Create Unique, High Quality Content

Once you're completely happy that your final web design is looking sharp, organised and totally professional, it's important to make ensure your content is totally unique, keywords optimised, snappy and coherent. Knowing your audience and a firm grasp of your company will help set the tone for your content.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   How to Choose a Graphic Design Professional for Your Website   

Improve Website Design By Taking Good Meeting Notes

When building a website, before anything about codes, optimization, or even color palettes can come into play, designers and developers need to discuss in detail client needs and wants for a website. For this reason, meeting with clients and taking thorough notes regarding expectations about functionality, design, and any other important detail is an important first step in website formulation. The best way to do this is by meeting with clients and taking excellent notes so that when the client is gone, the notes can be used as a written point of reference.

Preparation - In this day of Smartphone apps, tablets and notebook computers, using one of these devices would be the quickest and most beneficial way to keep a written record of a conversation; however, such is not necessarily the case. There are actually a number of problems with doing it this way, such as having to pay more attention to things like such as correcting typos and other technology-related distractions - and having to use a tiny keypad is even more distracting. So the best recommendation when having to take quick yet thorough and valuable notes is to use plain old paper and pencil or pen. Sketches and diagrams can also be drawn, which can prove very useful. Follow-Up and Review - After meeting with a client and taking some notes, a great way to review what was discussed is to transfer such ideas to a desktop. Rewording can be done as necessary, while sketches and diagrams can be turned into useable, definitive presentations. This helps a designer remember the discussion so no important details are missed; it also provides the chance to double-check what has been written. Once the notes have been prepared in a more professional format, then send a copy to the client for review to help clarify things in the event of any misconceptions or misunderstood communications. Clients can call with any corrections or concerns regarding particular items, which will help keep a designer on target. To-Do List - To-Do lists are always very helpful no matter what the task. Once a designer has met with a client had finalized a draft of that meeting, creating a list of the things to be done to complete the job is both helpful and necessary. A to-do list can be formulated according to the information recorded in the notes. Original Record - Even though there will be a more final version of the written record and diagrams, never get rid of the original, handwritten notes. As with any original document, it is never known when such records could be needed. Reviewing an original draft can spur ideas or thoughts of the actual meeting. As a last resort, such records can be used as a back-up should something happen to the digital copy or as that absolute record of what was actually discussed at the meeting. Storage can be handled by either tucking written notes away in a specific place in a file drawer or even better by scanning the original copy and uploading it to cloud storage or an online document locker for safekeeping.

Concise communication is the key to understanding every client's needs and helping achieve their goals. Taking notes, then reviewing and periodically referencing them is the best way to ensure that a website design stays on track and is developed with the client's requests in mind. With good notes and client communications, it should be possible to avoid costly mistakes due to any misunderstanding!

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Why Your Business Needs a Professional Website Designed   Cheap Web Design for Every Business   Ways To Increase Customer Engagement On Your Corporate Website   

Banner Design - An Effective Way of Marketing!

Banner design is one of the most interactive and somewhat cost-effective tools that you can use to increase the volume of traffic on to your web site. But, it's really important for you to educate yourself about the things involved in the creation of a professional banner design. If you really want your banner design to work well for your business then you should do in-depth research on the same. Since, this way you will be able to keep a track on the outcome of the same. It will help you in knowing how exactly it is working and whether it requires any re-structuring or not if suppose it's not able to produce any desired results.

At the point of fact, we would like to provide so basic information on banner designing and some of its significant benefits. If you already have an online business, then probably by now you might have come across some of the great website designs which actually appeal to a greater extent to the demographic group.

You might be in a dilemma that how these websites are so far been successful in attracting the web visitors to their websites. Well, we do have the answer for the same i.e. Banner Designing. Here, we would like to throw light on the fact that in order to get the most from your web site you need to promote it in a right manner.

A banner design is one of the best mediums to showcase and convey the right message across the targeted audience in a right manner. As in the customers will be buying your products online or think of availing your services only and only when you are able to convince them that whatever you are offering is the world best quality products or services with profound benefits attached to them.

Make sure that your website banner should be designed keeping in mind your target audience, your demographic group and industry. Since, only then your banner will be able to attract the desired web traffic.

Some of the benefits of the banner designing are as mentioned below:

1) The best and simplest ways to highlight your products and services. 2) Sends desired message right across the target audience through headlines and taglines. 3) Leaves an influential impact on the visitors and induces them to glance through your website for further information. 4) Enables the visitors to get the clear picture about the core of your business. 5) Briefly covers the main rudiments of your business.

There are numerous numbers of companies which are providing marvellous and cost-effective banner designing services. In general, there are actually three types of banner designs and they are static, animated GIF and flash through which you can actually entice and retain your web visitors for a longer duration of time.

Static web banner:

It can be referred to as a professional image that can be created in a simple, appealing and sophisticated manner in all available formats like .JPEG, .PSD, .GIF. Attractive image with catchy taglines can really help the businesses in grabbing the attention of the customer.

Animated GIF web banner:

With the emerging competition and continuously changing consumer behaviour, integration of the animated GIF web banner on your website. But, always keep this thing in mind that the colour and copy of the same should good enough to attract viewers. Otherwise, you may end up annoying the customer.

Flash web banner:

Flash web banners are one of the best mediums to catch the attention of the visitors. Since, they hold the capacity to generate a higher level of interest among the visitors whatever products or services such Flash banners are conveying.

Get in touch with a professional website design company in Melbourne today. Melbourne based professional website designers will assist you in the creation of magnificent and highly exceptional banner designs for your website which will further help you in enticing your targeted audience.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Why We Need a Good Web Design   Does Your Website Seek To Impress?   

Keep Your Web Design Up To Date

As more businesspeople opt to develop their own websites, there are more websites becoming outdated and covered with virtual spider webs due to neglect. Here are some pointers on how to keep your website fresh-looking and useful. After all, a quick, intuitive website brings happy customers to your door.

KEEP SALES INFORMATION UPDATED

Nothing makes a potential customer happier than to go to your website looking for a sale, and get all excited about 20% off something. That new roofing project? That new Nine Iron? 20% off! Wow - they place the item in their shopping cart and go to checkout, only to find that the offer expired 2 months ago - you just forgot to take it off of your site.

This can lead to all kinds of trouble. For one thing, you may have to honor the sale anyway. The expiration date is often overlooked on sale items, and if you are still offering it on your site, you'll continue to have takers. Just be prepared to shell out the discount if you're not going to keep up with the site. Even brick and mortar retailers have to do that - if "SALE PRICE" is still on the shelf, they have to sell it for that, even if the sale was over last week and they just missed the tag.

Another type of problem you run into with outdated information is betrayal of trust. Your customers are not going to be happy with you if they get to checkout and find the sale expired. They are going to feel like you scammed them. In fact, that is a common marketing technique, and consumers don't like it when you promise them a deal and end up charging more. So, once you have your web design in place, check it every couple of weeks, and make sure the information on it is current.

KEEP SEASONAL NEWS UPDATED

It's not just sales items. Seasonal news makes your site look neglected if it is not changed with the seasons. While "Bridal Hair Styles" may be a hot commodity in June, they're a puzzler around Halloween. But, if you have "Halloween Hair", people will visit your site just to see the styles you create for Halloween.

Basically, you're looking for a niche for every market. If you're a roofing company, severe weather season may bring hailstorms and tornadoes or hurricanes, meaning you need to be available for roof replacement. In the off-season, sell roof inspection and repair.

KEEP YOUR LOOK UPDATED

You can go retro, if you want to. Just don't - look - old. Some websites look like they were made back when Flash Player was first invented. Too much moving, noisy stuff on your site makes it look unprofessional. So, as tempting as fluttering butterflies, flashing cursors, and an autoplay video may be to your sense of fun, remember that all of these things make your site load slower, work slower, and be totally inaccessible to some of your prospective clients. And, your prospective clients is what it's all about.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Why Your Business Needs a Professional Website Designed   Cheap Web Design for Every Business   

Beginning Ideas for Web Design

Have you been wondering how hard it would be to make a website? As more people use the internet for their shopping needs it becomes more lucrative to build a website. If you have been considering these very facts you probably already know there are tons of sites offering "free" website builds. These sites often come loaded with sponsored advertisements for which you will not receive a penny and a limited number of templates. Your best bet, if at all possible, is to either hire the site build or make a website yourself.

Getting Started

Before you begin, seeking out the latest software programs, domain names and hosting providers you need to determine what your site will be about. The most successful websites will be those that address a common problem, after all people hit the internet looking for answers to a myriad of questions. If you can tap into just one major area of need, you can be successful beyond your wildest dreams.

Simple Design

Once you have found your area of need, or niche, you are ready to begin deciding on your website design. At this point, you may be tempted to create a complex website full of graphics but this is not the best use of your resources. Successful websites are:

Informative Easy to navigate Loads quickly High quality

Software

The actual design phase requires the use of software to make a website. Which program you use will depend a great deal on your experience and budget. One of the best programs for beginners, who want to build a website, is Adobe Dreamweaver. While this program is not free, it does offer simple to use drag and drop function, which means just about anyone can build a site. Other software options include Microsoft Front Page, Wordpress and even Notepad; it just depends on how much you know.

You should understand that a drag and drop type of program will only go so far and eventually you will need to educate yourself on basic HTML. Should you begin to experience problems with the way a webpage displays you will need to understand the language it is written in, HTML. This will give you the ability to quickly troubleshoot your site and make adjustments on the fly.

Domain Names and Hosting

Whether you purchase your domain name and webhosting before you design the site or after is not a big deal, but you do want to take some time with the process. Think about your chosen niche, what simple keywords or phrase could you incorporate into the domain name? This will forever be the address of your website, so choose well. Also, consider the reliability of your chosen hosting company, online reviews are a good source of information.

As you can see, it is not difficult to make a website, as long as you know where to start and what is important.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Learn To Develop Android Apps Using Google App Inventor   

Website Design Basics for Beginners

Whether you're designing your own website or relying on a website designer to produce a good web site for you, it pays to know a few things about website design basics. The graphical side of the design is subjective but even that has some rules that are best followed. The page layout is likewise subject to tweaking within some overall ground rules.

1. Clean and simple is best

Most of the web has sites that are relatively uncluttered. White space abounds because our eyes find it easier to comprehend what's on the screen that way. If a book has dense text then you'd maybe plough through it if you really had to but otherwise you'd make a different choice.

The same goes for websites except that it's highly unlikely that your website has been made required reading, so make sure that your overall website design takes account of the fact that the back button is always close at hand.

2. Fast loading

A few years ago, some people thought that, as broadband speeds got faster, we would be OK with websites that took a while to load.

In fact, the opposite seems to have happened.

We expect websites to load at lightning speed. It's important to make sure that your website designer does everything in their power to make your site load as fast as possible. This means running it through page speed checkers and taking the advice given.

It also means making sure that your chosen host has a reasonable connection to the internet, otherwise all your efforts will be in vain.

3. Keep navigation standard

People don't have the time or the patience to learn a new navigation system with every website they encounter. They expect to be able to navigate through a site quickly and easily.

This means that you should follow others in your industry to a reasonable extent on your website design. If everyone else places their search box near the top right of their web pages then that's likely a good place for your search as well.

One important thing to note is that although Javascript menus look nice, not every person visiting your site will find them easy to use. Importantly, that includes the robots sent out by the search engines. And if they can't find their way around your site then you won't get as many visitors from the search engines as you might otherwise enjoy.

4. Don't hide your contact details

Sites like eBay can get away with burying their contact details in a swamp and making you navigate through pages and pages of drop down lists and questions in the hope that you'll give up hope before finally reaching a message box.

You haven't got that luxury!

Your customers need to be able to contact you quickly and easily. They also need a variety of ways to contact you. An email contact form, an email address as well, a variety of phone numbers. Remember that not everyone will be contacting you from a landline, so if you use a freephone number then make sure to give an alternative for anyone calling you from a mobile phone.

5. Check on different browsers

Your website design should look equally good regardless of the browser that your site visitors are using.

At a minimum, your site should look good in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome.

Between them they will show up most design anomalies and there's actually a good chance that if your website design works fine in all three of these it will look good in near enough any other browser. But if you can add Safari to your list to check, that would be useful as it will keep any Apple visitors happy as well.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Proper Website Design Can Really Improve Your Leads   Choosing a Website for You: For Therapists and Small Business   

Your Guide on How to Build an Online Store

Your website pages must load quickly

According to study, an online shopper's mind is stuck with the idea of getting things in an instant. With a good internet connection, a shopper only can only wait up to 4 - 6 seconds for a page to load. Beyond this time barrier, you will already miss out a potential customer and a potential sale.

Visible contact information

Your website must have visible contact information displayed on the pages. This will be good in promoting the credibility of the site and the shopper can also be rest assured that they will have a good time shopping without worrying. This will also help them if they have questions and in case of problems that can occur during the purchasing process.

Visible search bar

A visible search bar is needed in an e-commerce website. This will help aid potential customers look for more precise needs and help them save time in browsing all the pages.

Show recommended and related products and services

Sometimes, shoppers don't know what they really want to buy. And helping them narrow their search by showing recommended and related products is really a good help and will make their shopping easier, which is one of the goal of an online shopping website.

Security badges

A security badge will make the shoppers worry-free and will give your website a great credibility in return. This will ensure your potential costumers of a scam-free shop.

Shopping cart and ordering process

When someone shops, a shopping cart is also needed. In online shopping, online shopping cart software can also be used. These will aide your potential customers in organizing and sorting out their possible purchases. Selecting the best kind of online shopping cart software that best fits your e-commerce website can really be efficient.

Here are some tips in increasing the usability of the shopping cart and ordering process.

- Breaking up the order process

Purchasing online can sometimes be a complicated process. Breaking it in smaller pieces can give comfort and assurance at the same time for potential customers.

- Visible cart content

Having a summary of the content of the cart visible at all times will provide shopper the control of what is ready to be purchased and what's not.

- Show every fee

No hidden fees must be done. Every shopper wants to always know how much he will paying and what each payments are meant for. A right compensation on every purchase will give a shopper a good online shopping experience.

- Payment options

Having a cash on delivery basis on every purchase is good but this limits the opportunity of the possible clients to order online. They may have the capacity to acquire goods or services but the payment option limits them to do so. Some other payment basis to really consider is by the use of credit card and Paypal. This will give them a variety of payment basis in purchasing online.

- Always display a confirmation page

Displaying a confirmation page in purchases online helps the shopper review the list of orders to be made before finalizing the order.

These are some things one must consider in putting up an online shopping and e-commerce website. These will really help not only the website's owner but will aid online shoppers have a good online shopping experience.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Does Your Website Seek To Impress?   

Got Weird Characters From Word On Your Website, Blog or Email?

Do you have weird characters on your website, blog and email?

Have you ever finished an article in your most comfortable document editor, come to find the editor is using quotes, hyphens, apostrophes and ellipsis in a different way? These characters are not recognizable by any web browser. If you examine them closely you will find that the characters are "transformed" into Microsoft's own language. Since the web decided it didn't want to format itself in preparation for Word, we now see these special Microsoft characters as weird question marks and "A" characters with squiggly lines. Sometimes these characters can cause all kinds of problems for web developers. No one likes an ugly web page!

Are you a victim of this catastrophic event?

You're not alone. There are over 100,000,000 web pages on the internet, at this very moment, branded by these weird characters. If you copy and paste your Word Document onto your website, or upload it to a site somewhere else without replacing these special characters first, you have become the latest victim of yet another Microsoft problem.

Why does Word sucks so much?

When most of the world is using your product as a day-to-day need for business and personal use, you will have a balance between positive and negative interaction from your customers. In this case, we may claim that "Word Sucks", but in reality this document made in Word. So you see it's a love/hate relationship. We need them and they need us. Word may suck when it comes to being an asset for writing documents for the web, but it's still one of the best document editors around.

What can I do to fix this problem?

If you want to fix the problem yourself, you can find and replace any special characters in your Word Document with the correct ones. You can also disable a few of them in your Settings, however, you should be absolutely sure that you replaced every single one of them. There are some services you can find on Google to help fix this problem, if you search for "weird characters from word to web" or "weird characters from word on my website". Unfortunately there's no easy way to explain what the problem is.

You can try your best to alter your Word settings and see if that helps you, or you can use an online tool to help you remove invalid characters from word documents. You can find plenty of resources on the internet to help you resolve this issue. If you're like me, you don't have time to find and replace every character in your Word Document. The next time you say "I have weird Word characters in my website", you should find a tool to replace them with a web-friendly substitution.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Ways To Increase Customer Engagement On Your Corporate Website   

What Do You Want To Know About How To Make A Website?

Did you know that even if you are not well versed in technology you can still learn how to make a website? That's true, even an amateur can now create a website all by themselves, but why would you wan to do so?

Well, most people build websites so that they can run a business from home, be able to connect with family and friends, or just say that they did it. The majority of websites though are focused on pulling in targeted audiences so that the owner can make a sales pitch. Web publishing software has made the creation of websites so much easier, and that is why it is possible for even someone who has no previous experience to build their own site.

It is the templates, which are merely pre-fabricated websites incorporating features that are typically used for building sites that make web publishing software so easy. This eliminates the necessity for creating the foundations of sites from the ground up. Generally speaking, those building their own sites will get to choose from various features to make a customized site of their own. It is fun to go through the varying features and test them out before deciding on a specific one.

The first option that is commonly selected when building sites is the color theme of a particular page or the entire site. The next feature that is frequently decided on is the font for any text being entered. Its color can also be changed to suit the design of the site.

More customization takes place as certain features are added and others are eliminated. Some of the features that people choose are graphics and video embedded into the design. Most web publishing software allows you to drag and drop or select from a list, and many allow you to place elements wherever you want them to appear. Some elements even allow for further customization as in the case of a video.

By using such software folks are taking the guess work out of building their own website. This makes it much faster to learn how to make a website and publishing to the web is a matter of the click of the mouse.

As you can see, there is no need to take months or years worth of technical training in order to be able to build a website. All you need is some basic knowledge of how to use a computer and you have got it made. There may be a slight learning curve, but believe me if I can do this myself you can too.

How to Design a Quality Web Site   Top Seven Tips for Choosing a Professional Web Designer   Don't Exclude   Ways To Increase Customer Engagement On Your Corporate Website   How to Choose a Graphic Design Professional for Your Website   Why We Need a Good Web Design