Web Design Tips - Ideas Overwhelmed

When you tell someone you're a "Web Designer", you usually get raised eyebrows and an "ooooh!" expression in return. That's because most people wouldn't dare to tread into such an ether world as designing something you can't touch, occupying space in - well - space. But, do you really know what you're doing? No matter how many ideas you have, you can always learn a little more. So, here are some tips for web design that you may not have considered.

 BACKGROUND

First of all, make sure the web design is not too hard to read. This starts with the background, and ends with the colors of fonts you choose. This is also why many web designers actually hire a graphic artist to do this part of the job.
The background more or less sets the mood for your page. If it is super bright, with lots of patterns on it, It may overpower the main content. The same is true if you have a GIF in your background, or use strobe effects.
Sure, you may have a really "punk" concept to promote, but remember that if the viewer can't read the information on the site, you won't be able to promote anything. If you choose to use a really busy background, make sure there is a solid layer between the background of your web design and your information.

How to Create a Powerful Website to Describe and Promote Your Services

Building a website involves both physically setting up the website and using a variety of methods to enhance the user's experience on that site. Start by learning about factors needed to make the dream of a website into a reality and creating a positive user experience.

Web Hosting

Unless you want to keep your website only on your own computer for use by yourself and your associates, you will need to sign up with a web hosting service. This type of service gives you a place to put your site on the web.

HTML vs. Content Management Systems

Web page templates are set up in one of two ways. They may be designed for use with HTML formatting or through a content management system. To use HTML, you will need to learn the system. This can be done through books, tutorials, free information found on the web or instruction from someone in the know.

5 Great Tips for Successful Website Marketing

Are you confused about how to do website marketing effectively? Internet marketing is a fast changing area and what works well at one time will not necessary be effective another time. You therefore need to keep trying out different tactics from time to time in order to be successful. It is obvious that your website's popularity will determine how successful your business is.

The following tips will enable you to market your website successfully:

1. Decide what the goal of your website is and work towards achieving it. You need to set specific goals such as collecting email addresses from new clients and design your website accordingly. Needless to say, you can change these goals from time to time so that you can ensure that your site helps you achieve your business goals.

2. Build more than one website in order to funnel traffic to your main website. These related sites will only help your efforts in website marketing if they contain high quality content related to your niche. This requires a great deal of effort but the results will definitely be worth it.

6 Easy Website Design Tips

Creating a website design is an important decision that many small and large businesses make everyday. Organizations know that an effective website will grow leads and increase sales. By following a few easy design tips your website design can be an effective tool in the growth of your business.
1. Keep it as simple as possible
Visitors to your site should be able to follow the content and understand the purpose of your site very quickly. This can be accomplished by keeping the website creation as simple as possible. Never add too much information- excessive add-ons and website content will make your website unfriendly with SEO and will limit the amount of readers to your website. Remember that sometimes less is more.
2. Decide on and stick to a basic color scheme
Limit the amount of colors used when designing your website. This helps to give your site a professional look. Common color schemes for websites use colors such as red, blue, yellow, grey, and white.
If you have a logo, it's best to stick to its color palette. It's not wise to change the colors on every page of your website. Staying consistent helps the appearance of the site and may have an overall appealing look to visitors.

The Need to Thoroughly Understand Website Design!

Website design is a term that is actually a little bit misleading, since technically it is more building than designing. Although the term web building is used, it is done so much less frequently and yet is a better representation of what an internet page actually does. There is design involved; however, it takes more of a second seat to web architecture most of the time as without architecture, it would be impossible to achieve design. In any case, whether building or designing, it all needs to be properly appreciated so that the right architecture can be created in order to achieve the desired look and function.

Purpose

First and foremost, the purpose of a website must be understood as well as the intended audience in order to know how it must function. With books and magazines, the answer to that question is fairly simple - pages carry the content and design is the artistic treatment by which the pages are delivered. There are certain standards of web layout with regards to the programs used, reproduction methods, and other means of making visual ideas come to life. As long as there are pages that can be turned that hold the required information, a design is complete. The final product is the same, regardless of how the artist got there or by which method.

Bypass Serious Web Design Errors!

With online business competition higher than ever, there is no room for errors that affect the performance of a company's website. Sometimes all it takes is a single day of an improperly functioning page and traffic can drop substantially. The most profitable web pages are created with visitors in mind and incorporate certain protective elements to ensure they problems do not happen. Not only will this keep visitors on the page longer, it can greatly increase the chances of repeat visits and conversions of visitors to buyers.

Overview

Interestingly enough, some of the biggest web design errors are the use of elements that were actually created to enhance a visitor's experience. Anyone who has ever been on a web page that has exploded with music that is too loud with no control has experienced this. No matter how great a website may be, what counts is what happens the moment someone clicks onto it - which may be enough to ensure never going back again. Of course, this is completely counterproductive and a perfect example of design errors that can cost business.

Splash or Flash

Serious consideration should be given about using flash on a website, especially on a splash page. Splash pages have largely gone the way of the dinosaur, as most visitors want a fast response for information and do not want to sit through an animated show. In addition, flash used in any way tends to slow loading speed and will not run on all older systems, so it might be best to avoid it altogether. In a situation where using a splash page or flash is integral to the design or message, offering an obvious way to bypass it is essential.

Making A Website - Things To Remember

It is the goal of every website owner to be able to build a website that can attract a number of advertisers and online visitors in order to gain profit. The more online traffic and sponsors a website has, the more profit it earns. Therefore, a website developer must take note of some very important things he needs to consider when making a website that is sure to work.

Listed below are several things he should remember:

Great Interface And Design

A good website needs to have a design and an interface that makes it unique and interesting enough to its possible visitors and advertisers. Looking into the many websites online, find a design and an interface that is unique. Find a template that you can adapt and modify it in order to suit your own style and preference.

Easy-To-Use Navigation

Everyone wishes to use the internet with ease. You can give this to them by creating a website that has all its keys, tabs, and menus easy to navigate and manage. No one has the time and patience to learn look into every tab, key, and menu simply to find the exact information they are looking for. You can make it easier for them by making everything in your website systematic and organized in such a way that it doesn't take a lot of time to find exact links and data.

Web Pages - Tips To Know And Remember

Web pages are documents or data sources that compose the internet. It is important for anyone who is considering making a web page to make one that is interesting, reliable, valid, and timely enough so that online users and advertisers will use it for their varied purposes.

Listed below are several tips that you need to consider when making a web page.

Fast-Loading Web Page

No one really likes to keep waiting for a page to load. It is better that you make sure that your page loads within a few seconds so that your possible visitor does not get bored waiting.

Easy-To-Use Navigation

Your page may contain tabs, keys, links, and menus. Make sure that you make them all organized and systematized so that your visitors do not have to look into each one of them simply to find what they are looking for. People access the web to find quick information. Therefore, make sure that you make it easy for them so that they use your page rather than finding other pages that may offer the same information that you do.

Importance of Quality Web Design: Widen Your Market Prospects by Investing Intelligently

The importance of quality web design is highly indispensable to run a successful business. It opens-up the horizon to untapped market places. You should invest in a professional web design company to secure the best possible results. It is like investing in your own company back. The revolutionary success of online web portals has changed the way business was done earlier. It makes perfect sense to develop your website keeping the latest trends in mind. A good web designing agency would target the potential customers. Your business website makes an important part of the whole marketing strategy and marketing campaign. People would visit your site to find out more about the products and services. It is the time when you need to capitalize on the given opportunity. The legitimate definition of a "good design" is to bridge the gap between both the sides. People should be able to connect themselves with the ideology first. You can sell them something or anything when you can convince yourself to buy it first.

Reward Website Visitors and Get a Free Online Advertisement

Advertising is a huge part of marketing. It's all about getting the word out in an effective manner that not only reaches the most people possible but also engages them to react positively to it. When it comes to online advertisement, there's no bigger opportunity than in social media communities. But how do you get your visitors and possibly even clients to take part as advertisers and marketers for your website without putting them on the payroll? It's easier than you think.
What's great about social media is that it allows for integration to websites, allowing visitors to share your page via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and other avenues. What that means is that they're actually serving as online advertisement for you, possibly generating more traffic to your website. But sharing is still up to your visitors, and not all of them will want to do it. So to make sure they do participate, set up a rewards system.
There are a lot of reward systems you can add to your website that allows for integration with social media, as well as tracking visits so users can rack up points. Each visit and each social media share can earn points, provided they have accounts for those websites. So that means you're getting free online advertising on different social media sites, all while getting steady traffic from visitors looking to accumulate points.
If you're selling products or offer a service, you can use those as rewards for all your loyal visitors. From stickers of your company's logo to a full year of a free service or a free product, you can give as little or as much as you like. The more visits and shares they make, the more points they earn and the more traffic comes to you. The more traffic comes to your website, the greater the possibility of a higher conversion rate.
On a simpler scale, you can have visitors sign up for a free gift if they decide to buy from you. For example, if they pay for a full year's service, offer an extra month free of charge. If they buy a large quantity of products, offer a discount. Even these little offers can make them think highly of your business and speak out positively about it.

Great Newsletter Design Ideas - Useful Tips to Design Your Newsletter

Are you looking for great newsletter design ideas for your newsletter? When you want to start your newsletter, first you should find a great design for it and use it as a template for your newsletter. Here you can find some useful tips on how to choose a great newsletter design.

The way you design your newsletter completely affects the way your readers feel about your newsletter and will show them if you're a professional or not. And if they like the design, they will surely be more willing to do business with you.

Also not a very good design will cause your readers to lose interest in your newsletter and you will have less and less subscribers every day.

With these tips you can easily come up with great newsletter design ideas:

What Are the Benefits of Using Flash Website Templates?

There is a lot of competition on the internet these days. It is very common for a new website to get lost in this competition and not receive the right kind of attention. The reason for this is that the increased amount of competition translates into a need for new websites to offer something innovative and different from their competitors. While providing a flawless product or service is important, it is also crucial for your website to have the right impact on the people who visit it. This is where the need for flash website templates is felt.

Most people who know how to make a website try to learn to work with flash because they know that it makes their website unique when compared to others in the same niche industry. While the originality and novelty may be the main reasons why you should make your website with the help of flash website templates, there are also many others. Consider the following:

E-Commerce Website Business Prices: Options With Different Features

Selling products online has never been easier, all thanks to the e-commerce functionality now available at many websites. The e-commerce function on many websites allows consumers to easily transact and purchase from a seller even without interaction. It processes your orders automatically. There are various technologies and solutions you can use to develop an e-commerce website. Since options vary greatly, it can be hard for many people as to which technology and solution to employ that will benefit their business.

Cost is one of the major concerns of website owners when it comes to choosing an e-commerce web design company. While there is no average cost as to how much you will likely spend on such services there are some generalizations and estimations on the price range you can expect. Such estimations come from different factors that can affect your overall expenditure. Here are some of the e-commerce website business price options and their estimated prices to give you insights on how much you might spend in a months and years time.

- Turnkey e-commerce solution provider - it is software that was developed for years and is now available for prospective website owners for purchase or for rent. It can be hard to spot the best software there is but by having a criteria and an idea of what you want and need for your website you can easily spot which software is best for you. Companies that provide such software offer various other services such as shopping cart software, expert sales consultation, free technical and customer support plus various other items. If you want to get the best software company for your business choose one that has e-commerce as their main feature and service. The e-commerce website business prices for the software alone costs about $75-$90 per hour for the designers and development aspect. Overall, just for this service, it is estimated that you will be spending roughly $99.95 per month or about $999.50 annually.

Working With Your Website Tools - FTP and CSS

So how do all these tools, the FTP Client, HTML, CSS and the like work - it all looks so difficult - and when things look difficult I generally give up!

Well let's set an exercise to use two of our new tools: CSS and the FTP Client. Let's say you want to have the ability to highlight something - a warning or some additional information - in a box contained within the text but clearly separate from the main text. So

If you are using a free open source software FTP client - I use Filezilla - then

1. Down load it - preferably from the Sourceforge site and when prompted tell the download wizard to 'run' the set up procedure.

2. A new icon should appear on your desktop, click on it then open up your internet host's site and get through to technical support. Follow their instructions to set up the FTP client and address it to your site.

If you are using an FTP client supplied as part of your Hosting Package, then open it up ready for use.

What you will see, in either case, is the file structure of your site as it stands on the Host's server. Have a look round but don't change anything.

Now start looking for files with the suffix.css. They may be in a directory /themes or /css but they will have the.css suffix.

You may find several but look for the one probably called 'style.css' or something similar.

Creating an Engaging Nonprofit Website Design

A Nonprofit Organization (NPO) is a term that is synonymous with charitable or religious or social organizations. NPOs generate revenue only to use it for expansion, administration and to meet certain plans and goals. As with any other organization that operates today, NPOs also need to reach out to maximum people in order to attain their objectives. And what could be a better way to be visible across the globe than a website?

A website for an NPO can help it achieve better visibility and maximize its outreach. Google has become a dictionary word today and anyone who seeks information on any topic first takes help from a search engine. NPOs must ensure that their website features quickly on the search engines as most traffic to a website comes from the search engines. The next step is to engage the website visitors and this in turn needs development of a good nonprofit website design.

While designing a website, it is always crucial to understand the purpose of the website and to understand the mindsets of the visitors to the website. A nonprofit website serves as an information brochure for an organization. It is also a platform for advertising goals and activities of the NPO. Funds can be raised through websites. Donors as well as members and volunteers can be updated through newsletters. A good nonprofit website design must capture these various requirements and it must be able to cater to the needs of the visitors.

Basic But the Important Newsletter Designing Tips

You have seen a newsletter anywhere: at school, businesses places, workplaces, and in the organizations. It is one of most common types of interaction content. Newsletter designing begins with information collecting, composing and then proof-reading. After that creating large number of newsletters and lastly published publicly.

Sometimes, it will pay to be daring with your newsletter design. You do not have to believe everything your published newsletter has to say about publication platforms, normal styles, colors etc. If you truly want a customized newsletter that is your own, you have to be daring and try out something exclusive and very amazing. Let me offer you a few thoughts on how to be daring with your updates.

Here are some tips that can help you to create interactive newsletter designs.

Research with Standard Styles - A newsletter's dimension is aspect of its effect. Standard updates of course will make a "standard" effect on your viewers. If you want to be daring about your newsletter design, then you should of course try to be daring as well with your publication dimensions.

Innovate with New Styles - Now, another way to be stylish about your newsletter is to innovate with new styles. Who says that the publication masthead and topic should be all in the top? You can mix and go with some structure components to create your updates a bit different. You can have a complete size photo on the top with a topic at the aspect but on the front and your newsletter's name somewhere else. You can really be innovative with your structure, especially if it is for promotion. So always try to discover with your styles.

5 Tips For A Great Website

What Does A Website Do

Before approaching a website designer, it is wise to consider the main aim of the website, why it is that you want it and what it is to achieve.

Most websites are commercial, they are there to produce money and act as a 'shop window' to attract new customers. However, many websites are non commercial, they are blogs, resource websites, council websites etc. so would not have the 'selling' angle.

Before approaching a website designer, it is wise to consider some of the following points before getting the planning in place. The reason is because website designers are there to produce a website, not necessarily work as a partner or to produce something 'successful' just build to spec. In the same way that a builder is commissioned to build a house, not a home, they are given a plan (from an architect) and asked to reproduce it as quickly as possible.

What 2011 Brought Us in the World of Websites

2011 was an exciting year for a number of reasons in the world of website design and 2012 shows no sign of slowing down. For any company offering their services be it in London, New York or Hertfordshire, website development moved leaps and bounds.

We all know that trends come around in the world of fashion and website design is no different. However, now with design standards changing it's become more and more easy. It was only five or six years ago that using bevelled images was still considered a good design choice. Now such things make a site looked dated and to be honest extremely poor. 2011 saw the concept of using fancy illustrations in footer banners. Previously, footers were just an area to stick legal information or additional page navigation links. Now it has become a major part of any website design.

2011 also saw the world of browser wars heat up. Google Chrome is ever seeing an increase in downloads and market share with some statistics even reporting an overtake of the 2nd major browser Firefox. It's quite obvious part of the reason is Google's fixation on drilling it into users of their now catch phrased search engine. As a result, it even saw the theme of continually changing browser upgrade versions. Pretty soon we'll be on Firefox 25 before we even know it. While primarily a marketing ploy, it does make people buy into upgrades.

What You Need to Start a Successful Website

Creating a website is not as difficult a task as it once was, but what is hard is designing one on your own that will be successful. There are many ways to create a successful website and we are going to help you do just that.

Maintaining a successful website is a lot more work than simply registering your domain name and posting content relevant to your company. It takes time to nurture and ensure that it continues to grow, you can help do this by using a standard compliant code when you design your website. Creating a site that follows the W3C standards which refer to the basic rules that all websites should follow will help your website succeed. Building a website that complies with these rules is one of the best ways to ensure that your website can be accessed from different browsers and those who have special needs. The easier your website is to find and access the longer it will remain relevant.

Why I Uploaded A Fictional Criminal To A Client's Website

I'm a web developer and this is the story of how I accidentally uploaded a criminal to the homepage of a client website without even knowing!

Don't worry it wasn't like I uploaded a photo of Charles Manson or Harold Shipman on an innocent corporate website!

So let me start at the beginning...

The brief

The client wanted a header image for their website, and wanted it full of happy smiling faces - which always gives a website a welcoming, positive feel. The client wasn't able to provide any staff photos unfortunately, so I searched for some business people on the iStockphoto library.

If you spend a long time searching iStock (like I do), you'll notice the same faces cropping up time and again. Sometimes just in different pose or setting, or dressed differently. I guess this is normal, if you're a professional model you're going to have a lot of photos taken.

So I found a photo of a jolly fat man with a white beard. I'd actually seen the same man before and even used a different photograph of him in a presentation I'd once created for a construction company. So I recognised him. The photo I found had him in a casual blue shirt smiling at the camera, perfect for what I needed!

So I used the photo on the website's homepage, and showed the client. They were happy and the website went live.