Current Trends in Website Design

From passive to dynamic to interactive, website design has evolved rapidly. A web browser today is the point for interaction and a launch pad for apps with a host of functionalities in the background. While refining technologies, developers have also paved the way for sophisticated visuals, making it easy for visitors to navigate the site and record better satisfaction. Of the many developments in recent year, a few noteworthy ones are:

Interactivity Rose to a Higher Level
Technologies like ASP, Ajax, Jquery and LAMP have added whole new features, making it easy for visitors to interact. You notice this in the way when you hover your mouse pointer over a link, a small pop up appears and displays information. You can click to know more and it can be in the form of a pop up or a separate box. You need not leave the main page.

Menu and Navigation Systems
Pop out or fly out menus or drop down menus are not a new concept but the way they are incorporated along with a streamlined navigation system makes for a happier browsing experience. Users can navigate to the pages they are interested in. Web designers can subtly design navigation to lead visitors to the desired locations. Not all websites are considerate. Some have a landing page where you must enter your email details to proceed.

Mobile Website Design Has Become The Standard In Business

In an environment where customers are consistently on the move and the typical individual is splitting their consideration among knowledge acquired online and in person, most of us have begun to count on finding the resources that they desire on a number of unique sources, and available to them should they desire it. This could possibly be the rather simple venture of Googling information on their laptop computer, up to the very modern-day act of buying a brand spanking new notebook from their tablet device.

Nevertheless, simply because mobile-websites are getting to be progressively more easily available for the typical individual, does this imply that smartphone users are regularly seeking out these web sites to work with on a daily basis? For several experts and internet marketers who've been studying the need for mobile-friendly websites for customers over the last couple of years, the reply is an exceedingly booming YES.
Creating a top-notch mobile website is more than merely building a nice-looking mobile page layout for your web site or expecting to generate a few more income. Instead, this foundation is starting to become an essential aspect for several brand names who are aiming to generate long-lasting customer interactions, and supply their visitors the mobile sources that they desire.

For more information about the need for mobile-safe web sites for your firm, I have developed some of the more critical statistics and conclusions from Google's latest report 'What Consumers Want Most Out Of Mobile Sites Right Now.' These studies were completed by unbiased research agencies, and surveyed 1,088 users preceding this year.

How To Choose The Best Source For Affordable Custom Website Design

When it comes to websites, there are many options available. The options continue to grow on a daily basis! These days, even companies that were originally only in the business to sell domain names, now sell website design services as well. They even offer custom website design at an affordable price. By doing this, the large corporations are taking away from the independent designers who do great custom web work. Nevertheless, more and more companies are offering custom website design services.

As a consumer, it's your responsibility to shop around, do your research and choose the best source to design your custom website. This article gives you a few tips on how to choose:

Tip #1 - Who Will Be In Charge Of Your Project? Name And Number!
It's very very important to know who exactly will be in charge of your custom website design project. Is there a huge team managing your project? Will you receive a response from a different person every time you ask to receive a project update? Is the person in charge available via email or via phone? Will they be available on weekends should you need to discuss a quick problem or suggestion? It's very important to know who exactly is in charge of your custom website design project. It's a horrible feeling to NOT know how many people are developing your website, and who's in charge. If you cannot get a name and number of the main individual in charge of your project, this can only mean one thing: NO ONE IS IN CHARGE OF YOUR PROJECT!

The Future of Website Design - HTML 5 and CSS 3

The internet has really taken the world with a storm since its inception and the early days when it was merely an instrument for academic research and limited military usage. From the humble and relatively anonymous beginnings, the tide has really changed and these days the cyber space invades our lives almost equally as the physical space.

Having a presence on web or cyberspace means that continuous improvements in the design of websites and the tools used for such design. HTML and CSS are undoubtedly one of the most widely used tools, simple yet versatile, capable of handling most situations. There have been continuous improvements and versions of HTML and CSS since their inception and the HTML-5 and CSS-3 are the latest kids on the block.

HTML has been in existence since 1990 and it was long time back in the year 1997 when the version number 4.0 was released. It was only recently about a couple of years ago that the web scientists started to think about the latest version which can take care of the current limitations and flaws of HTML-4 though it also means that the version was so stable that it lasted for over 15 years in a space where technology changes drastically literally every year.

7 Questions To Ask Your Website Designer Before You Hire Them

Choosing a website designer often seems to be fraught and overly complicated. But a bit like a motor car, there is a lot more going on with a website than meets the eye. Use this checklist to narrow down your website designer choice to make sure that you get a good, functional, website design that meets or exceeds your expectations.

1. Check their portfolio

This is the designer's shop window and should show a range of different sites they have designed.

Make sure that the sites they show are still online - if the sites are no longer in existence, the portfolio isn't up to date.

If they show thumbnails, check that the actual site looks like the thumbnail. If it doesn't, that's a possible sign that the new design hasn't been used.

2. Do they use WordPress?

Whilst some website designers will sigh at you asking that question, it's still a good one to ask.

Over 1 in every 5 new websites now use WordPress. And there's safety in that number! It means that if your website designer disappears off the face of the earth or changes direction or you fall out with them, you're not stuck.

If your site is shop based then your designer should suggest something such as ZenCart or Magento but otherwise, unless your needs are especially complicated, they should be using WordPress, the market leader.

3. Will pricing be transparent?

Even though WordPress is free that doesn't mean that the designer's time is free as well. That's fair enough.

The extras that are included may or may not be chargeable. This includes the actual design of the site - if it's a freely available template then your designer should be up front about this. Some less than scrupulous designers have been known to charge thousands for designs that they bought off the shelf for under £100. Make sure you're not caught out!

Effective Website Design and Internet Marketing

If you own a business, a website is an integral and necessary element of running your company. Whatever your business, the internet can help you market and sell your products & services more cost effectively than ever before.

One of the greatest challenges in designing or enhancing a website is finding the right balance of appealing graphic design and strong technical features. Both must come together to create a website that helps your business generate revenue, acquire and retain customers and portray and build your corporate identity.

A professional website is an integral part of your overall corporate identity, and a consistent look to your marketing materials is essential?

The website design process should always begin with an in-depth consultation in order to learn more about the client, their business, and especially their expectations.

Graphic Design, Rethink the Ordinary
Good graphic design doesn't just happen. You should involve your clients every step of the way, because it's a collaborative process that requires communication, feedback, patience and experience. You should explore multiple ideas and concepts and discuss them with your client each step of the way. Design is a passion; it's a fun process and you should strive to get your client inspired as well so that they will return to you time and again for their graphic design needs.

Web Design - Tips You Must Know To Make An Effective Website Design

Every website owner's goal is to have his website earn big profit, both from the visitors and the advertisers as well. Therefore, he needs to build a website that can effectively lure people into his website in any way possible. One area that is important in any online website is the web design.

A website with an effective design will surely entice visitors and advertisers to use the website for their online purposes. Listed below are several tips that can help you design a website that will help you gain more followers and more sponsors altogether.

A Unique And Interesting Design

A website that is designed uniquely and interestingly can catch the attention of many followers. Make your website a creative one so that you entice people to visit your website more often.

A Fast-Loading Website

A fast-loading interface will help you gain and maintain your visitors. Not everyone has the patience and the much-needed time to wait for a website to load properly. There are lots of other websites online that can give them the very same information you offer. If you want to make sure that they choose to use your website, be certain that it doesn't take more than a minute or so to load your website completely.

Learning Advanced Web Designing

Companies that have an online presence, whether big or small, would always want their websites to feel and look professional. Most companies are never hesitant to pay a handsome amount of money to web designers who employ cutting edge techniques to forge some of the best looking websites of the world. If you are a person who is well versed in advanced web design techniques, you can easily make a career out of it and earn thousands of dollars every year. Besides, as a freelance website designer, you can work from any place you find comfortable. You can even work from the comforts of your home.

However, to become a much-in-demand web designer, you must have a certain degree of knowledge, commitment and effort. Merely learning technologies is not enough.

Here's what you need to.

Learn the programming languages

Even if you plan to use a website designing program that doesn't require any coding, you may still not be able to function and deliver within this very basic capacity during some point in the future. A web designing professional, who doesn't know any coding principles, is almost like a mathematician who can't do arithmetic sums. HTML, XML, PHP and CSS are some of the most vital coding languages that a web designer must have a thorough knowledge of. Coding for all these languages are available on website designing tutoring websites as well as in books that are available at almost bookstores.

Improve Your Online Presence by Investing in a Quality Website Design

In order to manage a successful business venture, it is highly recommended that you invest on a well-designed and interesting website. With a website, you open your doors to a number of opportunities not just locally but internationally as well. You simply cannot advertise or promote your products and services online without a website. Having said this, it is safe to say that a website is an indispensable part of any online-based business. However, it is not enough that you invest on a website alone. You also need to consider its Website Design as well.

As a business owner, you need to remember that your website is an online representation of your actual or physical store. In a way, your website is like your virtual store where customers can shop or visit it through the internet. If you keep your actual or physical store clean, attractive and appealing to customers, you should do the same for your website too. If you want to make your website attractive, organized and appealing to customers, it needs to have a good webpage design.

The layout or design of the website is one of the most important factors that contribute to a business' success on the web. It is so important that many businessmen and large companies spend a lot of money in order to get the best website design for their website. But why is having a great design important for businesses? Why is it a big deal for companies to get quality website design templates for their website?

Writing Descriptive Website Content

When the issue involves attracting surfers to your website and keeping them hooked on to each and every page, content is the king. The best website content, however, is neither determined by the scope of the content nor the length of it. It's defined by the conciseness yet descriptive nature of the text. The key to attract internet users to your website is to cater what exactly they want and have been searching for. In order to accomplish that, you must keep the content of your page descriptive and targeted.

Here's how you can do that.

Limit every page of your website to one specific topic. Think of every page on the website as a chapter of some book. Keep the content on every page restricted to that specific topic in which the page deals. Limiting the topic would help you better to structure the content and eventually result in a descriptive and concise page.

Designing Websites Which Adhere To User Experience

Most of the conceivable web designers present in the world today, overlook the true value of the user experience. What we need to comprehend is that user experience can ultimately break or create a business and its brand. The average question that should accompany web designers is "how will the users react when they land on the page?"
The Importance of User Experience in Web Designing
This is crucial aspect of web design. However, most of the present designers do not fully appreciate the concept. What the designer has to be aware of is that the web page is absolutely nothing without a visitor; it would remain a lost page in the vast, wide online world.
The concept of integrating the user experience is novel, which is being developed further. Today, in our era when everyone is on the virtual world, we have to acknowledge the way the web pages have shifted. Just a few years back, website was about web presence. The designers of this world has ceased to cater to the clients but shifted the designing for the user.
The Visitors Do Not Stick Around
The thing about visitors is that they do not stay in a page for more than five seconds. This should clearly state the importance of a user interface design. Impression is what drives in sales and making it within the stipulated time is what matters the most. Each second that the audience would spend on the page is at their own discretion.

Designing Websites With Quick Site Builder

If you have planned to come up with an online business then it's natural that you need a well designed website for promoting your business. There may be the chances that you may not have a large budget to bestow on expensive web-designers and on flashy websites, so the quick website builder may be exactly what you want in terms of cost and accessibility.
HTML (Hyper text mark-up language) can be a little hindrance for the non-technical background. While designing your website you need the help of this language in the form of code that will instruct you on how to design a web page. Small changes like, Bold, Italic, Underline requires changes in the source code. Things associated with word processor like, formatting space, adding pictures, rows, etc adds a feature of complexity. So, for the one neophyte to the HTML, learning the language would be a challenge. By using website builder, one can easily create a professional website without wasting the time and energy on learning HTML.
With a quick website builder freely available on the Internet, anyone can build a website, even your grandparents. Probably, you might be thinking that you are unaware about the internet and programs, but need not to worry as this is the best part about these website builder tools. These tools will offer you a simple and easy interface modeled on word processor including the function of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). You can easily type, edit, insert, or can drag and drop the information where you want to have it. Also, these tools come with numerous numbers of templates so that you can easily and quickly insert your content.

Choosing a Website Designer - Tips to Consider

Choosing a Website Designer is a challenge even before you even start to think of design and styles of websites. Firstly, you and the designer have to be able to communicate in a clear, direct manner so you can establish a meaningful business relationship to get the project completed. Too often personality and ego can sidetrack a small business website from the primary goal - which is after all making a website - and the focus is lost in confusion and accusations. So to help you prepare, here is a handy checklist of questions and suggestions for you so you can run by your potential website designers so you are at least familiar with their style.

Firstly, I would ask about the website designer's previous experience and work history. Web Design is an unstructured industry and it is best to assess the portfolio to see if you like her style of work. Further, have good look at the existing sites and see how the sites work. Are they easily found on search engines? Do the sites load quickly? Are the sites updated often? Does the site owner have access to the site? These sort of questions can go a long way towards eliciting very insightful responses from the web designer.

Balancing Design On Your Website

Balance in Design Defined

Balance is determined on how elements of a web page are distributed. The element of balance in design is evident in everything that's designed. For example, if you were to hang a picture on the wall, would you want three big pictures on one wall and one tiny one on the opposing wall? Probably not because it would be an aesthetic, visual mess and would look sloppy. Larger elements appear to be heavier looking than smaller elements. Balance is designed in three ways: asymmetrical balance, symmetrical balance and discordant or off-balance. We can take a closer look at these three tactics and discuss their purposes and how to achieve them so that they are visually appealing to the web site visitor.

Using and Including Balance in Design

Balance of design found on a web page is the way that it is laid out on the page. Positioning of elements such as text or graphics determines the overall appearance. One challenge in accomplishing a visual balance is the "fold." The fold area is basically anything below the initial web site of what you see when you first open a web page. This means, that anything you have to scroll down to see on your screen is considered to be below the fold. Basically, consider the entire page as one big whole layout regardless of where the scroll has to begin.

Basic Fundamentals for Website Design

The internet has grown from being a source of information to a source of entertainment, edutainment, ecommerce and a way of life. Today, it is difficult to imagine a life without the internet simply because of the conveniences that this medium provides. What makes the fact about using the internet so intriguing is that there is no person sitting and completing all these activities but there are websites, which are so designed that they not just provide information but complete the related formalities for all the activities mentioned. This portrays the importance of a website design in the success of any business whether online or offline.

There may be thousands of websites on the internet each different from the other, but they all have the same objective of attracting a large number of the internet audience. Therefore, website design comprises of certain important aspects that must be borne in mind by the designers so that not only are the websites attractive but they help in establishing a strong customer relationship. An explanation of these aspects is as below:

Design: the design part of a website is very important as it creates the first impression in the minds of the viewers. The internet audience is prone to drifting away very quickly if the first impression is not strong enough to hold them to the webpage. Therefore, when designing a website, the graphical appearance of the website should be clean and smooth. There should be appropriate use of text wherever necessary and unnecessary pop ups or blinking ads should be avoided. A simply designed website is easier to load than one, which has large graphics that take longer to load. One must remember that there are just a few seconds in hand, when a visitor can be impressed or else he will move away to another website.

Quick And Easy Website Design Tips For The New Designer

The first thing that people typically notice about websites is their design. Like actual first impressions, this is the time to not deter people because of a poor design. The following advice will help you to get people to want to stay on your site.

Subscribe to a newsletter with information on web design to keep you up to date on the latest trends. These are great for both pros and beginners.

Have a visible tagline on every page and sub-domain. The text needs to be obvious and placed conspicuously on every page. The tagline informs of the goal of each page, and can retain or repel your readers.

You should utilize free resources to build your website. Investing in powerful software packages like Photoshop is only worth it if you think they'll pay off in the end. Do some research and try different software to find the tools you need the most.

The Profits of a Good Nonprofit Website Design

Internet has emerged today as the most efficient medium of communication between people across the globe. Internet is the new way to socialize and to provide as well as gather information. Any company or group that aims to reach out to the masses needs to have its presence felt on the internet. Websites are the key to sharing - sharing knowledge, thoughts, ideas and notions. Websites educate the masses about a company and they act as an interactive portal.

A Nonprofit Organization (NPO) is social in nature. People come together for a cause and establish an NPO. Thereafter, most NPOs gather their funds through donations or charitable events. A majority of NPOs operate in the field of charities, religion or social work. In all these areas, interaction with people is of prime importance. Right from its establishment, an NPO is supported by people and new members and volunteers keep joining from time to time. In order to maximize their reach, NPOs should take help of the internet and create an effective website. This website can educate the people about the goals, mission and objectives of the NPO and it can act as a portal to share videos, messages and to host discussions. Donations can also be collected online and this serves as a convenient means of allowing donors to contribute from any place in the world at any time they desire.

In today's tech savvy world, a person resorts to Google or Bing or Yahoo to search for all kind of information. NPOs must ensure that they have an efficient website design. The nonprofit website design and its contents will speak for the NPO itself. While designing a nonprofit website, a few key points need consideration

Features To Be Incorporated Into the Non Profit Website Design

Charity organizations can be private or public in nature. In either case, they are nonprofit organizations which are committed to a charitable mission. The success of any nonprofit organization depends on the number of members and amount of donations received. One of the best ways to gain members and donations is by designing an attractive webpage. A website is a must have for any organization in today's world of technological advancements. However, due to the limited funds, most nonprofit organizations have to be content with an average website. In order to be successful, the non profit website design should include certain vital aspects. Ideally, the website should be neat, easy to navigate, transparent and alluring.

Every charity organization will have a mission or aim. This mission should compulsorily be provided on the homepage if the website. Most visitors to the website will be unaware of the nonprofit organization's goal. An effective mission statement can be used to convert the visitors into members and donors. This statement should be given in a noticeable part of the website which should not be missed by any visitor. The mission statement should be brief yet informative. The information provided on the website should be reliable. The organization can dedicate a section to providing information about their achievements and daily activities.

All relevant details regarding the organization should be provided on the webpage. Multiple contact information should also be provided, if possible. Background information such as founding date, key events and past performances may be included. A lot of visitors to the website will be attracted by such facts and information. Donations are critical to the functioning of any nonprofit organization. Hence the design of the webpage should include information for potential donors. Information regarding the use of money, tax deductions, donation programs, etc. can be provided.

Learn How to Design Your Own Website

In order to design your own website you will need to do a few basic things first. You will have to:

Choose a web host for your website
Sign up for an account with the web host
Choose a domain name for your site and pay for that domain name to be yours
Get a software application that will allow you to design your own website using their page templates
Test your web pages to make certain they are showing up on all of the big search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask
The web host is the place on the internet where all the details of your web pages will be housed and accessed. A web host has giant computers with a lot of storage space available. They rent differing amounts of this storage space to other people. The amount of storage you get for your pages will depend on the host you choose and the amount of money that you are prepared to spend on this web host.

The Number 1 Tip for Successful Website Design Is Simplicity of Navigation

A website is a source of information for website visitors. This information must be delivered in a way that creates the maximum impression on them. This is also the reason why a successful website design company focuses on extremely relevant design that is able to capture the imagination of website visitors and make a point.

But there is still something that plays even a bigger role in the success or failure of the design of the website and that is its navigation. Not many people believe this, but it is the navigation of the website that determines whether website visitors appreciate the design or not. It must be understood that people who visit a website do not have all the time in the world. They are in a hurry and are looking for relevant information very quickly. If the navigation of the website is not up to the mark, then they are not going to bother to go through the website.