Web Design Development Articles

In web design, a person needs to know how to create and arrange the pages that comprise a website. A good web designer must know how to balance the look and the functionality of the page. He is responsible for creating websites that are accessible to the users irrespective of the device used by them. Web design refers to the process of putting together a website starting from its conception to online publication. Web designing involves everything from technical proficiency to interpersonal communications. There are various facets to the profile. You can expect to learn a lot in this role.

How To Become A Web Designer?

If you want to have a bright career in web design, you must have a degree in Computer Science or E-Commerce. You might opt for an advanced degree of web designing. There are designers who do not have any advanced degree in web design but are self learners. They have developed their designing skills on their own. If you do not have advanced degree in web designing, you can also do a short internship with a web designing firm to get some practical experience. Hands on experience will also help you get the job easily.

Web designers need to have good communication skills. They should know how to explain various issues in different languages. They need to be able to translate ideas into action. Web designers need to be updated with the latest trends in their profession. They should be technically sound as well as creative. They must know how to manage time and meet strict deadlines. This can be a bit challenging as it does become difficult to maintain a strict deadline and yet be creative.

Career Path Of A Web Designer

As a web designer, you can grow in ranks within the function itself. You can also rise within a marketing communications function. It is up to you and your aptitude and expertise on how far you rise and at what speed. Some people confuse web designers with web developers. But both are completely different. A developer usually works on the server side development and web server security. If you are interested in becoming a web developer from a web designer, then you would need to learn additional programming languages as well as methodologies like Object Oriented design and Java programming.

The job market for web designers is quite lucrative. Companies need to project themselves in an attractive manner in order to stay ahead of competition. So they hire web designers to project a favorable image for the company in the virtual space. Web designers are needed in all sectors. Everybody needs websites to attract new business and retain the existing one. If you want, you can even freelance for various companies instead of working for a single one. This way, you can get better exposure and income. Web design as a career can be quite lucrative if you stay on the right track.

What makes a viable website?

I get asked this question more than any other question, and the answer is often simpler than you think.

We all know about the basics, good navigation, clear and concise layout, avoid stark colours for text and of course never add banners for the sake of it. But what can turn a good, clean website design into a money making machine? No, not a get rich quick scheme, but an effective, well presented income stream that can last the test of time.

The answer is simple, content. Good old fashioned, well written content that does not baffle or detract from your main aim, that is to sell your product and/or services.

With well constructed content (pay attention to grammar please…), you can turn even the most monotonous product or service can be interesting with a little thought. Your overall aim is not to impress them with your design skills and great widget performance, but to SELL.

Turing waffle into phrases that pay

Website marketing and promotion, is it about a fancy abstract website or about selling online? Effective headlines are the key element in grabbing viewers interest and attention and rapidly turn waffle into phrases that pay. Just for one moment, think about some of the TV ads you watch, they last on average for 30 seconds and some of them show you the product at the end, some only show you the product title.

In a myriad of great action, special effects and barn storming thrills and spills, who knows that they want you to buy a can of fizzy pop? Not me. Marketing online is no different. I once viewed a website with many pages and only ONE PAGE that told me what I was interested in. It had flash banners, pop up surveys and many more features, but I lost interest and left.

Your product is the star, so let it be seen…

For example, you are reading this article because something in the title got your attention. You continued to read because you may be interested, now buy my widget please it is only $X.XX. See what happened there? That is what I call a linked call to action.

The human mind can do much more than we are aware of, so tap into it, lead your viewers to your linked call of action. Take their hand and suggest that yours is the number one product. Cast your eye over the below suggestive content,

1 Grab your viewers attention, make them want to BUY your product

2 Tell them about you and your vision and why MY services will add to your business

3 Do not just shove PRODUCTS into the viewers realm, give them a direct benefit of buying

4 Act NOW before somebody else takes their custom

Four points that not only emphasise how to lead a viewer by the hand, but also SUGGEST to their subconscious that they are doing the right thing. Never be afraid of using hot words such as BUY NOW, SAVE MONEY, ORDER NOW, FREE, etc. It is vital your visitor acknowledges that you are offering a service not a reference point. Also try and quantify the sale or contact in the headlines.

Effective headlines do 80% of the selling

In writing your headline, be concise and accurate. Consider these two headlines…

• With a record second to none, we can put you where you below
• Order your widget today for $xx and get another one FREE to promote your website in your marketplace

Which one do you think would let the viewer know what is on sale, how much it costs and what does it do? Back this headline up with at least 3 calls to action in your product page using hot phrases and you are on your way to creating a website that pays.

If the widget is lost in a myriad of bells and whistles, not only will your viewer become confused and leave, but he will NEVER return.

What makes an effective website?

That is a million dollar question and is the subject of another article for another day, however, keeping your design focus on the product and the target audience will help your business grow effectively.

In summary

• A viable website is easy to use and understand
• A viable website promotes the product not artistic impression
• A viable website gives it’s viewers respect
• A viable website uses hot phrases and effective call to action points
• A viable website never waffles for no potential financial gain

This information is not relevant to all websites, but when selling online, it is a template that can promote success and move your website into a new realm as an effective income stream.

Thank you for reading.

There are many elements in which a good website needs to have in order to be a great web design. However, there are numerous businesses benefiting from an online existence there are couple elements that set them aside from their competitors. It is essential to have a web site that is professional and practical. I am going to provide you with 7 tips on creating a professional and functional web site.

Tip 1: Your Load Time Are Important

The average web page is viewed for only 15 seconds. What happens is the viewer looks at the web page and decides if he/she is interested in reading, interacting, etc. with what you web site has to offer. A web page that takes 30 seconds to 1 minuet to load is too long. As a rule of thumb I like my web pages to load in under 5 seconds. It is important to optimize your graphics so that your page loads in as little as couple of seconds. Make sure you take advantage of Adobe ImageReady’s graphic optimization.

Tip 2: Your Typography Is Vital

I cannot stress enough how poor typography disrupts a website design. Make sure your typography is appropriate for the type of site you design. Think of who is going to be viewing your web site. Older people require bigger text because as your age progresses you lose your eye site. In contrast, the youth relates well to small colorful typography.

Tip 3: Accessibly Is Important To Good Website Design

Test your site in many different browsers. Rather than opening it up in a ton of different browser there is a more efficient way to test your pages without the hassle. Go to Google and type in “Browser Testing” and you will see a wide number of sites that will let you get screen shots of your site in different browser windows, resolutions, operating systems, etc.

Tip 4: Update Your Site

I cannot stress the importance of updating you sites on regular bases. I work maintaining web pages in affiliate marketing and I consistently will change the banners to make the promotions match up to different holidays or specials that the company might be offering. Nothing is more unappealing than see a Christmas special ad in June.

Tip 5: Navigation Is Key

The navigation should be in the same exact place on every single part of your web site. This goes along with accessibly, because you do not want to confuse your visitors or they will just get frustrated and leave you site. Also make sure you include a sitemap, contact link, mission page, and a FAQ (frequently asked question) page.

Tip 6: Test You Web Page Periodically

Test your page on weekly bases. Make sure all of the links go where they are intended to go. Make sure that they do not all open up in a new window too. THIS IS VERY ANNOYING! Also, make sure you backup every single web page that you do. You never know when your clients are going to want revision, add-on, ect. We all know that computers crash from time to time so make a habit of backing up your work on DVD’s, CD’s, flash drives, and external hard drives.

Tip 7: Content Is Important

Make sure that you proof read your content. Nothing is more unattractive than having content that does not make since and has many grammar errors. If you are not good at writing content you can also hire a copywriter that will proof read or just write your content for you. The cost of a copy writer can be anywhere from $2-$10 per 500 word article. I have found a number of good copywriters at many freelancing sites around the internet.

In the very early days of television, news programs consisted of someone sitting at a desk reading a newspaper aloud to the viewers. It wasn’t exactly riveting. Over time, television news evolved to fit the medium and today’s broadcasts are nothing like they were over fifty years ago.

Sadly, too many web designers are making the same mistake. They attend Dreamweaver training then take a design intended for print and try to fit it to a web page, often with dismal results. The web is a unique workspace and creating a great website means understanding its strengths.

Design for Web Browsers
Today everyone surfs the web using Internet Explorer. Except for the people who use Firefox… and Opera… and Safari… and let’s not forget vision impaired visitors using page readers. Every one of these browsers will display your site with differences, some slight and some major. To design exclusively for IE is to exclude a growing number of potential visitors, and yet too many people come out of Dreamweaver training thinking they should do just that.

One way to design for the widest range of browsers is to make sure your web page has valid code by using a validator such as http://validator.w3.org. While current versions of Dreamweaver puts out far better code than older versions, dedicated designers may occasionally have to get their hands dirty with the actual HTML code now and then.

Even if you are satisfied with just the IE traffic, is your page going to look good on both a cheap 15-inch CRT at 800 pixels and a 22″ LCD widescreen set to 1680? If your page doesn’t scale with screen resolution it’s either going to get cut off on small monitors or look very empty on large ones.

Formatting with CSS
Cascading style sheets (CSS) were a revolution in the way website were designed when they were introduced several years ago. Despite their power and versatility, many designers seem to ignore that part of their training in Dreamweaver, relying on old tricks such as tables to make their pages appear right.

The concept behind CSS is that the content of your web pages should be separate from the appearance of those pages. This allows creation of a standard look to your site whether you have 2 pages or 2,000. Plus it allows you to change the look of your entire site by changing one file rather than laboriously re-coding each page. Additionally, pages designed with CSS tend to rank better in the search engines, because search engine spiders don’t need to crawl through hundreds of lines of code to decipher the text and links on the page.

CSS allows sites have user-selected themes. One user wants a stark, simple design while another wants a pink background with curlicue fonts and web links in bold purple rather than underlined blue. By coding the site to feed the same content through two different CSS files, both users can have what they want.

Dreamweaver training goes beyond what students learn in the classroom. Continue the learning by going out and finding sites you love and sites you hate and understanding the design elements that make them what they are.

Website builders are popular because they’re a quick and easy way to create your own website. Most are “point and click” style, requiring no knowledge of HTML or CSS code and offer dozens or hundreds of nicely designed templates to choose from.

But since everyone using the website builder has access to those same templates, you’ve got a challenge. You don’t want your website to look exactly like other websites out there. What can you do?

Here are some easy ways to start with a website builder template and end up with a website that is uniquely yours.

1. Add a professional logo to a coordinating template.

Doing your own website design can be a good way to get your website up and running if you’re on a budget. Since you’re saving a bundle on the website design, spring for a professionally designed logo. You can create your own online through services like LogoYes ($69-99) or you can hire a design company (prices range from $50 up). A good logo will help you brand your business and customize your website template.

Keep your logo in mind when you choose your template. Find one that coordinates nicely with the style and colors of your logo so it works well together.

2. Use royalty free stock photos sprinkled throughout your pages.

Photos can add life to your website and connect with your visitors. Choose them well and they can become focal points.

You can find free stock photos by searching Google for “free stock photos” or you can purchase inexpensive royalty-free stock photos from companies like iStockPhoto and BigStockPhoto.

Always check usage terms and licenses on photos and don’t use Google image search to download photos for your website or you may accidentally infringe on a copyright.

3. Create great content and format it properly.

As you build your website, take time to create quality content and format it nicely. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points and other formatting elements to make your content easier to read and more stylish. With a website builder this is as easy as a few clicks.

If you aren’t sure where to begin with content, you can hire a ghostwriter to create content for you. Or purchase PLR (private label rights) articles and use them as a research/brainstorming resource to create your content.

With these three building blocks, your website will become less “cookie cutter” and more “YOU” — so what are you waiting for? You can create your own website with a website builder within your limited budget, and you can make it unique.

You’re ready to create your first business website and get it online. You choose a site builder and put hours into your website. A month later, it’s no where to be found in the search engines. You wait a little longer hoping it just needs a little more time. But another month passes with no change. So you set off on a quest to find out why. Turns out your site is in frames, flash, or filled with javascripts and extraneous coding, and the search engines got overwhelmed when they tried to index it! Oh no! What to do now?

It doesn’t have to go that way. Don’t let the situation above happen to you! A little research can save you a lot of frustration. Avoid a website disaster by knowing what to look for to find a search engine friendly website builder.

Here are 10 important features to look for in any site builder or content management system:

1. Full control of the template: Are you able to download and edit the templates that power your site? You may not think this feature is important when you’re just getting started, but in the future you will likely want to edit the template for search engine optimization or to have a professional designer change your website design.

2. Custom title tag per page: You want to be able to choose the title for each page of your website.

3. Custom description per page: You also want to be able to add a custom description for each page of your website.

4. Custom keywords per page: Each page should have it’s own custom keywords/phrases.

5. Ability to directly edit the HTML of your pages: Look for a program that offers both WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editing mode and HTML code editing mode. This way you’ll be able to edit your code to include heading or strong tags in the appropriate places as you work on optimizing your pages.

6. Custom image names and alt tags: Check to be sure that the program you choose does not rename your images, but allows you to upload them with custom names. Alt tags for the images should either be generated based on the image name and/or allow you to edit them.

7. Keywords in page names: Ideally you’ll be able to choose your page name to include the key phrase you’re targeting.

8. SEO friendly page structure: Page names should be short and without dynamic characters (such as ? & or =) or with only 1 or 2 dynamic characters.

9. Text linking: Look for a site builder that allows you to choose to use text based navigation menus instead of only graphics or javascripts.

10. Site map: An SEO friendly site builder will include an easy to activate site map that links to every page of your site.

An up-to-date and well maintained website is important for a small business. It’s your 24/7 salesperson and customer service representative, always there promoting your products or services and answering questions for your customers.

It can be a challenge for a small business start up to afford frequent website updates by a professional web designer (hourly rates can range from $25 to $100+). What can you do to reduce your costs? Consider a good website builder program.

A site builder program will allow your designer to create a website template either from scratch if you’re just getting started or from your current website design, and then you can make your own updates and additions without needing to know any HTML code.

You also have the option of building your website yourself using one of the built in templates. This is a very budget friendly way to get your first website online. Good website builder programs come with a variety of professionally designed templates that you can add your logo or business name to.

Another great feature of website builder programs is that they make advanced features as easy as a few clicks. You won’t need to hire a programmer to setup a contact form on your website, create a guestbook, photo gallery or blog.

If you don’t feel comfortable editing/managing your website, even with an easy to use site builder, or just don’t have time, you can still save money. With a site builder you can hire a virtual assistant (VA) to make updates to your site. VAs are generally very tech savvy and while many aren’t designers/programmers, they can handle updates through a site builder–and they’re less expensive hourly.

Two popular programs to consider are RV Site Builder and SohoLaunch Pro. Both have a relatively easy to customize template and support resources including video tutorials for users to learn to manage their websites.

Check with your website host to find out what your options are. Many include site builder programs in their hosting packages at no extra monthly costs.

These days, websites are almost like calling cards, which leaves a lot of people wanting to learn how to create a website. The process is, at its heart, fairly simple, though of course it depends on how advanced and technical you want to get. Quite frequently, you will learn how to do more advanced things as you go along.

Start out by thinking about why you are creating your website and who you expect to be your target audience. Keep track of this information. Referring back to it can be very helpful. Some people like to design their sites using a template. This is a good idea if you are unfamiliar with building a website from scratch, so to speak. Whether you choose to use a template or create a layout of your own through coding and graphics, remember one thing. The layout should be used consistently throughout all the pages of your website. Keeping it simple is better, especially in terms of user interface. The pages need to be neatly organized and easy to navigate. Make use of subheadings and plenty of page breaks. Make sure you do not load down any one page with too much information either.

Graphics are a great addition to any website, but make sure you do not overdo it. It is not necessary to have a website full of glittery, flashy, animated graphics. In fact, that can be a real turn off. If you have a very powerful graphic in mind, then let it be the focus; make the rest of your layout simple. Always strive to make sure that all your content is high quality, interesting, and relevant to the subject.

Make sure you go through extensive testing as well. That way, you can be sure that all the graphics show up and all the links work. After that, you are ready to publish your website - but remember, maintenance is a key part in creating a website as well.

I am an old time web designer that has been creating websites before CSS Style sheets and DIV tags became popular. Until recently, I resisted the urge to have all my fonts and site formatting controlled by an external CSS Style sheet or CSS File.

One of my clients insisted that I do everything possible to make his site as SEO compatible. After my research was completed I learned that CSS could be a valuable tool for my own website.

Here is what I have learned.

Use your CSS File to control all of your website formatting.

• Font styles, colours and sizes.
• Table definitions.
• Background colours & photos.
• Put all the photos that you can into the CSS Style Sheet because to the search engines, text content is what matters and not photos. Google will sometimes penalize you if you have too many photos, or photos that are too large.
• Use meaningful names for your CSS style classes and other definitions. When you have a whole site completed and you look back at your site, style89 won’t mean anything to you.
• Put all of your website content (text) into your website pages without formatting. All formatting should be in an external stylesheet. Your html web page should contain your text content only if possible.
• Tables - never use tables for formatting. Never use imbedded tables. Google will penalize for content located in imbedded tables. Replace tables with DIV’s wherever possible. Keep your JavaScripts as a separate .js file to be included on each page.

Putting my new skills to test, our new design process will be as follows:

• Create PhotoShop version of template for client approval.
• Create html version of template on Dreamweaver using only the external style sheet feature.
• Go through the Dreamweaver version using a simple text editor and take out any extra unnecessary code. Make sure all tags are opened and closed properly.
• Put every formatting options possible into my CSS Files using meaningful style names.
• Create the rest of the site based on the template approved by the client.
• Test your website on Explorer, FireFox, Safari and Opera. I found that even though the browsers are supposed to be 100% compatible, they all act differently and sometimes produce unexpected results.

Most businesses and business people have a website these days. It’s a necessity in these days when people are more likely to look up a business on the internet than to get out a phone book. But designing a website has to be carefully done; if people can’t find the information you’re offering, they won’t stay, and both their time and yours will have been wasted.

Here are some tips for designing and evaluating your website.

• Few images, carefully used. Pictures can be an important part of your site, especially if people want to see your products before they buy them. But keep your images simple and clean so that they load quickly and are easy to focus on once they have loaded.
• Lots of white space. This is especially true in text. Long paragraphs are very difficult to read on the computer, and people will generally click away if they experience that much frustration. Keep your text short, and use bold-faced headings, numbers, and bullet points. The more white space you have, the easier it is for your viewers to find their place and keep it.
• Good fonts. This includes both size and style. Headlines can be a bigger font than paragraphs, but even paragraphs should be big enough for a reader to skim them. A unique font can give your website style, but if it’s too unique, it will be too much work to read.
• Keep your content up to date. Your images, prices, articles, and news links should be up-to-date, within a day. Your customers and viewers should have something new to look at every time they visit.