Great Solutions For Web Design That Anyone Can Follow

Designing a website takes time, patience and a little bit of know-how. It can be easy if you already know what goes into great design, such as SEO and useful navigation. Read on to find some great tips and tricks which will help you build the website of your dreams!

Avoid using frames. Most sites have abandoned frames on their own as better alternatives have become available, but there are still sites out there that are trapped in 1996. Alternatives to navigational frames include fixed-position navigation panels, having navigation in multiple areas (e.g. left and bottom) or simplifying page structure so that navigational links are never far away.

Dont make page sizes too big. Not everyone online has a fast connection, and if your website takes too long to load, people will lose interest. You dont want your visitors to wait for a page to load.

Always mark files that must be opened in an external program with an icon. Many sites host PDF files, and less commonly, DOC files, that must be opened in Foxit Reader and Microsoft Word/OpenOffice, respectively. These files should be marked with an icon representing the file type, and a link to download the appropriate viewer if the user does not have it.

Avoid creating user interface (UI) controls that mislead your visitors. These controls include elements, widgets and more that create an interactive experience, such as a link, drop-down list or button. You do not want to make visitors think that clicking on an underlined word or phrase for example, will lead to a new page if it is not actually linked to something else. When your visitors have expectations of something working a certain way and it does not, they are more likely to assume there is something wrong with your site and leave.

Make sure that you use the right anchor text. The anchor text of a link should clearly describe what the visitor should expect to see when he clicks on the link. For instance, if a link leads to your widget ordering page, the anchor text might read "Order widgets." Specifically avoid using "click here" as anchor text.

Keep your education ongoing. Websites are constantly changing, every day, and if you stop learning new things, you may find yourself falling behind the pack with your designs. Try to convince yourself to learn one new thing each day, be it programming a new background, or a simple HTML setup.

When designing your site, use ALT tags when adding images. These tags are important for your website and people that disable graphics. If you use images as links, you can describe the link. And most importantly, search engine bots need to see the descriptions through ALT tags in order to help your search engine ranking.

You constantly want to test your page to ensure it is functioning well. As soon as you have something built to test, it is vital to keep checking what users will actually experience. Keep testing, improving and adding current content for a winning website.

Visitors enjoy knowing more about the webmasters of their favorite sites. Many sites use very boring, trite ideas on these pages. Add a little spice to this webpage! Let people know a bit about you and what inspired you to get into web design and other things like that.

Now that youve read the ideas in this article, you should be able to go forth and design a website which will rival those of your competition. Keep learning to find new techniques to increase your traffic, add new content and boost your page to the top of your market!