Web Design Basics: A Guide For You

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Web Design Basics: A Guide For You
When first diving into web design, you have to learn basic techniques well. This is the only way to ensure your ability to create sites that work well and look good. Fortunately, there are hundreds of valuable resources--this article included--that can contribute to your knowledge of basic design principles. The following article contains the best advice for designing a webpage.

Avoid trying to add every new gadget to your website. It can be tempting to make your site look cutting edge by including every new web design option out there but it can end up turning people off. Simple will generally get the job done even better than a flashy layout.

If you want your website to cater to the needs of visitors, it must be user-friendly and simple to navigate. Your links need to be prominently placed, easy to understand and functional. Menus render your website easier for users to surf. Ensure that you have a link to your website's home page on every page on your website so that visitors can easily return to you site's main page.

Keep your pages to a reasonable length. Add content through new pages on your site, instead of tacking it on to the end of a home page. For the most part, readers are hesitant to keep going on a page that seems to scroll on forever. If you must have a lot of content on one page, include hyperlinks at the top and in sections throughout the page. This allows users to navigate through the available content without excessive scrolling.

Learn about shortcuts, and use them often. Almost everything has a shortcut in web design, and if you take the time to look them over, you'll find quick ways to do almost everything. There are even HTML codes that allow you to make fast changes to each of your pages without having to re-upload them.

If you plan on having a commercial site, you should seriously consider buying your own web hosting. Most free host sites force you to display their advertisements, which is counter-intuitive if you are attempting to sell something as well. Purchase your own hosting to avoid this advertising hassle, so that you can choose your own ads.

If you intend to use advertisements on your site as a way to increase your earnings, make sure to maintain an appropriate ratio. Keeping your advertisements at no more than 25 percent of your content ensure your site is not cluttered with too many of them. Just like people would not watch television if it was nothing but commercials, site visitors are less likely to stay on your site if you have too many advertisements.

The file types that you utilize for your website's graphics directly affect file sizes which in turn affect how quickly your website loads. In general, it is best to use JPEGs and GIFs for your graphics. While BMP and PNG files might be better for creating web graphics, these file types tend to use significantly more disk space. Convert your graphics into file types with more manageable sizes if you want to ensure that your visitors have a great user experience at your website.

To be updated on the new web design tricks, you should join an online forum. When joining these message boards you meet people who usually have an understanding of all the new web design technology. Without this new web design technology you could end up with a site that is completely outdated.

Have clear navigation. When a visitor comes to your site, make sure they can go through your site. You must have clear navigation to do this. Have all important links in prominent places. Try linking many pages in your site. Allow information be found from every part of the site.

Do you have a bunch of different website ideas? If so, you'll want to grab those domain names right away. Be original and choose a name that works well, but by reserving it ahead of time, you are assured that it is available when you want to use it. You never know when someone else is thinking about the same name and type of website as you. It's like we're all connected or something.

Just do a google search of web design and how to learn some of the basics with it that can help you along your web design endeavors. The internet has an endless amount of information available to you that you can use to learn anything that you might need to become a good web designer.

Proofread all of the content on your site so that you don't look like you rushed through it. You want people to breeze through it. When you have errors on your site it really looks unprofessional and people won't take you or your site seriously which can hurt it's reputation.

While bright and bold may be your style, you have to remember that designing a site is just as much for your visitors as it is for you, so take it easy on those bright, bold color options. Having a bright site might just scare people away. The last thing you want is a blinding shade of neon green making it hard to see your content.

As you read earlier, inexperienced web designers must be willing to learn about the fundamentals before they can produce high-quality work. With the thousands of resources available, it can be very difficult to know where to begin. The previous paragraphs gave you tips that will help you with many facets of web design.