The world of professional website design gets tougher day by day. Enormous number of freelance designers commit you several similar things, they show you pretty templates, they tell you about their inherited new website design trends etc. and thus it becomes really tough to choose a proper professional website designer or some designing firm. However, there are few unforgettable rules in creative website design which will never go out of fashion. Try to find out these following features in their commitments.
Are they using latest trends?
With new website designing trends and innovative creativity, a professional website designer upgrades his or her skill day by day. So if you are one of them, then you are interested in new web designing trends and you are really keen to impress your clients with those features of yours. Currently Web 2 Design style gives you a natural, fantastic edge to decorate your website template and increase the eye catching visibility.
Website Graphics
Nowadays we all know that a web visitor stays on a website for just 5-6 seconds. If he likes a particular website then he ponders over the available informations given on the site. We, web designer have to impress that visitor within that tiny time period. Thus the loading time of that website should be very low and for that, the graphic size should be limited within a standard format. A well designed web template by professional website designer will always restrict the entire file size within 10-15 KB.
Are they creative by nature?
A creative website designer is always seeking to design something different from the internet market. Creativity of any website designer increases his reputation in the web designing industry. This particular feature really varies in the market. Some people finish their jobs very quickly,they simply copy other designed templates into their job and deliver to the client.
On the other hand, there are several web designers who believe in creativity, proficiency and hard work. They inquire about your needs and welcome all your queries about your assumed design. They collect informations from you,carry out their research and subsequently insert those informations into their web designs. It helps to increase the uniqueness of your website which pays you lot more in search engine rankings.
Placement of announcements
Telling a story is not so easy and is not so easily achievable thing. It may be possible that you are describing a same story but in a different manner with different appeal that will catch the concentration of your listeners. In Website design, similar rule prevails too. Placing of menu bar, left panel, footer etc. in a different appealing manner will definitely catch the concentration of your web traffic at your website. Foe special offers of your business, you may also place glowing colorful boxes to highlight them.
Are they using professional fonts?
Some times it is viewed that unprofessional or fresher web designers are using some zig-zag fonts while placing the content into the web pages just to look different. Let me tell you such an approach is really very unprofessional . One should always go for recommended web designing fonts to decorate contents .
At last, Your website design is the unknown face of your web business. Always make it clean and appealing towards your visitors to sustain them at your website. If you can impress them at the very first second then you can easily rotate them throughout your website which will increase the scope to sell your business to them.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Professional website design tips for choosing creative website designers
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Tips For Getting The Best Website Design For Your Money
Eventually every small-business owner realizes that they will need a website for their business, but figuring out where to start can be a challenge. Just understanding the technical lingo and all the options can be confusing, but with the right preparation you can have an impressive and easy to maintain website for your small business in no time.
Check the competition
The first place to start on your website project is to look at some competitor websites in your industry. You will want to know what your potential customers will comparing you to. You will also want to find out what the standard is for your industry in terms of the number of pages, the type of information and the general look and feel. If for example, your competitors have large sites and many interactive features then you will want your site be comparable, but if your competitors have small simple sites, then you know that you won't need lots of bells and whistles.
Prepare your information
Before you meet with your web designer, gather some examples of competitor websites that you like. List what it is that you like and dislike about those sites. If you have any pamphlets or brochures for your business, have those ready for your designer as well. Choose some colors or have an idea of some color schemes that you like and if you have won any professional awards or have any important professional affiliations, put that information together because you will probably want to feature that on your website.
Do you need a content management system?
One important decision that you need to make about your website is whether or not you are going to need a content management system. Content management systems are typically used on larger sites, to control text, video, pictures etc. A content management system allows you to easily change and update the information on your site. This is useful for a website on which, for example staff photos and bios are added often or a newsletter archive is maintained.
If you anticipate making many changes on your website, a content management system can save you time and money. With a content management system, the owner of the site can make the changes as needed, without having to wait for a web designer or webmaster to make the changes for them. This can be a very important feature because it allows you to keep your website current at all times so you're making the best possible presentation to your customer. It can save you money because you will not have to pay your web designer to make the updates for you.
Typically, a website that is more than 15 pages would be a good candidate for a content management system. The more information you have on your website the greater the chances are that you are going to need to keep that information updated. If your website is less than 15 pages, you probably will not need a content management system.
WordPress as a content management system for small business
WordPress is popular as a content management system for small businesses for several reasons. One it is that it is relatively easy to use. You do not need to be versed in HTML or any other programming language to handle WordPress. There are also many training videos and materials available on the Internet and also a number of plug-ins so that you can customize the software for your needs. WordPress is also useful for blogging which can help to keep your website information up to date. If you would like to show up higher in the search results, then WordPress is a good choice for that as well. Google has stated that WordPress is one of the easiest systems to crawl so it can help you come up higher in the search engine results.
When you begin planning for your small business web site, start by checking competitor websites in your industry. This will give you an idea of approximately how many pages you will need as well as what type of features you will want on your site. Your goal will be to have your website look as good as, or better than your competitor’s.
By planning ahead and knowing what your potential customers will be comparing you with, deciding how large you want your site to be, and what type of features you will need, you will be equipped to get the best possible website for your small business.
Kevin Kielty writes for Internet Marketing Advantage in Raleigh. Web design is his area of expertise. Internet Marketing Advantage specializes in Raleigh website design.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
12 Design Tips For A Successful Website
Here are 12 design tips every small business owner should know when designing a new website. Put simply, they will determine whether your site receives traffic and converts to sales or not.
1. Know Your Audience
Be very clear about your target audience and ask key questions which will affect the design. What % of the audience is likely to have DSL or Broadband as this will affect whether you use large files. What % is likely to be elderly as this will affect the font size. What % are young versus older as this will affect the tone of voice.
2. Fast Loading
Around 80% of web traffic comes from search engines. That means people land on your site and expect to find what they want quickly. Ensure the homepage loads within a maximum of seven seconds. If users have to wait for your page to load, they will bounce off the site and go to the next site that appeared on the search result list.
3. Clarity
The purpose of your site and what you are selling should be clear within 7-10 seconds. If a user needs to click on a link or play with the navigation in order to figure out what you are selling, you will lose visitors in large numbers.
4. Less is More
A simple and uncluttered site with a single-minded message on each page makes for the best web experience. Avoid trying to include too much information on one page. Ask yourself, What is the one thing I want the visitor to think and then do on this page.
5. Avoid Design Overload
Avoid filling your site with lots of whizzy graphic devices. Certainly avoid music in the background - if it does not annoy the visitor in the first visit, it certainly will in the second. Never have more than one animated device on a page as it is too distracting.
6. Showcase the Product
If you are selling a beautiful product such as a golf course, a resort, hotel or restaurant, avail of the latest macro flash technology. Flash viewers are now ubiquitous with almost 90% of browsers containing the plug-in. Use this to showcase your product, as small photos often will not do your product justice.
7. Simple Navigation
Navigation should be simple and intuitive. A child should be able to immediately understand how to find the information. A person visiting your site should never be more than three clicks away from what they want.
8. Comparison
You should always keep an eye on what your competitors and the companies you aspire to emulate are doing on their websites. Bookmark them all and visit once a month. Incorporate any new ideas from their site into your site.
9. Online Sales
If you are selling on your site, ensure your users are never more than two clicks away from ordering the product.
10. On Brand
In a few words, describe the personality of your brand. Ask yourself what tone of voice and what kind of experience your customers expect online. Ensure your web designers understand how to translate your offline brand to your website. Ask them how they will go about it.
11. Visitors and Conversion Data
Ensure you have web-tracking software, which will tell you:
How many visitors go to the site daily
What town, region or country they are from
How many get past the home page and what pages they tend to look at or rarely visit
What % of visitors convert to sales
This is vitally important data to help you refine your website. For example, if you discover that only 20% of visitors go beyond the homepage, that is a big issue. Or if you can see that very few users visit a key page that explains the benefits of your product, your conversion rate will be low. This information provides the guidance you need to refine and optimize your site design.
12. Think of Traffic
Finally, and most importantly, always design your site with traffic in mind. Many small businesses make the mistake of designing their website and then start thinking about driving traffic to it. The problem is that the way you design your site can result in your site being ignored by the search engine spiders, meaning you will receive very little traffic. (It is estimated that for a typical site, 80% of web traffic tends to come from search engines). When designing your site, improve your SEO (search engine optimization) performance by ensuring you avoid the certain pitfalls. Ask your marketing agency to confirm that they have avoided the following:
Avoid flash sites. Sites are designed in either HTML or flash. Search engine spiders sent to index your site cannot read flash.
No frames. Spiders cannot read what is inside a frame, so you will not be indexed and noticed by search engines.
No dynamic pages. Some sites are developed with a database which generates dynamic pages. You can tell if there are dynamic pages on your site if there is a ? within the page URL. Again, spiders cannot read dynamic pages.
Text within graphics. To ensure text is read uniformly by different browsers, design agencies often put text within a graphic. It looks great. However, a spider cannot read what text that is in a graphic and simply moves on.
About the Author
Evan Mangan is a former Head of European Marketing for Yahoo! Mobile and is Managing Director of http://www.MarketingSmallBusiness.co.uk , a marketing agency which makes major brand marketing techniques available to smaller companies. For a free audit of your website visit http://www.MarketingSmallBusiness.co.uk
Article Source: Content for Reprint
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Some Excellent Website Design Tips
Web Design is an area which can be extremely important to the success of a website. It 's fair to say that most people who design their first website don't do a good job. They may think that there design is good enough to upload to the web but in actual fact the only reason they think that is because they were the ones who designed it. This is a common issue which most amateur designers experience but it 's very important to keep practicing and keep telling yourself I can do better than this. It may sound cliche but practice does make perfect and the more times you redesign your website layouts, the better you will get.
It 's not impossible to design a great website on your first attempt but you shouldn't expect to. Please read the rest of this article and take note of the tips and advice given and you will be on your way to designing a website that is nice to look at and easy for people to use.
Keep it Simple
Most people who start off designing a website think that more is better. That 's completely wrong and will turn your visitors away. Do not have lots of images, background music, flaming text and a hundred different colors fonts. All this stuff will increase the loading time of your website and believe it when I tell you that most people get impatient after waiting more than 10 seconds.
If you don't believe me look at every popular website, take Google for example! All the site consists of is a plain white background, a nice logo, a few links and the search box. Some may say Google 's design is poor but experienced designers would say to you that it 's a nice design. Google became popular because it provided better content and loaded much faster than competing search engines at the time. Sites such as eBay, hotornot.com and papal all have simple designs but still look professional. That 's exactly what you should be aiming for with your website layouts.
Here is a more exhaustive list of design tips you should follow:
Don't use frames
Don't have background music
Don't have too many images
Stick to one main font for your text
Don't use too many colors for your layout, stick with 2 or 3 main colors
If using flash, don't overuse it.
Don't use things like flaming text, animated gif images they look tacky
Don't use bright text on a bright background and vise versa
Don't make your text size too large or too small
Arial and Verdana are the two most popular website fonts
Don't make the width of your website too large test it on multiple sized monitors and on several screen resolutions
The above points are very important. Please remember that having an excellent design is really no better than having a good design. However a good design is much better than having a bad design. The truth is that it 's your content or website concept that will determine the success of your website but having a bad design can affect your chances of success, so take note!
About the Author
Darrell Knox is a writer and entrepreneur with 15 years of home business and marketing experience.Website: http://myacetemplates.net/design.pl/photo-law.html/website.html
Article Source: Content for Reprint
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Web Development, Web Design And Web Promotion Advice
If you are somebody who has an idea for a website, however are unsure about what to do next, then this article could be for you. I am going to explain about website development and give some tips about website design.
Content is all important when building a website and if you have a good idea however you feel you need additional content you can use other people articles for free as long as you make all the links on the article live.
There are three article websites I regularly use for this purpose:
ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, searchwarp.com.
These websites contain articles on most subjects and the articles themselves will include lots of keywords to enable search engines to pick up your site.
There is a very competitive market in website design services at the moment so you should be able to obtain a good deal.
Once you have your website you need to promote it and to gain a high page rank. To do this you need to build up the number of backward links you have.
A good way of doing this is by writing articles. There are number of reasons for this, firstly other people may want to use your article on their website. At the bottom of the article you are able to include a link to your own website, therefore when somebody includes it on their website this gives you a backward link.
You also obtain a backward link when you submit all of the articles to the websites mentioned above. Whats more all of these are one way links which have a much higher value than two way links. As we are all aware the number of backward links a website has is becoming increasingly important and the more links you have, the more visitors to your website you are likely to get and the higher page rank the website should attain.
Many people also read this articles on the article websites which could in turn result in more visitors to your site.
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