Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Are Your Website 's Colors Tiring Our Your Visitors?

Color is one of the most important aspects of web design. Many web designers overlook the importance of color when designing a website. Color should be one of your major concerns when it is time to start website design. If you don't consider colors while designing a website, your site will end up looking plain and boring or so chaotic; it 's hard to look at.

You should take extra care and consideration choosing colors. Most of the web browsers can only recognize 256 colors. Unfortunately, all browser don't share the same 256-color pallet. Currently browsers only have 216 colors in common. You need to consider the 216-color pallet when designing key elements of your website.

If you use a color that doesn't exist in the 216-color pallet within the browser, your browser has to mix colors that do not exist. To display the color, it needs to take tiny dots from the colors present in the browser color pallet to make up an approximate color. This is called dithering. It is bad for your website since some displays distort the tiny dots so much that the image becomes so speckled that it does not appear to be a solid color. It will make the text placed over the dithered color hard to read.

Always consider browser safe colors for your website provided if you are using solid color as a design element. However, some browser safe colors should be used with caution.

As you know that most of the eye operations are muscular; it tires out as with all the muscles of the body. If you look at red color for too long, your eyes will be fatigued. I will illustrate the example. It is a simple test and it works every time. This test will help you better understand about the eye fatigue.

Look at the black dot in the red box for about 30 seconds. Concentrate on it and don't let your eyes wander here and there. Now look at the black dot in the white box. What do you see? You will see bluish green color in the white box.

This is not a trick or hallucination. The explanation is simple. There is a thin layer of tissue at the back of your eye. This tissue contains millions of tiny light-sensing nerve cells called Rods and Cones. Cones are light-sensing cell which respond to specific wavelength of light. Your eye is filled with color decoding cones. When you fix your eye on the red box, the red wavelength becomes tired and fatigued. To relieve the fatigue, opposite cones in your eyes starts to kick in which is why you see bluish green color. Now you know the scientific reason behind eye fatigue, you should apply this principal to your website for maximum effect.

Have you noticed that the caution signs are yellow? Pure yellow strains your eye more than any other color and because of that your eye will fix on the Yellow color first. If you use Yellow or Red color for your banner, it will instantly catch the attention of the viewer 's eye. So you can use these colors to highlight any text or an image. Use these colors sparingly because there is no reason to irritate your visitors with bright colors. Only use these colors where you want to make a point.

You shouldn't use bright colors too often on your site. You might get the attention of the visitors but consciously or unconsciously they will feel the eye fatigue which will make them leave your site --- fast. Use bright colors sparingly. Use them in places where you want the visitor to focus. If you want them to focus on the text, highlight the key sentences with yellow or red. Use subtle and light colors too. That soothes the eye.

A combination of bright and subtle colors can create a great website design which will make the visitor stay longer on your site and visit more often.

About the Author

For more information visit Netlyte | Houston Web Design firm. You can also request information to find out how we can help you build a great website for your business. Visit Website Design Houston

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Why Aren't You on the Web

Numerous folk mistakenly think that having their web site on the net is an expensive venture, fortunately though this does not have to be true; if you choose the right web host, the benefits of getting a website will unequivocally exceed the fees.

There are a great many ways to benefit from having a website, whether it is meant for personal benefit or to assist the success of your business. Those who have their own personal web sites chiefly have them to pursue an interest or a hobby; owning a website is a superb way to share and swap material with other individuals. Organizations on the other hand tend to have a web site to bolster and market their products and services, whilst reducing such expenses as mailing, couriers and advertising, etc.

Here are several crucial advantages of getting a web site:

An increased perception for your commodities and facilities - Companies can now uniquely increase the scope of their reach, without needing to keep the focus to the immediate location of the business, by employing the web, Businesses can expand into global and regional markets with greater ease. This situation dynamically changes the complexion and the marketing exercises of quite a few Organisations, probably helping the business to expand the range of its products and facilities and to grasp these relatively new markets.

Websites, in their nature, permit virtually unlimited products to be accessible 24/7; consequently encouraging a greater reach not to mention continuous trading hours without the necessity of extra staff.

Independence - With the Freedom of being able to post your information on your web site, and therefore on the information super highway, at any time of the day; information of all types is increasing at a huge rate. The Independence to search anywhere and interact with anybody must be sufficient to tempt the tiniest of Organizations and the shyest of people to get connected to the online world; and consequently internet users are gaining in numbers at a staggering pace, approximately fifty thousand each 24 hours. Companies are humming on the information superhighway, they have discovered a way to be competitive on an even playing field, with even the biggest companies; and in a customer marketplace that is increasing daily

Cost advantage - world wide web Businesses are extremely aware of how they can profit by being on the Internet; they have the ability to advertise their goods and services without having the enormous costs and in-built delays of publishing, printing and distributing their marketing materials. The stage is a much bigger one whilst at the same time being multi-cultural, which adds a much bigger value to the costs paid out for marketing and promotion. This all compares extremely favourably with the restrictions of doing business in the real world.

Ecommerce facilities can be incorporated into the website, transforming two-dimensional screen images into user reactive models. For example, clients can buy merchandise and facilities on the internet, massively lowering the costs of administration. Reduction of telephone calls to potential customers; follow ups by email; newsletters digitally made, using email promotions or downloads from the website, all lower distribution overheads; less promotional material, printed, posted and wasted; greatly increased hours of opening without the requirement of the presence of people; are just a few of the many methods to reduce overheads.

The current way of thinking is that any organisation which is not currently on the internet world is not only foregoing the rewards of this important and vibrant opportunity, but is heading to the end of its life. Don't waste your time and energy scratching your head wondering what the www can do for your company, or you could possibly be left behind; rather, you need to consider how you can make good use of this dynamic and cheap form of industry awareness. Find a a company that does web design and a company that supplies reliable hosting, get a quote, and tell them what your requirements are. Don't be left behind, act now.

About the Author

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Monday, September 1, 2008

Website Design The Latest Trends

Website design has evolved since the beginning of Internet. The first page uploaded on a web server was just a simple document with black text. This page was created by Tim Burners Lee, the founder of internet. Since then, websites have evolved into a more complicated combination of design and code. In late 1990s, websites were designed using colors and text effects. The design was simple and the web pages looked more like brochures.

The internet boom and the opportunity to do business online changed the look and appeal of websites entirely. People were flocking to tap the online market and get the first mover advantage. They developed visually compelling sites to attract visitors and more sales. The websites were crammed full of information and there were lot of colors on a single page. Those websites managed to do well for sometime although they were a nuisance and most of the people use to run away from those websites. Those websites had overlapping colors, big text and some eye popping text effects which used to you're your attention away from the main product/service. There were multitude of bright color with intrusive text and those websites were crammed full of information.

Then, came the internet recession, this was a golden period for website designs. People learned from their past mistakes and started to design some engaging sites that allowed the visitor to focus on the main product/service they were offering. But there was one drawback; the internet population was going through a learning curve and they used to think that simple websites are designed cheaply and used to run away. To solve this problem, most of the big players changed their website design to interactive flash based movies which used to impress visitors with the flexibility and uniqueness of flash based design.

Those were the times when HTML, DHTML and Flash were used to create website designs. The table based design was good but it had some limitations; lots of codes to write and implement style on each and every object on the web pages.

To address this problem, CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) was introduced and many designers adopted it to get rid of long codes. CSS is the latest trend in web design. There are no tables to draw. You can use the div tag to assign styles to any object or component on the web pages.

The latest trend in website design is the result of a 15 year evolution that occurred step wise. Now website designs are more mature and they are centered on the content of the website; not the other way around. Layouts are hot these days. Good web designers are using layouts to direct visitor 's attention to the content and not the design. The designs are aesthetically developed to soothe the visitor eyes and keep them engaged. The liquid layouts are things of past.

Now designers are more inclined toward creating perfect layouts and keep the background simple. The website is intentionally left blank outside the layouts to avoid distraction. The images and icons are used to highlight certain points and videos are embedded on the sites to provide dynamic content that will engage the visitors instantly. Subtle and light colors are used to complement the design. 3D gradients and reflection effects are current trends.

All in all, website designs are getting better day by day. The mature professional look is more important than cramming and stuffing of images, icons and other design components. Less design and more content is the rule of today 's online era and it has given visitors reason to think about the product/services they are interested in rather than appreciating or loathing the design of a website.

The future of website design is very promising. In future, dynamic content like videos and images will be used to attract and entice visitors. As the internet progresses towards becoming the sole business platform for most of the major businesses, the website design will be considered less important. Content will rule and design will only be there to complement it.

About the Author

For more information visit Netlyte | houston web design. You can also request information to find out how we can help you build a website to grow your email list at website design houston

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Very Important Rules Of Website Marketing

When it comes to successful website marketing, the one word that should never be invoked is "haphazard". Instead, a deliberate approach that follows established successful marketing logic is a far better plan. This, of course, begs the question as to what rules comprise this logical, success based approach. While there are no absolutes that guarantee website development marketing success, there is a number of "tried and true" website marketing rules that will improve any strategy. These rules are worth examining.

Chart your goals - First and foremost, any website marketing strategy needs clearly defined goals along with a clear plan to achieve them. This will aid greatly in keeping any marketing plan on target and focused. For example, if you are selling a product you may have a goal of increased sales. In order to do this, you have to spell out exactly HOW you plan to increase sales. Also, the intended time frame for achieving the goal should be spelled out. This way, if you are not on target for meeting your goals, then the website development marketing strategy can be tweaked and modified. But this can only be accomplished if a clear goal is sought at the very beginning. You can't revise something that never existed in the first place.

Keywords - More than anything, website marketing relies heavily on search engine traffic. A significant reason for this is that most people find websites through their search engine queries. This is done by plugging keywords into the search engines related to the subject they seek. As such, weaving proper keywords into the text of a website is critical to any website marketing strategy. Without proper keywords, search engine traffic will always be minimal.

Stay up to date with website marketing innovations. There have been many inroads achieved in website marketing over the past three years. The explosion of pod casting, social networking, and file sharing services has all been utilized to market websites with tremendous success. Staying current with web development marketing trends along with being open minded regarding new marketing strategies are critical for success. Yet, there are many website publishers who do not take advantage of what these new inroads offer. Sorry, but a 1998 website marketing strategy will not work in the modern era. Exploring valuable cutting edge marketing strategies, however, will give any website 's exposure a boost.

But never forget tried and true methods such as email promotions either! Email marketing to promote a website is virtually as old as the internet itself. Email website marketing has survived for so long is because it is effective if used correctly. This means a website must employ targeted emails derived from solid "opt in" lists. (Random spam emailing has long since lost its effectiveness) The email should also not be "prattle" and must include items of interest. This includes website news and updates, discounts on products and services, etc. This is a strategy that the major websites (Amazon.com, Borders.com, and Ebay.com) have all used for significant success. There is no reason why this success can not be duplicated by other websites.

Create a solid website. Ok, you have drawn traffic to your website….now what? Any website marketing strategy is only as strong as the website itself. If the website is poorly designed, difficult to navigate, not user friendly or just downright boring people will leave it soon after they arrive. As such, it is critical that any website being marketing be properly designed or any web development marketing strategy employed will be doomed to failure. If there was a golden rule to website marketing it would be this!

As you can see, there is no "magic" to proper web development marketing. There is simply a common sense approach that applies logical rules to enhance success. While this isn't always easy, it is never difficult either.

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About the Author

Creatively yours, Todd Herman Senior Vice President GlobalWebsiteCreations.com President GlobalWebsiteCreating.com

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