Website Design

Successful website design. How to guide!

When planning on creating a website whether for personal use or for business, you will need these 7 important factors in order to have a successful website. If you find that your current website is lacking in traffic then check to see if you have missed a crucial part in this list. Every part of this list is important but ineffective by alone. You have to incorporate every facet in order to truly have a website that will help you succeed in whatever endeavour you choose. These are the things that I believe make for a great website.

1. Content – Of course content is the utmost important factor in attracting visitors to your website and having great, unique and worthwhile content will be your most important weapon. Great content should be informative and straight to the point with a little bit of amusement thrown in. It should be unique enough o have visitors coming back and even giving your website address to others with similar needs.

2. Navigation – Navigating a website should never be like traversing a maze. If your visitors get confused then you might want to think about changing your layout. A website that is a hassle to browse through can bet that any visitors will only be a onetime affair. You should be able to completely convey to the visitor each and every part of your site and where they can find that which they are looking for. Easily readable fonts and a leisure ambiance to your web page is a welcome design.

3. Domain Name – Having a convoluted or hard to spell domain name is one way of being forgettable to users. Refrain from using overly complicated words and choose something simpler and stylish when picking your domain name. It should be something that directly references your content and is witty enough to be remembered easily. Do this and you will have more chances of becoming the top website in your category.

4. Cross Compatibility – If you use Firefox do not forget about making sure your website can be displayed perfectly on other browsers. Depending on your encoding, your website might not work smoothly on a different browser and can greatly limit your visitors. Always see if you are using a cross compatible design on your web page in order to maximize your potential visitors.

5. Top notch quality Media – Having images that are blurry is a flag that just screams amateurish. Be careful when uploading any type of images in your website and make sure that you are optimizing their quality to the max. Visitors being greeted with some sharp and high definition artistic images will subconsciously be thinking of professionalism in presentation.

6. Page Loading – A slow website will definitely be seeing less visitors that faster ones. Today, users expect lightning fast browsing and slow loading is now considered a thing of the past. No matter how flash your website is, nobody will care if it loads longer than 15 seconds, and I’m pushing the envelope their already. If you have slow loading problems I suggest you remedy it right away, why would anyone wait any longer if there are dozens of other websites out there that offer nearly the same content and can be accessed almost immediately?

7. Contact Information – An important part of any website catering to services that is worth their salt, having a contact form in your website is a very simple and easy way to get feedbacks from visitors. It also suggests to the visitors that you are interested in what they think not to mention giving them immediate way to contact you for more information on your business and the like. Always have some way for visitors to contact you directly right in your website. It will be much effortless for them to not copy any address or open another window to message you.

Why and how to prevent it

In the early stages of the internet, it was normal to have a sluggish internet speed. It was accepted since it was all new and wonderful. But today, with internet providers all trying to reel in more customers, they know that speed is the key. Internet users today are accustomed to blazingly fast internet connection speed. It has become normal today and all providers out there offer medium to fast internet sped so there is absolutely no reason for you to be snail crawling your way through the World Wide Web. If you find yourself being left in the digital dust then chances are your computer is the reason for this lag. To determine the cause, I’ve listed the reasons for slow down in loading and check every viable option in order to remove the proverbial ball and chain that’s dragging your web page down.

1. Not Auto-Scaling the Images

Ever wonder why some websites with tons of images loads faster than another? Chances are that the latter did not optimize the images and so you’ll have a long haul of huge images to load. Optimizing images to be scaled down helps because the page will only use thumbnails in order to display the pictures and will offer a separate page dedicated entirely to the image’s original dimension. This is one of the most common reasons of slow web page loading and is one the easiest to remedy.

2. Flash Everywhere

Incorporating Flash into your website is a popular design choice. It’s, pardon the pun, flashy and adds entertaining segues for visitors. However, it also includes a huge amount of code in order to ay properly which will take copious amount of resources if you have too many. When adding flash animations into your web page be sure to be mindful of the file size, if it’s too large you may want to scale it down a bit. A good way to decrease the chances of web pages slow loading when using Flash is to use the XML to load data.

3. Embedded Applications

Some social networking websites allow you to embed images and videos from other sites into your profile. Ever experienced a major slow down when opening your profile when using these social networking websites? Yes, if you embed too much media from other sites, it can potentially drag your speed to a crawl. If the website where the media belongs to is slow, then your web page will slow down considerately also. If you need to add any media files in your web page, I recommend hosting your own files in order to minimize this problem.

4. Terrible Web Hosts

Sometimes having a really awful loading speed may not be your fault at all. A perfectly encoded web page with few to no media files incorporated in their page will still experience a massive slow down if you choose an awful shared web hosting provider. This is the reason why I should refrain you from using any shared web provider, if you can, register to a direct host network. If by any reason you only have the option to use a shared hosting provider then research thoroughly and look for legitimate reviews.

5. Spam, Spam, Spam

This one is one another common reason for slow web page loading. Fortunately, there are easy ways to prevent spam from invading your page and bombarding users with annoying advertisements. The simplest way is to use captchas to weed out any bots. You can also install and activate a spam blocker program if you find yourself being spammed by emails.

Slow loading web page can be easily remedied once you’ve analyzed and figured out the cause. When creating your own web page, keep in mind that you just can’t include any media or design that you fancy. Check it first if it is possible that these applications can interfere with your page’s performance.

The images story

A problem that still pervades even with today’s high speed internet connection is the slow loading of some web pages. There are numerous reasons for you to experience this but we will tackle one of the most common cause for slow downs, the images. Chances are if the website is slapped dashed with tons of media and images then it will take a long time to load completely. You see, you just can’t embed or encode large files into your web page without incurring some sort of repercussions. Larger files will take longer time and so high definition images that come with a hefty size will understandably load longer. For you to completely remove this problem here are a few tips in order to negate any problems that come with high quality images.

1. Crop the Image

Cropping involves the removal of some of the portions of the image in order to reduce its size. More importantly, this is used when you want to remove only some parts of the picture but retaining its original dimension. This feature is mainly used for aesthetically purposes only though and not to actually resize the image file.

2. Resizing the Image

Different from cropping, resizing the image is the best solution for reducing the image’s file size while not removing portions of the image. Always keep in mind that some monitors cannot properly display the correct size for some with higher dimensions. The solution most people use for this little problem is to scale the images but that would mean the chances for longer load time, this is where you use resizing in tandem with scaling.

3. Try Different Image Formats

Different image formats offer various levels of quality and image size. Try experimenting which type of format can give you the best quality and least file size for your web page and use that. The most popularly used format is obviously the Jpeg format, it only take up little space and can have really decent image quality. There are other formats that you use, like I said just experiment on which one would work best for your page.

4. Trim down the Quality

This is the most commonly used method for optimizing images for your web page. Simple and quick, you can downsize the quality to as low as 70% without incurring any noticeable drop in image quality. You can do this to all image formats as well, like Jpeg and Png while for gif images you need only to scale the colour palette down.

5. Input the Dimension

Another simple way to fix your image to the best quality is by setting the height and width attributes of the image before uploading them. You can reduce the dimension but not affect the quality. View your web page and determine the correct size for your images to be displayed properly. It is simple and fast and for most occasions rewards you with a quick page load.

6. Use the CSS

The best thing you can do to accurately optimize your images is to use the CSS to manually affix and customize your web page. CSS can let you edit fonts, colours and background in order to give you the reigns to customize everything to satisfy your vision. CSS in conjunction with the other methods can easily give you a smooth flowing website that loads instantly.

For websites that use only a few images in their pages, you can skip on optimizing the image files as the server will not have to use more resources in loading everything in your site. Slowdowns due to image files are mainly the result of poor encoding or rushed work.

Do’s and Don’t ‘s

A common hindrance for any website, especially the newer ones, is to have visitors believe that the site is a legitimate website and not one of those trap attack sites. With all forms of dangerous malwares that have littered in the darkest corners of the internet, it’s only natural for users to be wary of any unfamiliar website that appears. In order for you to break down this wall of mistrust with users, we’ll talk about the ways you can achieve this and guarantee the visitor that you are a legitimate website with no funny business.

Include contact information

First thing you should add into your website is contact information. If you check most of the on line shops out there, some do not incorporate contact information, which for me gives me doubt. While there is no problem with not including any contact information, some users will likely ask for more information and guarantees and the best way to conduct that is by personally communicating with them. Some users may skimp on contacting you and go directly to purchasing but where’s the harm in having contact information? If you have a shop located somewhere, you can include the complete address of that shop on your website and probably a number to contact. This will show that you are legitimate and at the same time professional.

Professional looking website

If you just slapped images together over a plain background, few on line visitors are to be expected. On line users tend to navigate away from amateur looking website rather than get attracted to them. You don’t need to hire a highly experienced web designer to do this for you, just bring out your artistry and remember these 3 important notes:

1. Limit your colors as you do not want your web page to look like a rainbow. Choose colors that complement each other to avoid eye strain.

2. Pick appropriate images to upload into your web page. Images will add to the theme of your website and give first time visitors an idea of what to expect from your website.

3. Reduce advertisements on your website. It’s understandable that you would include adverts from other sites and company but do not have them disrupting the flow of the visitor’s navigation.

Security

Installing an SSL certificate is a good way to inspire trust from visitors who you ask for any kind of contact information. SSL or Secure Sockets Layer will encrypt any information passed from users to the host in order to make sure that no 3^rd party will be able to get a hold of said information. This is one of the best methods to build trust with users and clients as it shows that you are responsible with information they give to you.

Show samples

Uploading samples of your services or products online with legitimate statements from previous satisfied customer will further put doubt to rest. Don’t put stock photos but real photos you took yourself when sampling your products. Add a date stamp and include messages from your previous customers to show legitimate transactions.

The FAQs Page

A simple yet very effective method to gain trust is to add a FAQ page where visitors can leave questions and inquiries and where they can find readily made information for your product or services offered in your website. Be sure to always update the FAQ page with questions and answers for common to the not so common inquiries you receive from visitors.

Having a presentable website that looks and feels professional can eliminate any doubt users might have and will be able to assist in generating not only trust but traffic into your web page. Keep in mind that your website should not only cater to you but to any potential customers out there surfing the internet.