Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Web Design Suggestions To Increase Your Visitor Engagement

By Clarinda Klocek


Most of us do not have the time, money or skill to build custom cars or choppers. But we all have the tools necessary to design custom websites. As long as you can grasp how web design works, you will be able to design stunning pages that attract people instantly. If you want to know more about web design, read through these tips below.

It's not the 90's anymore, so stay away from using frames. Frames were of great use in the early days of web design but it had a lot of flaws. Frame designs make it harder for readers to bookmark your site and scrolling becomes a chore. There are much easier ways to provide your users a flow through your website.

Don't try to fit too much onto one page when you're designing a website. If your page is too busy it will take a lot longer to load and can overwhelm visitors. When you're going to be putting up a lot of content, create pages for everything you can to reduce the clutter on your page.

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.

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.

Always ensure you are giving meaningful feedback, as this is what creates the communication between a website and its visitors. For example, if an action taken by a visitor results in an error, do not simply display "error occurred."? Instead, provide a message that explains what happened and how the visitor can correct the error by taking a different action. Without this feedback, visitors are more likely to grow frustrated and just give up by leaving your website.

Stay in contact with friends who are knowledgable about design programs like Dreamweaver or Photoshop to make sure that you don't forget how to use them properly. You need to be sure that the information you have is ingrained and you don't need to find yourself making a site when you suddenly get confused or lost.

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.

After reading these tips, you can instantly start practicing by signing up with a free web host or some type of demo service. You will quickly realize just how easy it is once you know the basics. From there, you can start designing picturesque sites that everyone will love. Just remember to use what you've learned above.




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