Web Design

Over the course of the last decade, the Internet has grown beyond all expectations. Each and everyday there is a new website that is being developed. The biggest challenge a new website will face is getting viewers to stay on their site long enough and to attain high search results with search engines.

There are plenty of web sites out there in which basic elements of design are ignored. The viewer may experience overkill and frustration, instead of gently receiving the message or information. Here are some simple ways to help clarify your web site's message for your company or organization. Use the web as a tool for sales, community contact, and to improve, rather than detract from a business entity?s image.

In this article we will be looking at why you should keep your web page size small.

Just because you are a small business with an even smaller website design budget, does not mean that you cannot have a professional looking website and presence on the web. All it means is you will have to do some of the work yourself instead of paying some design firm to do it for you. Amazingly enough, self designed pages from small business owners who did their research frequently end up being better and more focused than professionally designed pages. Consider the following suggestions when designing your own website.

I've written about META tags in the past, and I thought I'd help you expand your search engine optimization efforts and increase your web hits.

Whether you?re hiring a designer who has created 10 sites or 1000 sites for other businesses, there are 10 things every website should do for you.

Conventional Wisdom states you should use Sub-Directories to organize your web Pages. Unfortunately the Page Indexing Tools Penalize your Page Rankings when you Do this, Many of the Page Ranking Algorithms in use today deem that pages closed to your Root are of a Higher Value then pages that are further away from your root. If you have 2 Web Pages with the Exact same content (web1.html and web2.html) http://yourdomain.com/web1.html and http://yourdomain.com/articles/training/web2.html

In my web surfing adventures, I've found a few site elements which make surfing easier and more enjoyable. There are no concrete, hard- and-fast rules to follow - these are just observations of some things which I virtually always look for in a site.

So your web site's online and you've got high rankings in the search engines attracting lots of visitors. But the statistics tell you most of them are leaving after viewing just one page, what's gone wrong?

So your web site's online and you've got high rankings in the search engines attracting lots of visitors. But the statistics tell you most of them are leaving after viewing just one page, what's gone wrong?

Do your web pages, sales letters or personal presentations include subtle distractions that unnecessarily cause you to lose sales?

Ever browse across a website that took ten million years to load or required a road map to find the navigation bar? True, Flash Technology might impress your clients till their eyes fall out. However, Flash Technology requires a skillful balance between gaudy and elegant. We?ve composed some advice on how to make use of Flash Technology without turning your mainstream prospects away.

What are websites? Are they sales tools for vendors and service providers, or are they electronic guidance for potential customers? Put simply, are you selling or are you helping?

Since I made the switch 6 months ago to a tableless design on my main site, I?ve noticed some interesting things: My search engine rankings have dramatically improved My bandwidth usage has dropped about 50-75% I can now make changes to the look and feel of my site easily by just changing the one file, the stylesheet. Let?s look at why my search engine rankings improved. Now that I have less un-indexable code on my pages, the search engines can now spider my site quicker. Less code, more content, therefore a better ranking. Makes sense, doesn?t it? Bandwidth costs money, and unless you have a really good hosting plan with lots of bandwidth, then your larger files will take up more room on your server, and take a lot longer to load. Tableless designs use up considerably less bandwidth and are more accessible. Every once in a while I may want to alter the look of my site. I like to change font colors, link colors, menu items, etc?Before I started using tableless designs, these changes took me hours to do. Now I just open up my stylesheet, make the changes I want, and in a few minutes I have my site updated with the new look and feel. It?s so easy! For a client who wants to make their own changes, tableless designs could literally save them thousands on tech costs. Most of my clients still want sites with tables. I now give them the choice of either style. After all, the customer needs to be happy, right? Some people have the misconception that utilizing tableless designs means having a boring and less graphical site. Nothing could be further from the truth. Take a look at one of my favorite websites: http://www.csszengarden.com/. At that site you can really appreciate what can be accomplished through css-based tableless designs. Beautiful! Make the switch to a more profitable, usable, and accessible website! Copyright 2005 - Karen Blundell

"Oh, my eyes, my eyes! What an eye sore. Quick, click away! Click away!"

I taught myself HTML back in the mid-nineties and was proud of the fact that I was able to accomplish the design of fairly complex web pages with nothing more than a starter HTML book, an HTML reference book, and the knowledge I had stored in my head. But back in those days, we web designers had what looking back was a fairly limited amount of tools with which to work, and the quality (or lack thereof) of sites on the web was lackluster at best.

When JV Media Design was formed, the year was 1995 and the Internet was a very different place than it is today.

You know... Before purchasing your product a person comes to your order page minimum of 7 times? Nobody buys a product or service in their first visit. People search, compare, estimate, test... They look for affordable and good product that fulfil their needs.

1. Assemble a web site development plan that is integrated with your overall marketing processes; the content should be consistent with offline materials, the graphics/images don't have to be identical with traditional media, but should be consistent with your overall branding, style guide, usage of colors etc.

Avoid these mistakes and your site will be steps ahead of your competition.

Since you?ll spend lots of time and money to create your web site, don?t you want to make sure you?re not making mistakes that at best irritate users, and at worst make you lose customers?

There's no doubt about it - the first page your site visitors see is the most important page of your website. If your home page isn't appealing, chances are the rest of your pages will never even be seen by your visitors. It helps to think of your home page as the "front door" to your online business. Will it invite people to come in and look around, or persuade them to take their dollars elsewhere? Here are ten tips for making your home page a winner:

1. Loading time:

We have all seen websites showcasing their testimonials either spread strategically throughout the site or all together on their own glorious page. They?re there with the intent of leading us toward that high dollar purchase or convincing us of something?s legitimacy. Sometimes we read them and sometimes we won?t. Sometimes we believe them and sometimes we don?t. Well, are they really worth all the time and effort?

We've all seen and read product testimonials. They're a very valuable tool for merchant sales and can often tip the scales in determining a customer's decision to buy. But testimonials offer another superb benefit. It's the benefit to you and your marketing strategy.