WEB SITE DESIGN
when preparing to design your web site, the important thing that you must first decide on your's web site FOCUS.
If you designing a mini-site, your web site should focus on one particular product. However, contet sites are a bit different. If you're developing a content site, your site should focus on subject on which you have a great deal of knowledge, and should relate to your products or services. In addition, your images, ezine and content should also relate.
DESIGNING YOUR WEB SITE
When you begining your site, your top priority must be your product. If your potential costumers can't find your products, you're not going to make any sales. It's that simple, every part of your web site should have one specific purpose to ead your potential customers to your products.
for example, if you will be providing your visitos with tutorials, these tutorials should relate to your products or services. They should identify a problem, provide instruction to assist your visitors and promote your products as the solution.
YOUR STORE FRONT
The main page of your web site is your store front. It should load quickly and provide your visitors with a complete overview of everything your web site offers.
Instead of triying to cram all of your information into your main page, consider creating sections. these sections can contain highlights of your information. you can divide your page into sections by using tables. these tables can contain colored heading sections for information such as news, article, products or whatever you'd like.
It's much better to keep your main page down to the most essential elements. You can then use links to additionalpegs to provide the detailed information. A good rule of thumb is " less is more". In tother words, keep your main page as small as possible, while at the same time, include your most important element.
LOAD TIME
According to two surveys conducte by Forrester Research and Gartner Group, eComerce sites are losing $1.1 to $1.3 billion in revenue each year due to customer click-away caused by slow loading web sites.
The main page of your web site should load whitin 8 seconds or less with a 56K modem.
There are many things that can cause a web page to load slowly including :
> Large graphics
> Too many graphics
> Animated graphics
> Too many banners
> Special effects
OPTIMIZED YOUR WEB SITE
You can significantly decrease your site's load time simply by optimizing your graphics. This process will decrease your graphic's file size without sacrificing the graphic's quality.
You can optimized your images right online. Visit Gifworks.com for further information.
ENCHANCED YOR WEB SITE
There are a number of ways you can enchance your site without using a lot of graphics. For example, if you can use the samesmall images such as bullets or arrows, it will give the illusion that you're using a lot of graphics. However, your graphics will only have to load one time. This will enable you to "recycle" your images to keep your page's load time down, while at the same time, enchancing your site's appearance.
In addition, you can enchance your site by using tables with colored backgrounds instead of images.
If an image doesn't enchance your page in some way, you'll be better off to just leave it out.
TABLES
If you'd like to set up your web page using tables, try to place your Heading text above your table code. If this isn't possible, make sure you include your top left table cell. This will assist you in ranking higher in the Search Engines.
SCREEN RESOLUTIONS
When design your site, keep in mind your visitors will have many different screen resolutions.
The resolution of monitor refers to the total number of pixels. The higher the resolution, the greater the number of pixels. Higher resolutions present higher quality images.
To accommodate the majority of your visitors, use a standard screen resolution of 800x600 pixels.
Another way to ensure that your web site page will look great to all of your viisitors is to set it up using tables. Instead of using a fixed width within your table code, use a percentage. This will enable your web site page to span a certain percentage of your visitor's screen size. foe example, if you set your table width at 90%, your web site page will automatically esize and span 90% of your visitor's screen size, no matter what screen reolution they're using.
COLORS
Although there are an unlimited number of background and txt colors you could use for your web page, a white background with black text will be your best option.
You must be very cautions when selecting your background and text colors, as reading on your a computer screen is much more difficult than paper. You must make your web page as easy to read as possible.
You can add color to your pages using tables with colored cells.
WEB BROWSERS
Before you begin the actual design process. The highly recommended that you download and install web browsers internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera and Mozilla Firefox. These are the most widely used browsers on the internet. Why download and install that browsers? So you can view your pages through these browsers, as they are not created equally. your page might look great when viewed through Internet Explorer, but may not disply well when viewed through on Mozilla Firefox.
> Mozilla Firefox
It is very important that you take the time to design your web site pages to accommodate that browsers.
In addition, you can also visit any browser to view how your web site will look through different browsers and screen resolution. http://www.anybrowser.com
Above all else, your product must be you main focus. Your product should be displayed above the fold of your web site page. This is the top portion of your web site page hat is visible when your page is first loaded, without scrolling. This is the most important part of your entire page--use it wisely.
Tke your time and plan your website very carrefully. There is much more ways to design web sites than meets the eye. Do your homework and learn how to design a web site that sells. It will be well worth your time and effort.
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