Web-Designing Tips
A page to help those who are new to making websites or tips on web-designing in general. I have gathered these helpful
guidelines, learned through my years of web-designing, to help your website be a successful one.
These tips will include DO's and DON'Ts in web-designing as well as tips for making a good website.
GENERAL SITE DO's:
Create a site that has useful information or content that people will want to go back to for future visits.
Your site should be unique in some way and have something that other sites don't have. If you have a special talent, such as
graphic-designing, don't be afraid to show it off through your site.
The site should have an appealing look and is easy on the eyes. (ex: choice of colors, easy to read text, good use of grammar, spelling, etc.)
The content MUST be well organized and the menus and navigation should be kept the same for each page, so people will know exactly where things are.
Try not to use too many images, javascript or flash throughout your site (especially on the main page), unless it's absolutely necessary. There's nothing more aggravating than having to wait forever for all these things to load. The faster the loading time, the better.
Make sure your files are compressed enough or that you are using .gifs or .jpgs for your images. This will also help in minimizing the loading time.
SITE DESIGN:
If you know how to make a layout, try to design your own instead of using a pre-made one. It will make your site more unique and original and show that you have put a lot of time into it.
Keep in mind what kind layout you want to make. A table layout, a div layout, popup layout, or frames layout. Each has their own style as well as pros and cons, so you should be familiar with each before deciding on which one to use. For beginners, table or div layouts may be good choices.
Be sure you have a fair amount of knowledge in HTML. It will become very useful in situations when the layout or content appears incorrectly or if there is coding that needs to be corrected.
Try using external CSS or cascading style sheets for your site, which is a .css file every page will be linked to, which controls the appearance of your site. They are great for changing the look of your site without having to edit each individual page. All you need is to edit the .css file to change the look for all your pages.
Make your content design organized and easy to access. If your visitors are having a hard time finding what they need, then they are most likely not going to come back.
Keep in mind the scale of the pages on your site and try to make it compatible for most screen resolutions. You don't want a page that stretches too wide or too narrow, making scrolling difficult or annoying. If you are making a table layout, you can make your pages auto resizing, so it can fit in all screen resolutions.
If you are using someone else's images, graphics, text, etc. please make sure to CREDIT them. Unless you made it yourself, it would be considered stealing, and you don't want to be flamed or on anyone's blacklist.
SITE CONTENT:
Put a warning message on your page before allowing your visitors to enter a page that will have certain content not for "younger" viewers,
such as use of language, sexual content or anything in that field, just to warn visitors who may not be suited for the content.
Make sure the things that you put on your site is good quality, and by "good quality" I mean by keeping the quality of pictures constant throughout your site (Ex: You
wouldn't want to have a beautiful looking layout but provide poor quality images in your gallery). Make sure a lot of thought is put into what you put on your site.
Make sure your links are clearly marked and people can differentiate them from the normal text on your site. Some methods could be to use a different font, color, or text decoration for your links. Also let people know where the link will lead to.
Consider the wide range of people who can come across your site (especially younger viewers, if by accident). You don't want to offend or disgust them in any way, so try to keep the use of language on a General level and try not to use too much slang or letters like "tHiS". It makes the webmistress/webmaster appear immature and careless, making it difficult and annoying to read.
If your site has a particular theme, genre, resolution or age requirement needed to view them, it should be mentioned, such as in a splash page or in the title of your site to
let your visitors know ahead of time.
CHECK FOR ERRORS:
If you are making your site using HTML, try to check for errors in your codes so your site won't show up in a strange way on different browsers.
A good program to use to check your HTML coding is the W3C HTML Validation Service
Try getting various browsers so you can check if your coding is viewed correctly on each of them. The most popular are Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera.
This might be a bit much for people who are just starting out, but your visitors may have different browsers, so it's important they are viewing the website the way you intend it to be.
Check for broken links and images by clicking on every link you have available and viewing every page you have to make sure everything works and shows up.
The most efficient method is to put yourself in your "visitor's" position and view anything and everything on your site. You never know what mistakes you might find. This includes spelling.
MAINTAINING THE SITE:
You should update frequently or at least once a week or once a month to keep your visitors interested in coming back.
Be creative when making new pages or additions to pages. If you are having some difficulty, ask for suggestions on what new content you should have next, such as in a poll or ask friends, affiliates, etc.
If you won't be updating for a long time or an issue has come up, try to let your visitors know by putting a message up on the main page.
It's important to keep your visitors updated about what's going on. You wouldn't want to go to a site that never leaves any recent messages or updates on their site (especially if it's months or even years past). It makes the site appear neglected, abandoned, or dead. So keep this in mind when owning a website for the public.
GETTING MORE VISITORS: If you want more visitors, try to remember several of these tips:
Affiliate with sites that has a similar theme or content as yours.
Do link exchanges or join a topsite that will list and rank your site.
Sign guestbooks and include your site URL under your name, but don't make it seem that you desperately need visitors for your site.
Submit your site to a popular search engines such as
Google, Yahoo Search, AltaVista, or AlltheWeb.
Include META tags in each of your pages. They will help search engines index your page and possibly easier for people to find your site.
Provide detailed descriptions in the title of your pages or image alt tag descriptions that will help people find your content.
INTERACTION:
Have a guestbook or tagboard that your visitors can give feedback or put comments in. This will let you know what your visitors think about your site and may even help in improving it.
Provide a way for visitors to contact you. They may have questions, or suggestions about your site, which may also be important for a site owner.
Be a friendly webmistress/webmaster. This will get you good feedback and possibly make new friends.
OVERVIEW:
An idea that may be helpful in the overall development of your site is to ask yourself these question: "Will this site appeal to a wide range of people or only a few?"
"How much time would people spend on this site, considering the content?" "Would I, myself, want to go to this site frequently?"
"What are people really interested in when going to my site?" "Have I fulfilled the purpose of making my site?"
After answering some of these questions, you may be able to make a lot of improvements and attract more visitors.
DON'Ts:
DON'T use extremely small text or colors for texts that are not legible against the background color. (Example: bright yellow text on a white bg/ A good trick could be
to use a darker yellow or gold on a lighter, pale yellow bg). If you have to strain your eyes to read the text, then chances are your visitors wouldn't bother staying for long and would look elsewhere.
DON'T put background music on your site, especially the kind that starts automatically when entering the page. This is personally a pet peeve of mine and may also be for others. It can be startling or even be too loud (since volumes on everyone's computers vary or the person even could be using headphones).
It is very annoying to come across a page where music suddenly plays. It could be tempting to put background music on your site, but I've learned from past experience that it's much better off without it. If you want to provide music on your site, allow the visitor to play or stop the music when they want.
DON'T flood other site's guestbook, forum, tagboards, etc., telling everyone to visit your site. This can become very annoying and turn people off from your site. If you want to let people to visit your site, do it only once at most on one site and in an orderly manner. Patience will pay off.
DON'T use vulgar language or offending terms openly unless your site is already indicated to have such things. This can be a real turn off for visitors who may suddenly come across it.
And lastly, DON'T steal any graphics or content from any site and post it on yours without the site owner's permission and without crediting. Someone will eventually find out and may get you in a lot of trouble. People have stolen my graphics in the past and/or manipulated them, and I can tell you it's not a pretty sight. Don't do anything that you wouldn't want other people doing with your things.
Thank you for reading through this page and I hope I have helped you in starting out or designing your website. If you want a good HTML help site, please go to Lissa Explains. Her site has greatly helped me when I first started in HTML, and I'm sure it will really help you too.
