Knowing how to build a website is simple enough, but knowing how to keep your site’s visitors returning can be difficult. There are many reasons potential customers may not revisit your site. Perhaps your product or service was not quite what they needed. Maybe it was too expensive, or the shipping made it cost-prohibitive. Sometimes, the reason has nothing to do with your business or its offerings at all, but instead with the website itself.
Read More→


Categories : Web Design Tutorial
Comments (3)

Web design is more than coding and inputting content from a writer; it is an art form. “Design” itself means to create, or plan out in accordance with a goal or purpose. So when creating a website, designers are formulating the best way to fashion the site so that the goal — having visitors — is reached successfully. Just because you build it does not mean they will come, and this is where having a talented designer who knows what elements are essential to your site’s success is critical.

Color – Almost all of us are aware of the color of a website when we visit it. Subconsciously or not, we will make the decision to stay longer on the site or click away immediately based in large part on color alone. The reason for this is psychological; there are entire fields of study devoted to color theory. Typically, site visitors prefer calming colors such as those from the blue family. Also, when reading a page of text, visitors prefer black text on a light background.
Read More→


Categories : Web Design Tutorial
Comments (0)

If you have decided to build a website for your business, there are other options you may not be aware of when it comes to getting your business noticed online. Ten years ago, weblogs (or blogs for short), were relatively unknown. Today they are among the top ways to make your business stand out among the crowds on the internet. Amazingly though, many business owners are still unaware of the impact they can have on their presence.
Read More→


Categories : Web Design Tutorial
Comments (9)

There are many reasons for which to create a website. Businesses create sites to increase sales and exposure. Advocacy groups will create sites to gain followers and build on their campaigns. Educators worldwide have websites dedicated to providing an opportunity for working adults to attend college and receive a degree from the comfort of their home. Some people create websites for much simpler reasons — to stay in touch with their friends and family who may have migrated all over the country.

Growing up, we often cannot wait for the day we leave home. Our parents’ rules are intolerable and our siblings are annoying at best. However, when most of us grow up and are suddenly left alone, realizing everyone has gone on their own way, we realize it an be quite lonely. Before the invention of the internet, families were forced to keep in touch via the telephone and snail mail. Pictures were mailed, stories were written down on (gasp!) pieces of paper that were actually mailed in an envelope with a stamp on it.

The creation of the World Wide Web has certainly changed how America keeps in touch nowadays. Communication is instant, and if it takes us twenty minutes to get an email, we get impatient. The beauty of the internet is, however, the ability to reach out to our loved ones without delay. Your Aunt Suzie had a baby? Cousin Bob got married and you couldn’t attend? Thankfully, through the use of websites and blogs, our families can share photos and stories from these events. There is never a reason to be out of the loop again.

Personal websites and blogs are the most popular form of communication between families online, besides email and instant messaging. You can watch your niece’s first steps on video that was posted your sister’s website, or you can see a photo of the snow falling in Oregon while you sit in your living room in sunny Florida.

While visiting a website or blog of friends and family does not — and should not — take the place of visiting your loved ones in person, it is second best. If you are among the majority of us who have people all over the country you need to keep in touch with, consider how simple it can be if you create a website or blog. Add some video and pictures, and great-grandma will be thankful she can see her great-grandkids without flying cross-country.



Categories : Web Design Tutorial
Comments (0)

Having a good website layout is a must no matter what type of website you are building. Keeping things uniform throughout your website makes it look nice, but more importantly it makes it much easier for your visitors to read and follow through what you want them to do.

There are many dos and don’ts you should follow when deciding on your website layout -

1. Headers – this is the top part of your website. Do Not make this huge and wild looking. Keep the height of this no more than around 100 pixels. This can be a graphic you have designed for you, or just a colored background with words on it.

2. Your Headline – use the h1 tags of html to write your headline, if you don’t know what this is, then ask your designer or learn it. Search engines look for h1 or h2 tags to tell them about the website. Your text should be easy to read, don’t make it fancy looking, keep the color usually to a red, this usually makes peoples’ eyes attract to it.

3. The body of your website – too many times a lot of website designers makes this way too colorful, and this makes it difficult to read. Most people want to know exactly right now what is in it for me, not all the fancy stuff. Keep your text family to one type, do not change this around. The norm for this is Times New Roman or Arial. You do not have to stick to these families but the important rule here is to use the same family for your entire website.

4. Images – please do not plaster your website with graphics! This is so annoying and distracting. An important rule to remember when using images on any website, is the size of the image, if your image is large it will take the site a long time to load and people won’t stick around to wait. Make sure that your images are clear and relative your website theme. Another important fact that most do not use, is the alt tag, this tag is inserted so if your visitor doesn’t have the ability to see images the words will display, also, search engines do not see images, so by using the alt tag within your image will tell the search engines what is there.

5. Buy Buttons – too many times I’ve gone to a website, read through it, liked what I saw and read; now I want to know the price? Scroll to the bottom to find the buy button only to see no price at all! Make sure that your price is clearly seen, the best place to put your price is directly above or below the buy button. Make it clear exactly what the price, no hidden costs! The fastest way to lose a sale is by not telling the purchaser how much they are going to pay.

6. Closing – make sure that your name is clearly at the bottom, people want to know who they are dealing with. Having a professional taken picture of yourself is the best, but if you either do not want to do this or don’t have one, then make sure your name is clearly there. And a way for them to contact you if they have questions. Do Not put your actual email address on your websites!! You can put the words Contact Me and have them linked to an email address. Do not ever put your actual email address on your websites. There are spiders out there that look for this format and will spam you!

7. PS – Always, Always, have a ps or two. Recap what they are getting and restate your price and guarantee. It has been shown that by having a ps increase sales, so use it!

By sticking with these steps you will get a better looking website that will convert much better. It really doesn’t matter what market you are in or what you are selling, by having the a good website layout will make all the difference.

Laura


Categories : Web Design Tutorial
Comments (2)