Web Design Tutorial

Archive for July, 2008

I see way too often folks just getting a free or paid template and adding some text to it
and stating they have a custom website. This is not true; they do no have a custom website.

To have a custom website you have to build it yourself or have a web designer build it for
you. Either way, it must be unique and fit your personality.

There are many things to take into consideration when you build a custom website; there are domain names, hosting, FTP software and more. Now these things are relatively cheap or no cost so don’t get caught up into that.

Here are some simple to follow steps to build a custom website:

#1 – Get your own domain name and make it unique to your website. Choose the right domain name to match what your website is about

#2 – Get good and reliable hosting. Too many times I come across folks so just don’t understand this and get any hosting then find themselves trying to switch. Check hosting companies out carefully. The number one thing you must be sure of is their support, if they have good reliable support you should be fine.

#3 – Your Graphics, now as much as you might hear that graphics will make your website more professional looking and better, this just isn’t always true any more. You do not need graphics on your website to make it work. Yes, you can have graphics on your website, but keep them simple, like the cover of your product if you are selling one, a picture of yourself, you can have a simple header at the top but it is not necessary. I have found that I get more subscribers without the header

#4 – Your layout keep your layout simple and easy to use. Your navigation should be on the left hand side, as this is where most people look for it since it has always been there on all other websites or across the top. Don’t change what works! Make sure your categories are easy to understand for your visitors, don’t use fancy wording that they might not understand be clear to what each category is.

#5 – Content! This is the biggest part of your website and you have to be sure you are delivering quality content. Keep your content short and to the point. Make bullets to have the important parts stand out. Make short 3 or 4 sentence paragraphs. Have sub headlines in the middle of your pages there are a lot of people out there today that just scan webpages. Make sure you tell your visitors Exactly what you want them to do and how they can do it.

There you go 5 simple steps to build a custom website, put these to use and you can have your very own custom website in no time at all. Building websites today is easier than ever, since there aren’t many people anymore that care about graphics and fancy flash sites, they are more apt to leave your page with that stuff on it then actually read your site.

If you’d like to learn more about website designing I strongly recommend ‘Introduction to the Basics to Webdesign’ this ebook will walk you through step by step in building a website.

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As a web designer myself, I get asked a lot by clients if they should consider doing a redisgn of their website? I often find myself telling them that it would depend on a lot of factors.

The number one question I have to ask them, is WHY?

If you are redesigning to just redesign, you need to consider a few things first. Your current website might be providing good traffic or selling things, there’s no need to redsign if you are currently seeing profits or traffic. If you do redesign you can possibly lose that affect and that would result in you losing sales and traffic.

How long has your website been online?

If your site is over say 4 years old definitely do a redesign. Your website is going to be old looking and unattractive. You need to make sure that your website is uptodate and has all the necessary functions, as the internet changes regularly it is important to keep up on this.

Some tips if you are going to redesign your website, make sure you do this offline and not online. Build your website and save it to your hard drive while you update it this way visitors won’t even know that your website is being redesigned.

For your customers send out an email and let them know that you are redesigning the website and get their input on what they think or would like to see on your site. Remember you are in this business for them.

Another tip you can do is to put a “Under Construction” on your site, state that your website is currently being redesigned and to please check back again. If you have a targeted date on when your site will be done, by all means put the date on the site so others will know when to check back. You can also add a bookmark us tag on your site and ask them to book mark you and to check back often.

You can take a look at other websites that are in the same market as yours and see how their websites compare to yours. Do their websites look fresher and newer than yours? What do they have on their website that you do not, but could implement.

These are just some of the ideas to consider before just jumping in and doing a redesign on your website. You might be surprised that your site is fine the way it is and your customers like it. If this is the case ask them why and take that into consideration also. You don’t want to make things harder for visitors or customers, keep it plain and simple.

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