Are You Looking For the Perfect Web Design?

Every day worldwide millions of people log onto the Internet for business, entertainment and information. Anyone who has a website will cover one of these three aspects, which brings me to the point of web design. If you want your website to be found and used by the general public then you will have to have a site that is designed to appeal to your users.

There are many ways that you can entice someone to do business with you such as offering them a cheaper service than your competitors but on the Internet if you want someone to do business with you then your website needs to be user friendly and designed in a way that will make people stay on your site long enough to buy the products or services that are on offer to them.

The design of your website is more important than many people realise and often people design their sites with the wrong people in mind. A lot of people when they are first setting up their website will design their site in a way that appeals to them and in a way that they feel best reflects the business; this is the first mistake to make. When you are designing your website you need to do so with your target market in mind. You need to identify who you are aiming your website at, for example if you are aiming your site at a younger audience then your website should be quite funky and can include more flash as this will draw your audience in. If however the products or services that your business offers can apply to anyone of any age, such as mobile phones, you have to be careful when it comes to the design of your site as you need to design it in a way that will apply to all members of the public. The best way to go about doing this is by keeping your site simple and using neutral colours.

Your website needs to promote your business, you need to make people get involved in your business merely by the design that you have used. This may sound like a difficult thing to do but when you know how you can go about this with no problem at all.

When you are designing your website you should use limited colour and coordinate your website. As well as this you also need to remember that you need good unique content that is original. Your web content is the backbone of your website and it should be search engine friendly. You need to make sure that your site is easily readable and easily accessible for your visitors.

The design of your website can be the difference between your business being a success online and your business being a failure. You need to make sure that any phone numbers are placed in the top right hand corner under the sites logo and that your contact page should be clearly labelled. All of your pages should navigate to each other and the back to the main home page.

If you are struggling to get your site designed then you should enlist the help of a professional web design company to get the design done for you.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, who offer professional Web Design and Web Hosting services as well as all of your Search Engine Optimisation needs.

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How to Approach Web Design

A Web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Designing a web site is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A web page consists of information for which the web site is developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page. In typical examples of web pages they are either classified as static or dynamic.

With static web pages it generally means that these web pages don't change their content or layout with every request. If these web pages need changing or up-dates need to be made to them they have to be done manually by a web professional or programmer who will go into the site and update whatever pages need to be done. This can become a challenge if you are busy running other aspects of your business, which is why if you want you website to be made up of static web pages you should enlist the help of a web designer who will have the time and knowledge to be able to perform manual updates frequently on your website.

Dynamic pages on the other hand adapt their content and appearance depending on the end users input or interaction. With dynamic pages content can be changed on the client side by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, media players and PDF reader plug-ins, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (PHP, ASP, Perl, Coldfusion, JSP, Python, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

As the Internet has grown and advanced so has web design and in the process mark-up language has changed to become more complex but also flexible, which allows you to add aspects such as images and tables to a web page.

Before creating and uploading a website, it is important to take the time to plan exactly what is needed in the website. You should also thoroughly consider the audience or target market, as well as defining the purpose of your site and deciding what content will be developed are extremely important. When you are looking at the purpose of your website you should note down what you hope to achieve with your website and what users of your website will benefit from it. After defining the purpose of your website you should go onto describing the audience of your site this is because you need to know who you are aiming your website at and you need to known what your audience is looking for within your website.

The purpose and audience of your website should be reflected through the content of your website. When you are thinking about what content to place on your website you need to evaluate and organise what content needs to be placed on your site. Anything that doesn't fit the purpose of your site or that doesn't reflect your target audience should be removed from your site.

If you want the best from the design of your site then you should enlist the help of a web design company who will be able bring out the best in your site and as a result you will get more traffic to your site.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Web Design.

Please feel free to republish this article provided a working hyperlink remains to our site

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Choosing a Good Web Designer

There are a few things that separate a good web designer from a bad one, but the effects it later has are significant. For instance if you hire a good web designer, you are assured quality work from this designer and you would get your money's worth. Hire a bad web designer then consider it money wasted as the outcome will undoubtedly be poor.

So, what differentiates a good web designer form a bad one? One factor is how professional they look, if your web designer has designed their site poorly with messy navigation and 2nd grade graphics, then you should obviously stay clear from these web designers. But if the site has a nice clean layout and is easy to navigate, I would advise you to inquire more about this designer, because if they've done a good job on their site, chances are their going to do the same on yours.

Another factor would be the designer's portfolio, if the designer even has a portfolio. If the designer doesn't have a portfolio then stay well away as this usually means they are inexperienced and will make quite a few errors. These designers may charge less, but in the long run, it's not worth it. Look for a designer with a nice looking portfolio with design work that you would like. This is very important as every designer has their own style. If the style doesn't suit you, then find another designer.

Last but not least, pay close attention to the designer's approach. What I mean by this is how they contact you and how often as well as the language they use. If their English is poor, chances are they don't speak English, in which case, this will create a barrier to communication, which you need to be able to go over concepts. The designer should also contact you regularly, keeping you informed on the project.

This isn't a fool proof list, but hopefully after reading this article you will be able to make an informed decision as to which designer you want to choose for your project.

This article was written by, Tobi Oduyoye, Co-Founder of Nitrostics. They have a portfolio at their website, which displays their quality work. Their site is: http://www.nitrostics.com

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Ten Top Tips For a Visitor-Friendly Web Site

Make it clear what you do

It may be obvious to you, but your site needs to spell out to visitors what it's about. You'd be surprised how many sites seem to make the assumption that visitors will know the company, understand their products or services and are familiar with all the latest jargon. Make sure your home page states clearly, in a paragraph or less of readable copy, who you are, what you do and what you've got to offer.

Fulfill your visitors' expectations

Another simple way to make your site more visitor friendly is to make sure it reflects what people are expecting to find when they reach the site, whether through a search engine, a banner or pop-up ad or a link from another site. You can do this by first looking at the search engines' search logs to find out what people want and how they ask for it (try Overture's Keyword Suggestion Tool), and then ensuring that your navigation and site messaging and content use those same keywords.

Put things where people expect to find them

Familiarity is a big part of usability. Research has shown that people expect site features to be in a certain place on the page. They look for the search box in the top right hand corner, the products or services down the left hand column, the check out in the bottom right hand corner, the main navigation along the top and the small print (i.e. terms of use, privacy) along the bottom.

Minimize the clickstream

More than 83% of Internet users are likely to leave a website if they feel they have too many clicks to find what they're looking for. So, for example, instead of splitting copy across several pages, with a click to move forward to each page, put it on long, scrollable pages with quick navigation links so that people can jump to the content they want, while staying on the same page.

Have an About Us and Contact Us page

Credibility is fast becoming a key usability issue. If people are going to entrust you with their credit card details or consider you a serious contender for their business, they want to be sure you really exist. We've all come across web sites that don't even have an address, never mind a telephone. That's why it's essential to have an About Us and a Contact Us page - to not only reassure people you're a proper business, but to give them a choice of contact options, including phone, email, directions and a map.

Increase your download speeds

Studies have shown that the average web site visitor will wait less than 9 seconds for a page to download - and the days of universal broadband are still a long way off. So instead of tedious Flash intros or bandwidth-hungry graphics, make your site as lean and nimble as possible. By stripping out the superfluous code, which is often created by web design software such as Dreamweaver, your site can be faster to load, even during peak traffic times, such as immediately after an advertising campaign. What's more, there are estimated to be 743 million people worldwide accessing the net by phone and PDA, so anything you can do to make your site faster and more accessible, will help ensure your availability to this huge new market.

Be search engine friendly

Search engine optimisation, because it focuses on making sites more appropriate to visitors' search queries, more content-rich and better-connected to other relevant sites can make a site more visitor friendly, as a natural by product of the process. In addition, a site map, breadcrumbs and descriptive text links (rather than just 'click here') are search engine friendly features which also enhance the visitor experience.

Know your weaknesses

As well as knowing where your visitors are coming from (ie. which search engine or link from another site), it's also worth knowing where your visitors are leaving from - the quit spots, in other words. If you check your server log files, and see that people are regularly quitting the site at a point where you don't expect, such as between two related pages, you can identify and fix errors in your navigation, download or transaction systems.

Create escape hatches

Conversely, you need to give visitors the opportunity to make a quick getaway. For example, every page should have a clearly marked link back to the home page. Likewise, your transaction process should offer people the chance to empty, as well as fill, their shopping baskets or opt-out from on-site processes, such as downloads, registrations or subscriptions.

Give a warm welcome to disabled visitors

According to the Disability Discrimination Act, web sites must be accessible to all members of the online community - including disabled visitors. Using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) separates presentation from content, which not only makes the site accessible to people using assistive technologies such as voice browsers, but also enables visually impaired visitors, including the elderly (a growing online population) to resize formatting effects, such as colour and font size, to be easier to read. Other easy ways to improve your site's accessibility include ensuring links indicate content (i.e. not just 'click here') and giving informational images ALT descriptions and decorative images null ALT descriptions or alt="".

Fortunately, if your site is search engine friendly, you're already part of the way there. Assistive technologies work in a very similar way to search engine spiders, as they 'spider' the site, read the content and links and present it back to the user in a visitor-friendly format. Therefore, a site that's search engine friendly is already a good way towards being accessible to disabled visitors, as well as people using their phones or PDAs to access the net.

Rif Chia is the Founder & Private SEO Consultant of EzBusinessNeeds.com with more than 5 years experiences
SEO Web Design
Singapore SEO

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Labels: Ten Top Tips For a Visitor-Friendly Web Site

Getting Right From the Start - Tags & Design

I have met so many business owners whom are concerned over the performance of their website, only after a few years of operation online. It is a must to spread the message and educate the business world on getting right on your website framework. You can never imagine how much potential profits it can bring to the business. Remember what i am going to say will help your business website in search engine ranking which will improve your traffic.

Title Tag

I have said and wrote a number of articles on getting the right title and placing it just after the HEAD tag. The first line a spider read would be the TITLE tag and it carries significant SEO value because it tells the spider roughly what kind of content that webpage carries. Title tag is also displayed in search engine result on top of the description and it tells a searcher what he/she will be expecting from the website. Put your important keyword in your title, a good example would be Confectionery Packaging | Global Distributor for a packaging company.

Meta Description Tag

This is the description of your website shown in the search engine result. Write this description carefully with relevant keywords. Spiders see this as a reference to the content that webpage contains.

Keywords Density

Getting the correct keywords density ( around 3% - 3.25% ) is common. Keywords are important words that you believed a searcher may type and find you via the search engine. Identify the correct ones and you are on your way to the top of the SEPRS.

Nested Tables

I am not saying having nested tables are not good. Spiders simply do not like nested tables and to prevent them from further indexing a webpage, we try to reduce the use of nested tables. Replacing them with CSS would be good. Even my website is currently using a bit of nested tables and i am in the process of changing them with CSS scripting.

TITLE tag in a href

Many do not make use of this tag in their links. Having them is good and it tells the spiders what kind of link they might expect. It carries SEO value by further securing the correct keyword. a href=http://www.ezbusinessneeds.com title=Search Marketing and SEO Web Design

ALT tag in img

Alt tag is commonly used to show text in case the image is unable to load in browsers. Spiders do not view image, they aren't human. So by providing spiders with ALTERNATIVE text will increase your target keyword density. This tag is normally used for blind personnel.

Well this shall end the TAGS for SEO Web Design. The next thing you need to know would be the scripting method that affects search engine indexing. I will write the article another day, see you around.

Rif Chia is the Founder & Private SEO Consultant of EzBusinessNeeds.com with more than 5 years experiences
SEO Web Design
http://www.ezbusinessneeds.com - Singapore SEO

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Labels: Getting Right From the Start

Do I Need a Business Website?

In this day and age, I cannot image any business that does not need a website. People like to have the option to learn more about your company, whether the products you have or how your company got it's start, from the comfort of their own homes. We live in an instant gratification society. If you can't give them what they want now, the will move on to a company that can. This is the same with information.

I guess the question shouldn't be "Do I need a website", it should be "where can I get an affordable website".

Now, if you can make your own site, the only problem you have to worry about is hosting. This is your most affordable option. Hosting is very affordable and painless. From 9.99 a month and up, you can reserve a domain name and hosting. A great domain and hosting company is kittypickles.

If you have some basic HTML, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc skills, you can simply purchase a template for your business. They come loaded with graphics, menus, and some even come with flash animations. All you have to do to them is customize it with your information. A good template site is templatemonster.

If you are not familiar with site design software and code, then you'll either need to research design firms or find a free-lance designer to create your site. If you choose to use a firm, be sure to compare. Make sure to take a look at their portfolios, check them out on the better business bureau, email past clients. Also, keep in mind that price doesn't always equal quality. Some new firms offer great rates while they expand their portfolio.

If you'd like to contact a free-lancer, place some ads in Craigslist. You'll find many great designers and coders here, all of which are pretty affordable.

For more business ideas, tips, articles, news and kits, visit http://bizlearners.com

Brynn Yardley

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Labels: web design online

Why Your Website Should Include an About Us Page

I want to talk about the importance an about us page can have when it comes to marketing your home business. By the time you finish reading this article on you will know a few tips to make your about us page a pre-sell page for your website and products.

Think about how you surf the Internet when you land on an interesting website. Do you find yourself clicking on the frequently asked questions page as well as the about us page?

Depending on the depth of the website you may very well go to these two pages before you spend much more time looking at the rest of the website. As a matter of fact, the average person spends less than one minute on a website so they are going to choose what they look at carefully.

This is why it is worth having your about us page right up front where they can find it. You're about us page gives you a chance to build some credibility on your background and what are trying to do with your website.

You can also include various things such as pictures, videos, audio, and these sorts of things. It doesn't have to just be business oriented either.

It's a great place to include little bit about your wife, kids, your hobbies, how your business is doing, etc. You really can get a lot of mileage out of an about us page if you try to think of it through the eyes of your visitor.

If you have any doubts about how to do this go check out the about us page on your top competitors websites. Jot down notes and begin to formulate a plan of how you want to develop your own page properly.

The thing you have to remember is that your visitors probably do not know much about you. Even if you've been around as an established Internet marketer over a period of time very people few people know who you are.

As a matter of fact as Internet marketers we tend to live in a very shielded world compared to the average surfer. Once you realize that people really do not know who you are it should help formulate your plan to bring out your about us page in a positive manner.

Hopefully this article has given you some ideas on why your website should include an about us page. You also should have a few tips now on how to properly develop yours and get the most from it.

David Ogden is an established online marketer who specializes in practical website resources and advice that have helped many people like you start their very own home based business. He can help you launch your very own money making website today, ready to take orders and pull in massive profits for you right now, guaranteed!
Work at Home Training for Success
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Copyright: David Ogden

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