Website Design Costs

If you don't know how to make a website on your own, then you will most likely want to find a website designer. These individuals will be able to create a place on the internet that follows your vision and ensures that it is professionally laid out and will keep visitors on your page for some time.

What you need to understand is that there are a number of costs that can be associated with your website as it is being built. These are going to cover everything from the layout of your website, to the photos and the design that you will have, while taking into consideration that some companies do charge more for ensuring your page is search engine optimized for the best possible results.

The first place you will have costs associated with your website design come in will be from the overall layout that is done. The professional designer will use various fonts, colors and layout schemes to ensure that your page opens quickly and helps the visitor reach their desired information as quickly as possible.

From the layout and design scheme of the website, you will then need to look at the photos being used. If you don't have your own images, the professional designer will need to pay and use stock photos from the internet. This can add some cost to your website design. It is important to understand that you cannot simply upload any photograph you find online as that will violate copyrights.

Beyond the visual basics, you will also be charged for the content that is placed on your website. This content needs to be relevant to your website and have specific keywords that will help it to be found in search engines. It will be important for you to provide this individual with some keywords and phrases that can be used to describe your business. They can then take those and search for other relevant terms that can help to boost your flow of traffic.

Once all of these items are in place and your website is finalized, it will be time to launch it. This can bring in some additional costs. Not only will the website designer take the time to ensure that your website can be viewed through different browsers properly, but that there are elements in place to drive traffic to your page.

This will be done by building backlinks and placing articles on the internet that will direct traffic back to your page. These links are an essential part of your website and you do need to ensure that you hire a professional to handle this process for you.

With all these items taken into account, you will find that there are different elements that will influence the final price quoted for you when it comes to designing a website. Of course, if you don't know how to make a website and need a fully functioning page, these costs will be worth it and in no time, you should start seeing traffic for your website grow.

Tips On The Planning Phase Of a Website Design And Selecting The Designer

Almost all of us are conversant with the three P's, planning, preparation and precision. The simple idea behind them is getting one to first think and put down an action plan aimed at arriving at some specific objectives. To get the very best from your website designer, there are some things that you need to know about the product you want. This article brings to light some tips that will help you be crystal clear as you embark on the planning part of the 3p's. The tips are as below:

    Website designing and creation has two stages, namely designing and coding stage. Do you want them done by the same person or different people?

    To make your website easy to find, will you want it designed to enable search engine optimization? Again, these can be done by either the designer or an SEO professional.

    Do you want a website or a blogging site? If a website is your desire, then the designer has to include content management systems to help you manage the website yourself. Without this, you will always pay your designer to manage the site for you.

    Before getting the design done, always have the content ready and clear as the content will determine the design in a big way.

    Will you need web hosting services to be provided by the designer or you have your own host? Many web designing companies have hosting services as well.

    Have you come up with your domain name? You have the option of having the designer come up with the name. If you decide on this option, always make sure that the name gets registered on your name and not his. Coming up with the name yourself is the best option.

Once you have answered the above questions and implemented the results, the next big thing is hiring a designer. There are three ways of doing this.

    Getting A Freelancer - This is the cheapest way to get a designer as freelancers are easy to find. Additionally, they are versatile meaning you get to negotiate how much you pay for the design.

    Design Contests - You can put out design contests on the web and have the best designer picked to do your website. All you have to do is find a site that offers these contests, post your instructions and requirements and then wait for the response.

    Hiring A Web Design Firm - This is the more conventional way and it is so far the most secure. A firm will give you all services, including hosting, and you get the feel of a professionally done website.

Professional Web Design Companies Take Your Business to Its Pinnacle

he role of professional web design companies in the success of businesses is proven beyond doubt. Small business owners may be hesitant to hire professionals to promote business and might choose to use software available off-the-shelf and online. However, the truth very soon dawns on them, to build a profitable as well as successful business, specialized skill is required.

There are many advantages if you outsource web designing to companies with professional skill.

An expert in web page designing can check and analyze the mode of your business in order to offer the best suggestions needed for the growth of your business. The web developer can successfully employ suitable solutions with the aid of custom programming. Though there are many software packages developed for web designing, even the package with the best features cannot match up to professional knowledge of an experienced web developer in creating a web presence that is technically sound. Since a professional web developer will be well aware of the changing and developing technology, he will be able to make sure the quick loading of your site and its accessibility across many platforms.

Web development work is very much detail-oriented and needs time. A small business organization need not have the time and resources required for the work. If you decide to outsource web designing of your company to a professional, he will provide you the best while you take care of the most important aspects of your business that needs your attention.

There have been many instances of small businesses falling prey to traditional philosophy of once you build a site results will come naturally. Only targeted traffic can generate sales and develop leads, which an expert web development company can achieve with their professionalism and knowledge. He will have the knowledge to incorporate marketing techniques that have proven to be effective.

Improved aesthetics is another advantage of professional web designing. Promotional materials that you have in hand can be analyzed by a professional web designer and incorporated to new designs so that your business makes an outstanding web presence. Customized marketing can be achieved with the employment of effective templates. Correct utilization of slogans and pictures to make a meaningful theme will create an impressive visual effect.

The rewards of hiring an expert web designing service for your business are numerous. Compared to the high returns you get ultimately, the investment is less. Unnecessary manpower, tools and operating can be avoided with this important decision.

What Is a Good and Bad Website Objective?

In order to have the most effective, successful website for any purpose, it is fundamental to address a number of pertinent points about building a great internet presence for a company or individual. By coming up with a list of objectives that can actually be accomplished, the building of a website can remain focused on a main set of goals. Of course, it is important to understand which objectives are actually important and worthy of an investment of time and money and which don't matter as much. Fulfillment of this goal is the best way to proceed with design and development, avoiding wasted effort and mistakes that would have to be corrected.

Identification of Objectives

Before any work begins and while still in the planning stages, goals should be identified that a website should accomplish; such an effort should involve more than simply stating a plan of having an easy-to-use website that looks good. Both of those parameters are variable; however, such end destinations will differ from person to person. While both points are still important to achieve a striking internet presence, an ultimate decision on how a website looks and works must address meeting the needs of an identified target audience.

On the other hand, a good objective would be to create a website that clearly and completely provides an explanation of a business, individual, or group of people that includes what is known and what is offered so that every reader understands such goals - regardless of layout or functionality. In that vein, other good objectives include presenting an internet presence that is well organized and without clutter, that easily illustrates an organization's experience within the topic and then provides answers to questions that visitors are likely to ask.

Basically, the best website objectives are to provide good customer service by presenting all information in a way that it is useable to most visitors. Other goals might have to do with optimization, such as the accurate usage of formatted header code, informative and well-written content, and using the same format throughout the entire internet location. Goals are essentially those things in which there is no flexibility, that must be met now matter what the design or function achieves, qualities that must be there, regardless of anything else.

Fulfillment of Objectives

Once the right goals for a specific website have been defined, the next task is to ensure such goals are used throughout the site building and design process. Although such an effort appears to be more of a job for the designer, it is really best guided and achieved by that internet location's owner. Of course anyone who is working on a website should definitely understand its purpose, its representation and its audience; however, no design person or firm can ever have as in-depth of an understanding about a company or organization as the ones who own it.

As development continues, it is still important to make sure that the primary identified objectives are being met, which is usually accomplished by testing throughout the site building process as this is just the best time to do it; once a website has been launched, goals that were not clearly addressed probably have not been met and will be harder to implement at that point.

With these tips in mind, there are two important things that should be done in order to be sure that a new website meets a company or organization's objectives. First, know what those goals are and second, be able to communicate openly such objectives with developers and designers in order to achieve the desired website. When this is accomplished, a productive and efficient internet presence that does what it is supposed to do awaits!

What to Learn If You Want To Design Websites

Talented web designers make the field of web design look easy. However, website design is no different from any other field; you have to get the right training in order to be able to do your job well. If you'd like to learn how to design websites, read on for some advice about how to get the training you need.

If you're curious about website design, you might want to start by taking a class at your local community college. Many community colleges offer beginner-level courses for modest prices so that you can determine whether this field is for you without spending a lot of money on training.

Start by taking an introductory course that gives you an overview of web design and exposes you to HTML. HTML is the most basic language you'll need to learn if you want to create and design websites; by studying this language and practicing using it, you can determine whether you have the aptitude and interest to learn how to design websites. If you enjoy website design and get the hang of it, after you take the introductory class, you might want to take classes in more advanced concepts. You'll need to learn CSS and Java in order to succeed as a website designer and may also want to learn Flash and JavaScript.

In addition to studying web design formally, you can also help yourself learn by reading books on web design. The best books provide students with exercises they can do on their own to create the effects they want on their own web pages. You can often find books in your local library that go over many basic website design concepts. Whether you want to learn HTML or want to market yourself as a website designer, you can find the information you need in books. If your library doesn't have the books you need, you can often get them from online booksellers for low prices.

If you have specific questions, you can also find tutorials online. Search in Google for your question and look at the sites that come up. For example, if you're trying to create a certain type of background, you can search for help with creating backgrounds in HTML.

Online tutorials are an excellent way to train yourself as a web designer because they usually take you step-by-step through the process of creating the effect you want. Many tutorials have pictures of each step so that you can see exactly what you need to do and how it should look. You can also find video tutorials online that show a web designer doing each step.

The idea of being a website designer can be both exciting and overwhelming. There's a lot to learn if you want to be successful as a website designer. However, there are lots of ways you can learn what you need to; if you put the effort in, you may discover a fun, rewarding hobby or even a new career!

What Not To Do In Web Design

It can be difficult to avoid all of the pitfalls that come with designing a website. With so many websites out there, it is important that you create a unique online presence that sets you apart from everyone else. There are quite a few things that you can do in order to come out on top and beat out the competition. The article below will focus on just some of the ways that you can improve your own website!

Choose a URL for your website that is easy to remember and has a good ring to it. Something that takes 30 seconds to type is a website that many people will tend to forget. Register your domain name with a name that is short, sweet and to the point. If you don't have a domain registered in your name, consider shortening your URL. Free hosts such as Angelfire often provide a URL that isn't easy to remember and can become hectic to type. A URL shortening website will take that URL and shorten it to sound like you have registered a domain name; the best part is that most of these services are free.

Avoid putting too much on your website! This means, keep scrolling messages and mind boggling animations to a minimum. Too many website owners feel that by placing animations on their website they are grabbing people's attention, when in fact they are driving them crazy instead. Animations can be hard on a person's eyes, but more to the point, they can freeze a browser window faster than lightning. If you have something important to say, you don't have to say it with scrolling text. Write your text in banner form or just use a bold and large font. People don't want to wait minutes for your text to come scrolling through.

It is important that your website and its pages load fairly quickly. It can be said that about 15 seconds is the most that it should take someone to completely load your website. If that is not the case, you really need to re-think your website's design and tweak it a bit. If you have too many graphics and JavaScript to display, it can freeze up older computers and won't load properly on dial-up Internet.

Always check your website's links and make sure that they are still valid and the pages display correctly. If you have a website that has many links, this is especially an important step. Visitors will find themselves very annoyed if they see that half of the links they click on are invalid. Take a day off once a week when you check to make sure that your links are working. If you don't have enough time on your hands to do this, consider hiring some outside help to check all of your links. You can also set up a form for visitors to fill out if they spot a link that is broken or re-directing someplace else.

It is important that when you take the time to design your website, you are designing a site that many people will want to visit over again. By taking the time to avoid unnecessary pitfalls, you will find your website's popularity increase significantly.

Get The Best Results From Your E-Commerce Website

As more and more businesses create and broaden an internet presence, the number of e-commerce sites is on the rise as well. It only makes sense, considering how many people shop online these days. Putting up an online business website is just common sense for anyone with a product to offer, since most shoppers these days look to the internet first rather than last. Success in an endeavor such as this will only happen if attention is paid to creating a good website and then incorporating a purchasing capability as part of the design and function. This internet user shopping forum can indeed profit a company selling a product or service if customers can navigate through the shopping experience to the checkout page in as few steps as possible.

Navigation - Providing easy ways to shop is essential in order to make sales. Of course, many online retailers attempt to entice shoppers to their internet location and fail because navigation has not been given enough attention in the design process. Menus should be easy to find, easy to use, and lead to a product sales page within two clicks. Product descriptions, specifications and other information should be easy to locate as should other essential links such as a good search function, shipping information, FAQs, contact forms, etc. Users should be able to sign-up and login with ease, find information or products, easily manipulate an account and a shopping cart, and be provided with a means to have questions answered, either through an online search or a contact email. A frustrating shopping experience has a high risk of becoming an abandoned shopping cart.

Filtering and Searching - With so many sophisticated means to search and filter retail websites, customers are used to looking for certain items and then clicking away any unnecessary ones to rapidly narrow down selection lists. Keeping up with the many other business internet locations that now use such detailed search filter functions makes for a better customer shopping experience and lends credibility to a company that has taken the time to provide this modern and trendy feature; it does indeed provide the best service to shoppers. Additionally, this helps keep the number of menu links to a minimum since a category page can be reached and then any further searches narrowed down from that point. Being able to step back with one click is where these types of filters really shine.

Product Presentation - Having a fantastic website that works well and does everything an e-commerce presence should do can end up being worthless if the products are not presented well on each page. Photography in particular needs to be exceptional, with multiple clear, well-lit images of each piece of merchandise to prevent buyers from turning away because the item to be sold cannot be seen well enough to convince a shopper to make a purchase without ever touching it. All product, shipping and return information should be complete as well, leaving very little reason for a potential customer to make a final purchasing decision clearly and without any confusion. Between product information and images, shoppers should be able to feel confident in what is being bought, enough to the checkout and actually make conclude that transaction.

Overall Website Design - While there are a lot of important features on an e-commerce website, the overall design itself should not be ignored. It must fit the image of its company, be well laid out in regard to colors, fonts, white space and image use and be fully functional in all necessary ways as well. Even though it is a retail sales shop, it should still look like any other professionally made website that a company would present without shopping cart functionality.

Shopping Cart Security - Security today is a high priority for anyone wanting to start selling online, as customers have become more and more careful about being willing to provide banking or credit card information. The best way to earn and keep customers' trust in this instance is to stick with the tried, true and trusted financial and security options. This will not only make customers more comfortable with providing private information, it will increase belief that the selling company does indeed care about its customers and wants to conduct good and honest business with all potential buyers.

By creating an e-commerce website that provides services seen in the upper echelon of internet sellers such as Amazon, even companies new to online selling can do well. The less online hassles for customers to deal with typically means better sales and higher return rates. Then after creating a well built, efficient website, a seller's main responsibility is merely to live up to that sales promise with good products and offline service as well.

Know What Every Web Design Should Achieve

An internet presence is one of the most important tools that any business or organization has to effectively relay a message, hopefully translating it into sales, sign-ups and other types of conversions. Having a website that does not perform for whatever reason is detrimental to optimization efforts as well as the ability to gain and maintain followers. To create an efficiently functioning website, designers need to balance a number of important aspects to best represent each and every company or client.

Visual

Naturally, the first thing any visitor to a website notices is how it looks. Without doing too much with fancy fonts, images and other visual extras, a website needs to look appealing. Color palette is extremely important and should be chosen to fit the company, the mood to be projected, and the message. Design style should present the client as they wish to be seen, whether that is serious and business-like, fun-loving, or classic.

Use of images, type, and white space should be carefully balanced to create a presence that is pleasing to the eye without being too busy or conversely, too empty; neither case is better than the other and both will impede the visual usability of a site. The design of a site that is beautiful, attractive and easy on the eyes for navigating - and doing so without becoming overly obtrusive - is the key to a visually pleasing design.

Functional

While look is important on one front, site function is just as important on another; finding a way to make function and form work well together is always the trick. Navigation should be easy to find and easy to use, resisting the desire to go high-tech with all kinds of complex and fancy menu effects. Site content should be clearly organized so users do not have to go hunting, so that desired information can be quickly found.

Consistency throughout an entire website - using the same colors, fonts, link positions, etc. - adds greatly to function since users do not have face different aspects on every new page. Links that all work seem like an obvious part of any functional website; however, missing one can happen and ruin a user-website experience. Forms that are user-friendly and easy to compete as well as shopping carts that properly function is just another way to deliver a functional website that works right the first time.

Interesting and Informative

Once a design and all other elements have been determined, what remains is to provide concise, correct and interesting reader content. In order to become a highly regarded website, it is important to concentrate on quality content presented in an appealing fashion. Keeping information current with frequent updates will keep readers coming back, especially if that content does more than just state facts.

Engaging readers with interesting tidbits, interactive elements, and high-quality information must be a prime concern once look and layout has been designed. Keep viewers interested to return and recommend the site to others. Be sure to consider the targeted audience when adding content and design or user elements; it will be easier to keep people interested and informed when content is presented if an appealing and useable format.

Creating a well rounded, efficient website definitely takes effort; however, keeping these goals in mind during the building process can smooth out any potential problems. Designing a visually appealing, functional, interesting, and informative website takes time, a little trial and error, and a lot of forethought; however, such honest efforts will prove to be valuable. The end result will be a website that any business or organization can be proud to call their own, reaching the right people and encouraging viewers to become purchasing customers. It is indeed important to thoroughly know what every web design should achieve!

Web Page Designer - Making Your Site Unique

If you are hoping to have a professionally designed website in the shortest amount of time, one popular option is to look for a good template that suits the theme of your site and work from there. The only problem is that the template won't exactly make your website original unless you know how to make a website and use your knowledge in heavily modifying the template. Otherwise, you have to get a web page designer to do the handy work for you. While this path is likely to cost you some money, you are very much guaranteed an original design where your site content should be able to fit right in. When looking for a person or freelancer to hire, make sure you know the difference between a web page designer and a web developer.

Web page designers are actually the people that you should be looking for no matter what your needs are because you can tell them what type of design and layout you like for your website and what functionality you want to provide to your visitors. The designer will then determine if the work can be done in your set time frame. Web page designers usually have basic coding skills because designers that are well-versed in coding normally refer themselves as web developers. Web page designers that cannot handle your needs will most likely refer you to a web developer.

Because a web developer requires more skill, web developers tend to charge more so it is very important to know your budget. If you really need website for your company, you can always opt for a simple version where you shouldn't have to pay a web designer very much. Once the site is all set up, you can at least host it online and get people to check out your site. This also gives you time to save up while you are marketing your new website to others.

Once you are ready to give your site an update, you can go ahead and look for a more experienced web developer. Since your site already has a foundation, the web developer shouldn't charge so much unless you have a long list of needs for your site. The point is, it will most likely be more expensive if you let a web developer handle both the design and the features of your site. Plus, development will take longer as well.

Of course, going the web developer route from the start isn't always a bad thing since the developer has more flexibility. Depending on what you need on your site, it can be beneficial if the designer codes everything and then builds a design around it. This ensures the stability of your site as well as the security. Then you can finally announce to your subscribers that you have a huge update and that could be enough to attract even more traffic.

What Do You Want To Know About How To Make A Website?

Did you know that even if you are not well versed in technology you can still learn how to make a website? That's true, even an amateur can now create a website all by themselves, but why would you wan to do so?

Well, most people build websites so that they can run a business from home, be able to connect with family and friends, or just say that they did it. The majority of websites though are focused on pulling in targeted audiences so that the owner can make a sales pitch. Web publishing software has made the creation of websites so much easier, and that is why it is possible for even someone who has no previous experience to build their own site.

It is the templates, which are merely pre-fabricated websites incorporating features that are typically used for building sites that make web publishing software so easy. This eliminates the necessity for creating the foundations of sites from the ground up. Generally speaking, those building their own sites will get to choose from various features to make a customized site of their own. It is fun to go through the varying features and test them out before deciding on a specific one.

The first option that is commonly selected when building sites is the color theme of a particular page or the entire site. The next feature that is frequently decided on is the font for any text being entered. Its color can also be changed to suit the design of the site.

More customization takes place as certain features are added and others are eliminated. Some of the features that people choose are graphics and video embedded into the design. Most web publishing software allows you to drag and drop or select from a list, and many allow you to place elements wherever you want them to appear. Some elements even allow for further customization as in the case of a video.

By using such software folks are taking the guess work out of building their own website. This makes it much faster to learn how to make a website and publishing to the web is a matter of the click of the mouse.

As you can see, there is no need to take months or years worth of technical training in order to be able to build a website. All you need is some basic knowledge of how to use a computer and you have got it made. There may be a slight learning curve, but believe me if I can do this myself you can too.

Best Ideas for the Creation of a Search Engine Friendly Website

The niche of web development is evolving all the time. This is one of the most dynamic sectors because the internet user is having increasingly high expectations.

Building your own website is possible, especially if you are willing to learn and to understand the elements that make a good web project. Search engine optimization is one of the most important aspects to consider because it will affect the marketing of the website.

If you are wondering how to make a website and to increase its search engine friendliness, follow these tips and achieve excellent results.

Design Basics
Design is very important because it will direct both the audience and the search engine crawlers to the most notable parts of the website. Clear structure and good navigation should be a top priority.

The menu has to be descriptive enough and making it easy for the visitor to get from one point on the website to another one. Several levels of navigation like the use of sub-categories can help you achieve the goal without cluttering the design.

The most prominent element on every page deserves a central position. It can be the headline, a photograph or a video. The way you structure each page will send indicators to search engine crawlers.

Content
When thinking about how to make a website, you will also have to do some content planning. Even the greatest design will fail if the website lacks unique, informative and highly targeted content.

Determine what your niche is and come up with a content strategy. Everything on your website should be written for visitors rather than for search engine crawlers. See what your competition is doing in terms of content and try to surpass that.

Update the website frequently. You need both quality and regular updates to effectively implement search engine optimization. Design and text will work together. The first element allows search engine crawlers to access the text. Once there, they will scan the content and determine its value.

The User Experience
A good website takes into consideration the audience's experience. Making it interactive and fun will keep people onsite for a longer period of time, which will ultimately affect optimization.

Your website has to load fast and everything appearing on a page should serve a practical purpose. If an element is added for mere decorative value, it will be adding very little to the SEO and the popularity of the website.

Making an excellent website takes a lot of planning in advance. Try to sketch it, come up with the right niche and think about design and content. Figuring these elements out before starting will facilitate the job and optimize the results.

Free Webspace - Creating Your Own

Free web space sounds like a good thing if you haven't found a place to host your website and don't have the budget for paid hosting. With nothing to pay for and no credit card information to enter, going for a free web hosting provider seems like the next step to take after you know how to make a website. But if your website has high ambitions when it comes to creating content and generating traffic, you should choose a reputable hosting provider because changing hosting providers can be a hassle even if you are going to transfer from a free hosting provider to another free service. Changing a hosting provider usually means that your site address must change unless you already purchased a domain. Still lots of other things need to be done such as transferring the files from the old site to the new. You can avoid this by looking for the following things before signing up for a free web space account.

Social Networking Profile

Facebook and Twitter are two of the most popular social networking sites simply because many reputable businesses including Google and Microsoft have official pages set up in these social networking profiles. Any free web hosting provider that is serious in connecting with clients will exert some effort in making an official social networking profile. These profiles serve as convenient ways for clients to get support or check for new developments.

User Base

If the free web hosting provider is really offering good services, there should be a number of other webmasters that currently have websites hosted by the provider. All you have to do is find these websites by using the domain name of the hosting provider as a keyword when searching using a search engine. Some websites place a link back to their provider simply because they want to spread the word.

Upgrade Path

A free provider is an excellent start if you don't expect a huge amount of visitors right away. But as you put content into your website and market it, more people might be checking out your site and all your visitors can suffer as a result because sites hosted in free servers are generally slow because the server is shared with other websites. Before you register in the hosting provider, look at the paid hosting plans that are available and find out their benefits. This way, you can easily upgrade your free plan to a paid plan without the need for transferring or reconfiguring your site.

Of course, the most obvious thing that you have to check is whether or not the free host is really capable of hosting your site. Be sure to check the features of the free plan as well as the terms of agreement so you know that you are not wasting time in registering and uploading your site.

How to Earn and Maintain Website Client Trust

Keeping a steady influx of new visitors coming to a website is always important, which is why there is so much attention paid to optimization and page rank; however, keeping existing visitors coming back is equally important. When viewers come back time and time again, the chance of conversion is certainly increased as is the value of repeat visitors to increase optimization efforts. It is such a positive message that searchers have come to trust a specific website as a source for whatever was needed.

Gaining Trust

The best way to gain and maintain happy, trusting customers is to provide a feeling of caring. An attractive, easy-to-use website that presents all information needed to make purchasing decisions and then standing behind the purchase with any needed assistance is the best way to build trust. In essence, trust involves just being an honest businessperson who lets existing and potential customers see the effects of that trust at work.

Establishing a relationship with website users by replying to emails, comments and any other communication is a great way to make customers know that a company is trustworthy, that there are actual people behind the monitor that can be reached if necessary. Think about trust from the customer's viewpoint, compare it to how a business must trust a supplier or other company to do the same thing.

Keeping That Trust

It must also be acknowledged that after gaining a customer's confidence, it can take very little to lose it. To maintain a good relationship with repeat customers requires continuing to provide good service and recognition. Whether online or offline, it will be noticed if service excels only before the sale and not after it, sending a negative message that customers are only important up to making a purchase. This should be avoided; it is vital to be there for customers during the purchasing process, afterwords, and anytime.

Replying to comments, social page posts and emails promptly are essential to maintain good relations with anyone interested in what a company has to offer. Yes, it can be time-consuming; however, it is a fact of doing good business on the internet. Designating necessary resources within a company to handle daily comments and emails may be necessary if there are enough to keep someone busy all day. It may be time to create a customer service position to better maintain website requests in order to promote and maintain customer trust.

Benefits of Trust

The main importance behind website trust and the credibility it creates with customers is that trusting customers tell others; traffic increases through social shares and word of mouth and the process positively continues if a similar fashion. Conversely, when a user has any problem such as a difficult time using the website or information requests ignored, negative words fly even faster and do even more damage. A customer who fails to get replies to questions sent through the website - or even worse, ends up having some kind of problem that is not resolved satisfactorily - is most assuredly not going to buy again and most likely relays such bad experiences to other potential customers. The way to avoid all of this is to keep websites properly functioning, provide easy means for customer contact, and be diligent in responding and keeping communication open.

Most of this information is just basic good business sense, with a few specifics that apply to internet-based companies. The moral of the story is the value of being sure that customers and clients have the same experience online as any good, honest company would provide in a store in order to get and maintain people's confidence. Trust goes a long way, especially when it is being asked for essentially sight-unseen; standing up to the challenge of being trustworthy in all ways is the only way to make and keep happy customers!

Web Design Services - Choosing The Best One Available

Seeking help to work on your website nowadays isn't very difficult. All it takes is a simple visit to your favorite search engine and type away. But tutorials and templates won't be the only things that will appear in the list of search results. You can expect a number of web design services to appear as well and many people that don't know how to make a website oftentimes consult a web design service. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to as well. If you are not in a hurry in getting your website up and running, you can explore some of the available options that can lead you to making a full website faster, cheaper or possibly even for free.

The first option is to look for software related to graphics design. If you have a good website layout or template in mind and you need a tool to bring the idea forward, you can use your favorite sketching tool or graphics design app. There are plenty of free tools that you can try that help you design the framework of your site. Simple sketches like this can actually save you money even if you do not know how to code a website. When you need to hire a freelancer or professional web design service, you can simply show your sketches and render so they can immediately go to work on your site. The work will be completed faster and you shouldn't be charged for the development of the idea since you came up with the idea.

If you have time to learn how to code, there are plenty of online resources available that can teach you all sorts of useful concepts regarding web development such as the use of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Even some basic familiarization with these languages can lead you to making a basic website that can bring your design to life. There are also a number of free templates that you can download and modify to your liking so you can design faster. Coding a website using Windows Notepad isn't so much fun for a lot of people which is why these people switch to free text editors that are more optimized for web design. These free tools highlight codes and syntaxes to make it easier to troubleshoot the code for errors.

Before you consult any web design services, try to do as much as you can using the free resources and software. If you have enough patience and perseverance, you may be able to design the whole website yourself. Knowing how to design the layout also means big savings because you will only need to hire a professional graphics designer if you need your site to have eye-catching banners and other design elements. There is no need to spend big on a web developer since you already have a layout that you can work with.

Why You Must Design a Website For Those Who Use It

A main goal for any website to be considered successful is to be of value to users. Getting viewers to a particular online location is of course important; however, once an audience has been attracted, it must be able to understand and navigate correctly in order to come away with the intended message. So when creating any kind of website, designers and developers must understand the targeted audience and the different ways this audience will access and use the website. The best design will fail in performance if it is not accessible and usable to all the different visitors who will frequent it.

Accessibility

One of the important points that sometimes gets forgotten when building websites is the necessity to balance cutting edge and innovative design with the ability to use it on many different types of devices. It can be detrimental if the targeted audience is the general public - not techies, computer experts and other people likely to have the newest devices and gadgets - and the website has been designed for that more technical-savvy group of visitors. When someone, somewhere tries to access a web page without the benefit of the latest and greatest technology - an older computer or a mobile device other than an iPhone or have a disability that makes useability difficult at best - it is important that it be easily accessible to all potential users. This means accommodating for different screen resolutions and sizes, different portable devices, devices that may be slow to load and human difficulty as well. While it is impossible to design for every accessing possibility, a business should carefully consider the targeted audience and design with that group in mind.

Ease of Use

As a further consideration of the above point, if the likelihood is that the main audience will primarily be average internet users who may not be so savvy with gadgets, creative menus and other, more complex design elements, it would be better to do without those cutting-edge extras. It does add a certain creative excitement to the website - but only when viewed on the appropriate systems and navigated by those who understand how to interpret and interact with that creativity. For average viewers, all that effort just creates a headache in website navigation and increases the chance of becoming frustrated and leave. Additionally, keeping consistent with regard to page elements throughout the site will keep confusion to a minimum and make the user experience a friendlier one. Make every website a comfortable, convenient experience for most visitors.

Good Content

Beyond the usability factor, being an expert with a topic and providing relevant, trustworthy information is very important as well. Whatever the message, whatever the product or topic, providing accurate content that is informative, correctly composed, and answers viewer questions is the best way to provide a good service and be remembered. Users that visit a website and have to fight with accessibility only to not find the answers to questions will most likely not visit again. Make sure all content is well presented, easy to read and spatially well-balanced on each page. Use images correctly, accentuating the page but not so much as to impede down-load time or the ability to read through content.

By paying attention to these details and designing for the primary user rather than being dazzled by the available techno-savvy gadgets that will only be employed or enjoyed by a small percentage of visitors, any website can be more effective in getting its message across to the greatest majority of visitors. A great way to determine the user-friendliness of any website is to expose it to different groups and see if any problems with useability are noticed. Catering to the right group of visitors is imperative, making sure the website can be utilized by that group and correcting any problems preventing ease of use, will go a long way for increasing website effectiveness. Oh yes, it is vital to design a website for those who will buy that product or service!

Website Solutions - Some Inexpensive Ideas

Creating a website feels like making a program, encoding a document and designing a graphic. If you have the necessary software and coding knowledge it may take a few hours to a single day to make a fully functional website. But if the website is very complicated and consists of a lot of pages, it can take more than a month even if numerous people decide to work on it. While so many factors need to be taken into consideration regarding how long the development and design takes, website solutions have one thing in common and that is to accelerate the design and development even if you do not know how to make a website. But each solution has its own advantages and limitations.

If you are after a quick and simple solution, your best bet would be to create your site at one of those online site builders. These online services often offer free registration for making a site and having it hosted there. The moment you register, you will go through a series of steps that will take you through the design and template of the site as well as the contents. Internet marketers often use free site builders as website solutions if all they need is a capture page for promoting their product or online opportunity.

If your website needs to have a unique theme and consists of several pages, you can present your site structure to a professional freelancer. Freelancers are reliable and cost-effective solutions to making a good website as long as the freelancer has a portfolio to back up his or her skills. It is important to see the person's portfolio so you can get a sense of the person's style and flexibility when it comes to website design. Before you make any downpayment to a freelancer, understand exactly what you will be getting and when the project will be finished.

If you have a need a bigger and more interactive website, you should seek a web design company because companies consist of web designers as well as web developers. Designers handle the overall look and layout of the site while developers code in the features and other dynamic elements. Once the site development is finished, you may even be offered marketing services although you should make sure that the extra service fits in your budget.

Before you move on to another solution, be sure to try various services. For instance, the first website builder that you may encounter may not be so feature-rich but if you look a bit harder, there might be other free solutions that have better templates or other features. Do some research in forums and blogs and you might find links to some of the more obscure but impressive solutions.

10 Ways to Use or Not Use Images on Your Site

We have all heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. In some cases that could very well be true. Graphics and images can bring your site to life, grabbing your visitors' attention and achieving the desired conversion results. Images can add drama, excitement, truth and more to your site to make time spent on your site an experience to remember.

Studies show that one well-placed image can raise your conversion rate by as much as 25%! But despite all the amazing results images can achieve, if used incorrectly, they can also have the reverse effect.

Look over the ten tips below to see what you can do and what you shouldn't do to change the overall effect of the graphics and images on your site.

1. Use Images to Bring out Emotion - People are ruled by their emotions. Using pictures to help bring out these emotions can be very successful. Place images on your site that will bring out the positive of what you have to offer. If you sell home decor, don't just show pictures of the products. Show someone happily and proudly showing off her home with your decor to her friends. Getting your prospects to feel good is a major part of making the sale!

2. Placement is Key - People will scan your webpage in a very specific way. Our eyes tend to follow a clear pattern. Placing images in key spots in this pattern will often get more results. To start with, you will want a professional quality banner placed at the top of your page. This will draw your visitors' into your site for further scrutiny. Amidst your body copy, place images where they will enhance the information you are offering. Do not place your images randomly all over your site. This could easily distract and confuse your readers.

3. Use Quality, Professional Images - Be sure your images are not blurry or hard to see. Don't use flashy, loud or obnoxious images. You want the images to be simple and color compatible to your site. You want the images to bring out your content, not distract from it.

4. Do Not Use Clipart - Although there is a lot of free clipart available, it is not always a good choice. Clipart is very childish looking and cartoonish. Of course, there are sites that clipart would work well for, so by all means then use it. But if you need something to send a more powerful message, clipart is not the answer.

5. Slow Loading Pages - One of the most annoying things we can experience is a webpage that takes too long to load. People will more than likely not wait any longer than 5 - 10 seconds for a webpage to load. With this in mind, you want to make sure you do not use too many images or slow-loading images that will cause your readers to leave. This is one case where less is more!

6. Alternative Text or Tags - Alternative text or tags are also known as alt tags or alt text. This is done by adding text into the HTML code of the image. You want to do this because the search engine spiders cannot read images so you need to add keywords and descriptive text to achieve SEO from the image. For example: If you sell jewelry and post an image of a diamond ring on your site, the search engine spiders will not recognize the image as a diamond ring. So, you just need to add a bit of alt text like so alt="diamond ring" to your HTML code for the image. This will enable the spiders to read the image thus increasing your SEO.

7. Branding - Branding is when your company is immediately recognized by just an image or phrase. This is important because it gets people to connect with you and your company and it builds your reputation. For example: When you see a little white apple with a bite taken out of it, what company comes to mind? Simple graphics and images can do a lot for your business. Many companies will also use images to create a mascot to brand their business. Mascots can bring personality and life to your business while making it more memorable. We all know what company comes to mind when we see a little green gecko or a dancing peanut. This can happen for your business and reputation as well.

8. Website Related - One thing you want to make sure you do not do is throw up a bunch of pictures because they are pretty and look good. You don't want to use images as decorations. The images you use must be related to your site and the content you provide. Don't use images as you would knick knacks in your house - they will just clutter up your site.

9. Rotating Images - Images that showcase products by rotating 360 degrees has been shown to increase conversion rates substantially.

10. Be Creative - In this day and age the possibilities are endless so dig down deep into your creativity and come up with something so amazing it will take your business to new heights!

Images are one of those things that can do wonders for your business but they can also hurt your business as well. So, learn everything you can about how to use graphics and images to build your business. Test different images to see which ones increase your conversions and which ones do not. The extra work will definitely be worth it!

Web Page Designs - Choose The Best Layout

It takes a lot of hard work to attract lots of traffic to your website. But if you plan on launching a solid marketing campaign either on your own or with the help of an online agency, you should take a good look at your website design first or at least think about your plans regarding your web design if you haven't developed your site yet. Think about hundreds or thousands of people heading to your site as a result of your marketing efforts but end up being disappointed with the bland design. A unique web page design creates that wow factor but you might feel hopeless in coming up with such a design even if you know a thing or two on how to make a website. Good design takes a lot of thought and more importantly, plenty of inspiration.

The good news is that finding a source of inspiration isn't very difficult because there are plenty of impressive-looking websites on the Internet. A good start would be to look for a reputable web design service and check the portfolio. You should be able to access various links pointing to a number of sites that the company designed. Some web design companies may already have a fancy design for their homepage to convince potential clients in hiring the service.

Some blog sites also like to share links to interesting website designs so try to look for these blogs and subscribe to them and you might encounter a design style that can fit your website content. If you are lucky, you might find a template or Adobe Flash template that you can use as a starting point for implementing the cool design to your site.

Remember that a good and unique web page design isn't just about the visuals. Some of the nicely designed sites are backed up with some complex codes and scripts that drive the animations, transitions and other neat elements. This means that you can further improve the design of your website just by looking for these scripts. Try adding various scripts to your site and the overall site experience can be unique even if you decide to use a template that doesn't stand out. Remember, eye-catching webpage designs do not always have to be highly artistic. Some designs can be very minimal but highly functional.

It is totally okay to make a website out of inspiration of another website as long as you do not blatantly copy the whole design. It is even better if you look for multiple websites and bookmark each of them so you can take the greatest elements of these sites to create something far more unique. Just make sure that your planned design fits your site's theme well and you should be fine.

Website Promotion Techniques - How to Make a Website Successful

Learning how to make a website is a simple task, but learning how to make a website successful has the potential to be a very challenging endeavor. There are many website promotion techniques utilized by webmasters today. However, the most popular involves utilizing Facebook. In order to achieve website success, you must introduce your pages to as many potential targeted internet users as possible. This is especially true if you offer products and/or services throughout your website. You will want to utilize promotion strategies that attract potential customers that will find what you are offering to be irresistible and make them eager to invest in them. One of the most productive means of doing this is to utilize Facebook.

Harnessing the Power of Facebook

Facebook is considered to be the most popular and fastest growing social network platform in the entire world. According to statistics, it currently has over 500 million users that are considered to be active. This number is now growing - literally - by the minute. The purpose and intent of this social media platform is to provide individuals with the ability to share what interests them most and to connect the world in new, innovative and fun ways. Absolutely anyone has the ability to create a Facebook account and interact with those that they know or have a desire to know in an environment that is considered to be popular and extremely trustworthy. If you want to achieve website success, it is absolutely imperative that you harness the amazing power that this social media platform has to offer. According to webmasters, Facebook is a marketer-friendly tool that dramatically enhances their ability to reach internet users in ways that they only once dreamed of in the earliest days of the internet.

Low-Cost and Free Marketing Solutions

One of the most beneficial aspects to using Facebook for website promotion purposes is that it offers many low-cost and free marketing solutions. Marketing is nothing more than a game of numbers. If you have the right numbers, you will succeed. If your numbers are lacking, you will fail. One of the first and most productive ways to entice visitors to your website is to purchase low-cost Facebook Ads. These are the advertisements that run along the right side of your page. Facebook displays certain ads to its users based on the preferences that you have in your profile and other statistical data that is obtains from your use. By purchasing advertisements and utilizing the right data within those advertisements, you will start to see that your website's traffic increases drastically.

The next methods that you may use to promote your website with Facebook are acquiring as many friends as possible and incorporate a blog into your Facebook account that highlights information about your website, your products and your services. There are many tools that will allow you to engage in these steps. You may also utilize the "Notes" feature on Facebook and even the "Events" notices to highlight certain types of information. All it takes is a little patience, a little creativity and some interest when it comes to the low-cost and free marketing strategies offered by Facebook. By researching this social media platform and putting it to work for you, you will quickly find that you are receiving more website traffic than you ever imagined possible!

Web Design Tutorials - What They Can Teach You

It can be pretty pressuring to learn web design these days because so many people know how to make a website and a good number of those people are able to come up with highly unique designs. In order to design a website that can stand out, you really have to learn from other professional web designers and then apply your own creative twists. Enrolling in some school can be a surefire way to learn from a good professional but there are plenty of online resources that you can try out as well.

Web Pages and Articles

There are lots of websites that are made by real professionals. People make these sites to advertise their services but they need to come up with some quality content in order for others to find these sites through search engines. Many designers end up providing useful tutorials to attract people so go ahead and search for these sites and you can learn plenty of basic techniques as well as some advanced ones. Other professional designers may post web design tutorials in article directories to promote their services in those directories. The advantage of checking out web pages is the possibility of free downloadable content. Some tutorial sites offer free scripts and templates that are related to the tutorials so you can tinker with them.

E-books

E-books are pretty much like the articles you see on article directories. But E-books have a few advantages that might make these types of web design tutorials more appealing. First of all, you only have to download the entire E-book so you can access all the tutorials the E-book covers offline. This means that you can work in any system you like and concentrate on making a web page using your favorite web design software. E-books can also be copied to phones and tablets so you can always be guided no matter what system you decide to use. Some E-books may cost money but they normally have higher quality tutorials.

Video Tutorials

Video tutorials are recommended if you need to focus on certain concepts of web design such as JavaScript or CSS. A video tutorial can walk you through the necessary steps in doing certain things. Other video tutorials may cover the interface of design software so you can be more productive. Because video tutorials often involve a professional web designer narrating, these types of tutorials are very easy to understand. Like E-books, the high-quality tutorials need to be purchased but don't forget to check out free sites like YouTube because other professional web designers that want to attract subscribers may upload free tutorials too.

Basically, the Internet is filled with web design tutorials so enrolling in a school should be your last resort especially if you have plenty of time at home every day.

Flash Website Templates - Why Use Them?

Adobe Flash is one of the oldest web multimedia platforms available and developers and web users continue to support it today. While Adobe got a lot of criticism for their failure to optimize flash for mobile websites, it remains as the leading platform for creating interactive websites and online games. Because of this, Adobe still continues to improve on the platform. If learning how to make a website is too difficult for you, you can actually search for flash website templates which basically serve as shortcuts for having a rich website. But before you commit yourself to the Adobe Flash platform, understand that there are a number of compelling alternatives that may end up being better for your site.

JavaScript

JavaScript won't be going away any time soon. If you look at the benchmarks of browsers these days, just about every browser developer is striving to make improvements in JavaScript rendering because faster performance means faster web apps. Since Adobe Flash's weak point is in the mobile area, making web apps and dynamic sites using JavaScript is crucial because today's mobile browsers are capable of delivering the same user experience as long as the site is properly coded. The cool thing about JavaScript is that there are literally endless possibilities so you can continue to find some nice scripts and templates to use so you can build a more thriving website.

HTML5

Many people believe that HTML5 is the final nail in the coffin for the Adobe Flash platform. This is because HTML5 allows audio and video streaming as well as graphics rendering. Since the specification hasn't been finalized yet, you won't find so many HTML5 templates to work with and it is possible for these templates to not work correctly when the standards are finished. W3C plans on stabilizing the markup language by the end of 2014 so it looks like Adobe Flash and JavaScript will still reign supreme. But web browsers continue to add new features relating to HTML5 so you can learn while you wait. The popular mobile browsers can support HTML5 as well so it is only a matter of time until many mobile apps support the platform.

Because of these two rising platforms, it is completely understandable if you cannot find a decent Adobe Flash website template that matches the kind of content you plan on putting. But that shouldn't worry you especially since many computer users are slowly making the switch to tablets. The Apple iPad has never supported Adobe Flash while the latest Android tablets no longer have Adobe Flash Player installed. Even the upcoming Windows 8 tablets see more potential in HTML5 so it is best to invest in other platforms unless you find a really good Adobe Flash website template.

Finding Cheap Web Design Work

Do you really have to pay a fortune in order to acquire a quality website? To the surprise of many, the answer is no. There are quite a number of excellent designers that can help produce a solid website for a very low price. The finished result may prove to be more than what you would expect for a nice looking site.

A common path many will take is they will try to save money by creating their own website through a free website builder. This might not be a bad idea for a hobby site or a micro-business. However, if you are looking to publish a website for serious commercial pursuits, you are going to want a "real" website that has been designed by a professional. Once again, it may be possible to find a professional that can craft an excellent website at a fair price.

How is it that you can procure low cost website design? Basically, competition can drive down the price of professional services. This is not to infer that there are "millions" of professionals that understand how to make a website and the market is saturated. That is not the case at all but there is enough competition that the cost for professional web design services can be procured at lower rates if you shop around enough.

One thing that should be pointed out here is that anyone wishing to find a cheap price on website design should not wait until the last minute to find a web designer. If you have to have a website designed and published by a certain date and that date is quickly approaching, you cannot wait until the last minute and hope you can search through a limited number of designers and find a fantastic deal. You just might but the clock would be working against you and a thorough search would become difficult. Again, give yourself enough time to find the best designer at the best price.

Does this mean that the best work can come with the lowest cost? In all honesty, it probably will not as the cheapest rates for not always reflect the very best design work available. That said, it may be possible to find an excellent designer offering very competitive rates. To repeat, investing a lot of time looking through as many available designers as possible could open doors for finding great work at great rates.

It is always suggested to ask to see samples of finished prior to hiring anyone to do website design work. This way, you can gain an idea about the type of work you can expect from the person you have hired.

Know This Before Learning How To Make A Website

Designing and building a website can be very challenging, particularly if you would like to learn how to make a website on your own and attract the attention of readers and keep them coming back. Coming up with a unique design and offering content that draws people in is a critical element in the development of a site it you want to succeed in the competitive environment of the Internet.

There are many great ideas out there online to help you gain enough information to build your own site. In addition to that, there are some very useful tools to be found as well. One of the most useful tools, if you have no idea how to get started is a site builder. A site builder is often part of the package with some hosting companies, and consists of templates to help you put together all the elements of your site.

People set up websites for a number of reasons; some of the personal while others are purely for the purposes of making money. Whatever the reason you would like to learn how to make a website, you will want to know where to begin. That place would be to decide why you need a site.

After deciding how you will use your creation, it will be time to locate a good hosting company. Some hosting companies only act as a service provider, and provide a c-panel to allow you to do the work with the tools they have provided. Others provide the templates so that once you've learned to navigate through all their tools your task will be easier. Just select the elements you want to use and place them where you want.

When choosing formats, colors, and themes for websites it is important to make sure that they reflect your purposes, and that it is not distracting for visitors. If people are confused when they enter websites they are not likely to stay very long. Everything should be easy to locate and use. Some people put flashy text, links, and different banners on their sites and all this does is annoy them to the point that they lose interest.

A fashionable website that is simple and elegant is more likely to capture the attention of visitors than one that is in disarray. When you are learning how to make a website, be sure that you learn how to keep it interesting and appealing to the masses. The one thing that you have to remember when building a website is that if you make a mistake it can be corrected. Nothing is permanent on the web and can be changed sometimes with a click of the mouse.