Friday, August 31, 2012

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.


Sunday, August 26, 2012

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.

Monday, August 20, 2012

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.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

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.


Sunday, August 5, 2012

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!

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

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.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

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!