While it might free up some funds to use elsewhere on your site, hosting your own website is a bad idea. You need to design your site on your own, but let another person host your site because this can free up your time and let you put your focus on some other areas besides the security and safety of your site.
Don’t host business websites on free hosting services. If you choose to go this route you will run the risk of having a ton of advertisement placed on your site, and this will certainly distract consumers who are coming to view your product. There will be no advertisements, unless you put them there, with a paid service.
Grid or shared hosting is a viable alternative to dedicated VPS hosting, that you may want to look into when you are initially designing your website. You don’t know your site’s traffic load, and there is no reason to overpay.
On every page, be sure that you include a tagline that is clearly visible. This slogan should be prominently displayed near the top of the page and be in bold text, so that visitors can’t miss it. A tagline of this type will clearly identify what is offered on the page and have a defined purpose.
Get a professional mentor. Even if you want to tackle most of the site building yourself, having professional advice can greatly ease the process. You have the potential for mastering web design in no time at all, when you employ proven techniques.
This is a simple but often overlooked step in web design. Before you upload anything to the server, you should first go over the text with a fine-toothed comb. Eliminate any and all spelling and grammatical problems. Nothing looks more unprofessional to a visitor than misspelled or poorly-written content. This will cause your readers not to return.
If you want to host videos, check with the web host to make sure that it is allowed. It’s not uncommon for hosts to prohibit videos being uploaded to their servers. FLV files use too much room on the public servers. Therefore, you should check this out beforehand or you could potentially waste all your efforts.
Steer clear of captchas. Captchas make viewers feel that they must jump through a hoop just to see a simple webpage. Except for devoted members, most people will likely leave your site and look elsewhere.
If you decide to use a logo, it should link to your homepage. These days, people expect to be able to click on a logo to go to a site’s main page. If your logo isn’t “clickable”, that frustrates users, because they have to look around the site for the “home” link. A clickable logo makes your site much easier to navigate.
Discuss things with your friends to gather if you missed anything while learning about Photoshop, HTML, or Dreamweaver. It is difficult to keep all of the details of web design in mind, and it is common to become confused while designing and miss a thing or two. That’s why it’s good to have knowledgeable friends “proof” your site for you.
Draw a favorites icon for your website. This means a recognizable icon will show up next the link to your site if a visitor bookmarks it. A favicon will make it easy for your customers to pick your site out of their list of bookmarks. Just be sure that you favicon is aligned with the theme of your site.
Learn as you go, adding new skills and techniques for web design. Once you have figured out one aspect of the site design, tackle another. It may take a longer time to build a functioning site, but you will know enough to create dozens of websites when you finally learn what you need to know.
When seeing professionals to help you in web design, try hiring someone that you have no relation with. Hiring loved ones and friends isn’t wise when you create a website. You will have a hard time criticizing their work and firing them if you need to.
Keep in mind that a lot of visitors are looking for good content, and not necessarily looking at how the page was designed. Keeping pages simple and just including what you need to tell your story can help your visitors more easily understand your business. The simpler your content, the more quickly it should load.
Most people are familiar with the Adobe Photoshop program and understand the importance of mastering it for designing websites. However, the companion program of Dreamweaver will take your web design to a whole new level, so do not neglect incorporating it into your portfolio of skills.
Carefully use sound on your website. Your visitors may get annoyed by too much uncontrollable sound that they can’t easily turn off. It’s ok to provide links to video or audio clips, but be sure it’s the user’s choice as to whether they hear it or not.
Site design and maintenance of that website, requires your very own office space. Avoid distractions, to make everything effectively work in your space. It is invaluable to keep all that you need at your fingertips at all times, in order to make smooth and efficient design choices.
No commercial website should ever be published on a free host. Free SOUNDS good, but the annoying ads and other restrictions placed on you by the host can become overwhelming. This is not good business and you will be giving your hard earned traffic and business name to the web host and potentially chasing customers away.
As previously stated, web design can be a beautiful thing to view, but only when it’s done correctly. Even if you are not an artist, you can still create a good design by following a set of rules. Try reading the previous tips so that you can learn what makes a great web design.