Previously, this domain name listings scam was floating around and it seems like it may be the same company just with different tactics.

Nevertheless, the ‘bill’ will look something like this:

Pay attention to the highlighted parts of that image. They tell the recipient that ‘This is not a bill’ and that the recipient is under no obligation to pay it. So do not pay it! If you give them your credit card info, you’ll be charged about 5 times as much as a Domain Name Registrar like Godaddy will charge.

Additionally, looking up the address listed on their website indicates their corporate headquarters is located inside of a *checks map* UPS store. That’s going to make it pretty hard (impossible?) to track them down if you have a problem.

So do yourself a favor and throw the letter out. Do not give them any money, information, or a second thought. If you receive a sneaky letter like this about renewing your domain name, contact your domain registrar, web site host, or company that designed your website. They’ll be able to check it for you to see if it’s legitimate. If you don’t have any contact to help you with that, give us a call or message and we’ll check it for you.

Professional web design has become vital during recent years. A few years ago, it was estimated that a visitor to a web site took about 8 seconds to decide to stay on that web site or click the “Back” button. That was then, this is now: Your web site has only about 2 seconds to make an impression on the visitor. That is not much time at all! Today, people want instant results. Few people even wait to see the entire web design before making their decision. If your web design does not grab their attention immediately, they won’t stick around. And if your web site does not offer something of benefit, they won’t bookmark it and they won’t come back (more on that later).

So, with that in mind, let’s discuss some practical ways your web design can grab the attention of your visitors. Then, in a future article, we will talk a little about keeping their attention with good web site content. Remember, people spend most of their time on the Internet reading. They read search results, news items, how-to articles and forums. A professional web design company will take this into account. But that is for later. First, we have to keep visitors attention (remember the 4 second rule).

Get to the Point

We live in a fast-paced society and we are used to instant results: Microwave meals in 2 minutes, lose 5 pounds in 5 days, 10 minute oil changes, see results from fitness equipment in 20 minutes a day, and on and on.

The Internet is no different and it is actually less forgiving of poor web designs that don’t deliver results quickly.

The 2 second rule that we spoke of earlier does not mean that the entire web page must load in 2 seconds. Rather, it means that a visitor to your web site has to at least see something interesting within that 2 second window. So, to test your site, while it is loading, ask yourself:

• How much time passes before I see anything?
• What is the first thing I see on the web page?
• How much time passes before I can read some text?
• How long would it take a visitor to determine what the web site is about?

Try this suggestion yourself and then enlist the help of some of your friends. The more people you have to test your web site, the more thorough your results will be.

Ideally, the site should load top to bottom and left to right. However, your design should adhere to the reading habits of your target audience. Some countries read from right to left so, make sure you know your audience. Also, the most eye-catching elements should load first. Once these load and grab the visitor’s attention, the rest of the page can finish loading.

What Graphics Format Should I Use?

This is probably one of the most overlooked aspects of web design. How many times have you visited a web site and cringed at the slow loading pictures. I’ll bet you did not stick around to see everything load.

In most cases, web sites that have this problem were created by someone who bought a Web Design How-To book, created a web page that says “Hello World” and now think they are an expert. Or, while learning web design, they created this slow loading site as a favor for a friend or family member. At any rate, hiring a professional web design company will prevent bad design from happening to you. In the meantime, here are some very basic guidelines regarding those common web site graphics:

More about the .JPG file format

.JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format allows images to contain up to 16 million colors. It also supports Variable Compression, which allows you to reduce the size of the image at the cost of some of the detail. In order to take full advantage of this feature, you will need a graphics program which will allow you to preview the image after you have compressed it. Some of the more popular graphics programs are Photoshop, Fireworks and Corel Paintshop.

.JPG is not a good format for images with only a few colors or for text created as an image. The finished image will be of poor quality.

More about the .GIF file format

.GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) support up to 256 colors. It also supports “transparency” which allows you to specify the background of the image to be invisible, thereby letting the web page colors show through.

Graphics in this format are also “looseless”, meaning the final quality is not adversely affected by compressing.

Boiling it Down

For the most part, here is a good way to determine what format you should use for the graphics on your web site:

• If your graphic has many colors (such as a photo) use .JPG as the format, However, make sure that the file size is not so large that it prevents the web page from loading quickly. Find a good balance between image quality and file size.
• If your graphic has only a few colors (such as a chart) use .GIF as the format.

Of course, this is somewhat oversimplifying the very important role of graphics in your web site design. If you hire a professional web site designer to create your web presence, he or she should follow these guidelines during the design process. You should make sure that the rough drafts you receive from the designer adhere to good design standards.

EDIT: Since this post was first written back in 2007, there are TONS of new formats for graphics. We’ll do a future post on them but make sure you pay special attention to a new format called “WEBP”. It’s nice!

Make Them Want More

A great website captivates visitors and leaves them eager to explore further. With the expertise of a web designer in Swansboro, NC, your site can combine stunning visuals with intuitive navigation to create an unforgettable user experience. Crystal Coast Technologies specializes in crafting designs that highlight your brand’s uniqueness and keep visitors engaged. By focusing on both functionality and aesthetics, we help businesses build websites that encourage customers to stay longer, explore more, and return often.

Of course, no matter how well organized your web site is and how effective it is at grabbing the visitor’s attention, they have to view your web site as important. You have to give them reasons to stay and browse your site, to bookmark your site so they can refer to it again and to tell others about your site so you can build new visitors.

We will consider how to tackle this aspect of quality web site design in an upcoming article. That article will focus on three main ways to keep visitors coming back:

1. Offer something of value
Newsletter
Free tips
Monthly coupons
2. Good, quality marketing copy
Put effort into the words of your web site.
Remember, the Internet is made up of web pages and for the most part, pages are meant to be read.
3. Easy to use web site navigation.
If visitors can’t get around easily on your web site, they won’t stay very long.

We would love to talk to you about your web design needs and how we can help!. Please visit our web design contact form and we will get right back to you. If you want to see some of our logos, graphics, and web design work, click here. If you’re just looking for some free tips and software that you can try yourself, check out Free Internet Marketing Tips or Logo and Graphics Design tips.

Avoiding common web design mistakes, like cluttered layouts or poor mobile responsiveness, is essential for success. A skilled web designer in Swansboro, NC can help ensure your website is clean, user-friendly, and optimized for all devices. At Crystal Coast Technologies, we focus on creating fast, visually appealing websites that meet the needs of both users and search engines. By working with a local expert, you can avoid costly errors and achieve a polished design that makes a lasting impression.

Congratulations! You are ready to launch your small business website! You have completed thorough research and you have a clear vision of your website’s design and function. Let’s bring it to life with an expert website design agency in Morehead City, NC. All that is left is for you to code it up (or maybe you are thinking of using a DIY website builder) and upload it live to the Internet, right?  Well, maybe. But there are a few things that you have hopefully taken into consideration:

1 – Your new web site needs plenty of content

Don’t think that you can write a paragraph or two for your Home page, create an “About Us” page, sprinkle a few pictures here and there and call it a day. Depending on your market and how competitive it is, it may be necessary for you to create a web site that includes dozens or maybe even hundreds of pages of content. A search engine’s customer is the person who is typing in the search bar. You want the search engine to see your site as a resource where their customer is likely to find the answer to their question. So your website should have a lot of well written, helpful content. Your particular industry will be your guide. See what you competition is offering on their sites. Think about how you want your visitors to interact with your site (commonly referred to as User Experience or UX). After considering things like that you will have a pretty good idea of what types of content will be required of your web site.

2 – You must keep your web site content fresh

Would you keep visiting a store if they never displayed new products? Of course not. Well, the content on your web site is just like that store’s products. You have to keep it fresh to keep your visitors coming back. In addition, fresh web site content keeps the Search Engines coming back because they know there will probably be something new for them to index.

3 – Create Search Engine friendly code for your web site

If you are not sure how to complete this step in the process, you may want to enlist the help of a professional web designer. But, do not fall for the promises that some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms make when they guarantee top 10 results. No one can “guarantee” that. If they could, trust me, they would not have to advertise because their phones would be ringing off the hook. A reputable firm will not make SEO guarantees. In fact, here’s what Google itself says about that on their website:
(source)

So do your homework before you hire. If you think we can be of assistance, please fill out our contact form and we will get right back to you.

You can also visit our services to learn more. Follow the links provided below!

• Modern Website Design for Swansboro & Morehead City
• #1 Graphic Design Agency in Morehead City, NC
• Top Internet Marketing & SEO Agency in Morehead City, NC

This post is not talking about using services like Wix, Weebly, Godaddy Website builder, or Squarespace, even though many of the comments below apply to those DIY website builder platforms.

Let’s discuss the pros and cons.

The Good

There are some good things about using a website template. First, they don’t cost very much. You can find free website templates online, and even the paid templates are usually $50 or $100. Second, they’re usually pretty easy to use. Even if you don’t have any design or coding experience, you can probably figure out how to use a template and make it fit your needs pretty closely. Third, they can give you a fairly professional-looking website. With a template, you don’t have to hire and pay a professional designer or developer. You also don’t have to learn everything there is to know about website coding. You can just choose a template that you like, install it on your web hosting account, and then make some changes so it fits your needs.

The Bad

However, there are also some drawbacks to using a website template. First, they’re not very unique. There are thousands of website templates out there, so it’s very likely that you’ll find one that looks similar to another website. If you want a website that stands out from the crowd, you should look into hiring a professional designer to create a custom website for you.

Second, templates can be difficult to customize. They’re usually designed to be used with specific content and functionality, so you won’t be able to change them significantly to fit your specific needs. If you need a website with a lot of custom features like fancy contact forms, custom animations and interactions, or API connections, you’re going to have to learn how to do some coding or hire a web developer to build it for you.

Finally, without at least some experience working with websites, many throw up their hands after spending an entire weekend or longer. You will have to be ready to set up and manage things like: website hosting, installing or uploading the template. Additionally, the template designer will probably not be located in your country. That means they’ll be in a different time zone and may not speak your language. Their support is usually only available via email. So, yes, it means “buyer beware”, but if you’re comfortable with things like that, a website template might work for you.

The Ugly

And then there’s the ugly side of website templates. Some templates are poorly coded because template designers are more concerned with quantity over quality. That can lead to performance issues. The template might load perfectly for your website visitors who view it from a laptop computer but not for those visiting your site from a mobile device or tablet. That means your site might not work for a significant portion of your visitors. If you can’t solve it yourself and have to hire a professional, that could end up costing more than you think.

But the biggest risk of using a premade template is that it may contain security vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities can be in the template itself, or they can be in the plugins or add-ons that the designer used when creating the template. If a hacker finds a vulnerability in a template, they can use it to gain access to your website and steal your data. Here are some links, lists and articles that highlight the threat posed by these vulnerabilities.

And if a vulnerability is discovered in a template, the bad actor will search for all the other websites that use that same template. So the hacker can attack multiple websites because of a single vulnerability in a template. This is known as a template injection attack.

Should You Use a Website Template?

Should you opt for a website template for your business in Swansboro, NC? The answer: it’s conditional. Are your funds constrained? Do you require a website promptly? Are you okay with using the template without major modifications? And, can you navigate the site’s code if challenges arise? If your responses are affirmative, a template may serve your purpose. However, if you’re seeking a distinct, customizable, and safe website, it’s advisable to reach out to a professional web designer in Swansboro, NC to construct it for you.

If you do decide to use a template, be sure to do your research and choose one that is well-designed and easy to use. Scan it for security vulnerabilities before you install it. Use a reputable website hosting provider. And be sure to keep your website up-to-date with the latest security patches.

Get more traffic and conversions! Follow the links provided below!

Custom Website Design for Swansboro & Morehead City

Leading Graphic Design Agency in Morehead City, NC

Professional Internet Marketing & SEO Agency in Morehead City, NC

• You’re just looking for a small, personal site.
• You have a small budget and you need a site up and running in a few days.
• You have time to watch tutorials so you can learn how to use the DIY builder.
• You just want to test your business idea before creating a custom website.
• Good search engine rankings are not critical for your website.

As you read this, keep in mind that we’re a professional web design company. Naturally we want you to hire us to create your website. So if you’re thinking of going the DIY route for your website, make sure to do your research. Get several opinions. Read reviews from others. If you’re not sure and you want honest advice, contact us. Tell us your goals for your site and if we think an online website builder could work for you, we’ll tell you. Honestly.

DIY Website Builder Restrictions

First, online website builder services have definite restrictions. They typically offer a selection of templates and features broken down by categories. That makes selection convenient but also means your website could look and function just like another business’ website in the same category. As a result, you may find that your website looks and feels like many other websites that have been built with the same builder.

Another restriction is that the templates available through DIY website builders are designed to be used on the respective platform. Wix templates only work on the Wix platform; Squarespace templates on the Squarespace platform, etc. This means moving your website from one platform to another is very difficult if not impossible. DIY website platforms want to keep you as a customer once you’ve signed up, and this is one of the main ways they do it.

Lack of Flexibility

Second, DIY website builder services are not very flexible when it comes to expanding your site. Once you’ve created your website, making small changes are pretty simple, such as replacing text or pictures. But if you need to change the location of something on a page of your website, enlarge an image, or add more detailed features, you may find yourself stuck unless you are able to edit the CSS or Javascript of your site. This can be a major problem if your business needs to be able to adapt quickly to changes in the market.

Upselling

Online website builder services have a tiered plan model. The base tier *might* be fine for you. But it might not. The feature you want or need might not be available on your current tier. That means you may have to upgrade your subscription tier just to get access to one feature. For example, detailed information on your website’s traffic (analytics) is sometimes on a higher tier than the basic level. So the monthly fees could add up.

A Word About Shared Hosting

When you create a website with a website builder, your site will typically be hosted on shared hosting. Shared hosting means that your website will be “sharing” the allocated resources with all of the other websites “hosted” on the same web server. This hosting model keeps costs down and can be a good option for small websites. While shared hosting can have some drawbacks, there are plenty of websites that use shared hosting with little or no problems. So it might work fine for you. We have our own dedicated web servers and only host sites that we’ve created. We think dedicated hosting is the best solution because it provides more control and quicker response over shared hosting.

One of the biggest drawbacks of shared hosting is that your website’s performance can be affected by the performance of the other websites on the same server as yours. For example, if one of the other websites on the server experiences a spike in website traffic, the server’s RAM could quickly be used up. That can make your website load slowly or not at all.

Another drawback of shared hosting is that you may have less control over your website’s security. This is because the hosting provider will be responsible for securing the entire server. If one of the other websites has a security issue, it could potentially put your website at risk.

SEO (Search Engine Rankings)

Since the entire platform is DIY, you shouldn’t expect to get any hands-on help with SEO. The platform will probably offer help articles and tutorials that just scratch the SEO surface. That’s about it. It’s up to you to figure out the SEO for your site. If search engine rankings are not important to you, the lack of built in SEO capabilities in DIY website builders might not be that big of an issue for you. Just be aware.

Why Hire a Professional Design Company?

DIY website builders might seem simple, but they often result in cookie-cutter designs that lack professionalism. Partnering with a web designer in Swansboro, NC ensures your website is custom-built to reflect your brand’s identity and stand out in a competitive market. At Crystal Coast Technologies, we deliver personalized solutions, combining advanced functionality with visually stunning designs. By choosing a professional, you’ll gain a website that’s SEO-optimized, mobile-responsive, and built to drive results—something no DIY tool can offer.

In addition to the reasons I’ve already mentioned, there are a few other things to consider when choosing between an online website builder service and a professional web design company:

• Experience. A professional web design company will have years of experience creating websites for businesses of all sizes. This experience will give them the knowledge and skills they need to create a website that meets your specific needs and goals.
  Crystal Coast Technologies has been around since 2005. We bring real world solution building, problem solving experience to all of our projects. Professional web design companies like us rely on that kind of experience and start every project by building a deep understanding of both the client and their business. That way the solution they build perfectly meshes with the client’s goals.
• Skills. A professional web design company will have a team of experienced designers and developers who can create a website that is both visually appealing and technically sound. They will also be able to help you with things like SEO, marketing, and social media.
• Support. A professional web design company will offer ongoing support for your website. This means that they will be available to answer your questions, make changes to your website, add new functionality, and fix any problems that may arise.

Conclusion

If you’re serious about creating a website for your business, it’s important to choose a platform that gives you the flexibility and control you need to succeed. Website builders may be a good option if you’re on a tight budget or need a website quickly, but they’re not the best option for businesses that want to build a long-term online presence. If you’d like to read more, here are a couple of great articles that go into even more depth regarding the pros and cons of DIY website builder platforms.

Do you want a robust and scalable solution? Consider hiring a web developer to create a custom website for you. A custom website will give you the freedom to design your website exactly the way you want it, and the web design company can build it so you have full control over your website’s content.

Start growing your business online today! Follow the links provided below!

#1 Website Design for Swansboro & Morehead City

Professional Graphic Design Agency in Morehead City, NC

Digital Marketing in Morehead City, NC

If you receive an email that looks anything even remotely like what is shown below, DO NOT CLICK ANY LINKS and DO NOT REPLY TO IT. It is a malicious attempt to get you to download malware to your computer and if that happens, the bad guy could seize control of your computer and try to do all or some of this:

• completely lock all of the contents on your computer and hold them for ransom.
• inject malicious files into your computer and, if your computer is on a network, infect the entire network with ransomware.

The name of the malicious sender used to be “Mel” and the email was worded a bit differently than what you’ll see below. The new sender is “Brittany” and they’ve changed the wording of the email slightly. However, the constant in this scam is the link they include will point to https://sites.google.com/. You should immediately delete the email. Period. End of sentence. If you do that and you DO NOT CLICK ANY LINKS IT CONTAINS, you have likely avoided a huge, costly headache. To illustrate, the recent Colonial Pipeline East Coast fuel outage in our area was the direct result of this type of attack. As an aside, that attack may have backfired somewhat as it brought unwanted attention to the secretive hacker community. 

Here’s an email that one client received. I added the text in BOLD CAPS and all links have been redacted.

=================

Hi!

My name is Brittany.

Your website or a website that your company hosts is infringing on a copyright-protected images owned by myself.

Take a look at this document with the links to my images you used at [YOUR WEBSITE ADDRESS] and my earlier publications to get the evidence of my copyrights.

Download it now and check this out for yourself:

https://sites.google.com/view/ [REST OF LINK REDACTED]

I believe you have willfully infringed my rights under 17 U.S.C. Section 101 et seq. and could be liable for statutory damages as high as $150,000 as set forth in Section 504(c)(2) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”) therein.

This letter is official notification. I seek the removal of the infringing material referenced above. Please take note as a service provider, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act requires you, to remove or disable access to the infringing materials upon receipt of this notice. If you do not cease the use of the aforementioned copyrighted material a lawsuit will be commenced against you.

I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Best regards,
Brittany Silva

=========================

If you get something like this, DO NOT CLICK ANY LINKS. For added piece of mind, you can contact us with any questions.

If you want to learn more about growing your business online today. Follow the links provided below!

Website Design for Swansboro & Morehead City
Leading Graphic Design Agency in Morehead City, NC
Digital Marketing in Morehead City, NC

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Whether you have an actual website or just a domain name, you have likely received something in the mail that looks like an invoice. If it looks like the image here and you pay it, congratulations. You just got fooled.

Why Is This a Scam?

The image here is an example of one of these invoices that was sent to one of our clients. Fortunately, she listened to the advice we give all clients when we start working with them: If you ever get any solicitation by phone, email or mail and it’s in reference to your website, internet marketing or your domain name and you’re not 100% sure that it is legitimate, contact us before you respond so that we can take a look at it to make sure you’re not being scammed. (Good job, Laura!)

To the unsuspecting recipient, the invoice could look totally legitimate. It will probably have an official looking logo. It will likely have the company’s return address. They will also show your ‘account number’ (I mean, that HAS to be real, right?). In the example sent to our client, it even indicated that the company was Accredited by the Better Business Bureau (more on that in a minute).

So how can we be sure this bill is deceptive? Well, here are a few red flags that should make you pause:

1. Do you remember signing up with this company? If not, that’s the first red flag.
2. No phone number shown for the company on the invoice. If you had a question for them about your bill, how are you supposed to contact them? Think about the genuine invoices that you receive. Don’t they typically show a phone number that you can call with questions? Of course they do. Strike two.
3. But wait, they’re BBB Accredited, right? Well, let’s explore that by checking their listing on the Better Business Bureau’s website. What domain-listings likely did is paid the BBB for accreditation when they started their scam. This enhanced their credibility for a while as they sent out these invoices. Then complaints to the BBB started coming in and the BBB revoked their accredited status but domain-listings still kept using the BBB image on their mailings. Very sneaky but strike three.

If going through those steps still doesn’t convince you that the invoice is fake, you can always use your favorite search engine and search for topics like “domain name listing scam” or “internet listing scam” and read through the thousands of results. You’ll even see some comments from people who blindly paid the invoice and later found out they had unknowingly relinquished ownership of their domain name!

Doing a search, I found some posts that show this company has been scamming unsuspecting website and domain name owners for years! This post from Techeffex is from 2013 and here’s an even older one from Andrew Miller with Workshop Digital. It’s from 2011! Wow.

Bottom Line

If you get one of these invoices and you pay it, that means you ran right through several red flags and got fooled. The company is not doing anything illegal. Unethical, yes, but not technically illegal (I’m not an attorney so there may be a law against this practice. Feel free to correct me below). So your best defense as a business owner is to use your head.

This means consumer beware. Do your research and contact your web designer / developer and let them take a look. If you don’t have a web designer, contact us or leave a comment below and we’ll be happy to take a look for you.

If you have stories of your own, share them below. The more we can get the word out, the harder it will be for companies like them to scam the rest of us out of our hard-earned money.

They will initially push this warning when a user visits a Non-HTTPS page that collects passwords or credit card details. The user will see a warning message in the top location bar that will say “Not Secure”. Seeing a warning like that should deter them from entering any sensitive information on that page because the page is not protected by an SSL.

Of course, this will cause a problem for Non-HTTPS ecommerce sites but most of us are already conditioned to check for the HTTPS and the green padlock symbol on pages that ask for sensitive information. However, this push by Google likely signals that they’ll eventually spread this warning to any page that is not protected by an SSL through future Chrome version releases.

WordPress Websites

For Non-HTTPS websites on the WordPress platform, you will begin seeing this “Not Secure” warning when you use Chrome to visit your website’s Website Administration login page. That means, because that page is requesting a password, Google is telling you that it isn’t going to be protected by an SSL certificate.

If you already have an SSL on your site, congratulations!  You won’t have any problems from the change coming this month.

If you are a client of ours and you don’t have an SSL on your site, or you’re unsure, we can help. First, we can install an SSL certificate for your domain. Then we’ll make some changes to the code of your site so that it works with that SSL certificate. After that, you’ll be protected. Plus, since your site is secure, it will get a little bit of ranking boost from Google. Score!

Important to Note

Failing to have an SSL by January 31 will not mean that your site will break.  The warning message will only appear if these things are both true:

1. A website visitor is using Google Chrome as their browser.
2. That visitor goes to a page of your site that has a form that asks them to enter a password or sensitive information (ie. an account login page or a checkout page). This can and will also include the page you visit to login and manage your WordPress website.

Other browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer are independent of Chrome and they have yet to say they will follow Google’s path. The Opera browser, however, is built on Chrome so it may be affected too. Additionally, smartphones and tablets that use Android could also display this warning.

Contact us below and we’ll help make sure you’re prepared for this change.

Ideally, the measure should be somewhere between 50 and 80 characters long. We have not always followed that, unfortunately, and anything longer than 80 starts to get difficult for the viewer to read. Even this post you are reading right now does not follow that rule perfectly. Hey, I am being honest here

To achieve a good measure, the designer should consider adjusting the font-size and Robert Bringhurst came up with a great formula for that: Multiply the font-size by 30 to give you the acceptable measure for each line (font-size X 30 = measure). For example, if your font size is to be 12px, a good measure would be 360px.

Additionally, you could take the size of space on your design that is to contain type and divide that by 30 (font container / 30 = measure) to give you a starting point. So if your design calls for a 500px area of type, your font-size would be 17px. That, of course, is just a starting point. No one would want to read a paragraph of 17px text – yikes. You would probably want to find some ways to adjust that area in your design (pullquotes, images, etc.) and the font size will be affected by the font style that you chose as well.

EDIT: Chris Pearson created this awesome tool that helps you get the perfect typography for your design. Simply enter the font size and content width and *poof* magic. If you’re doing a custom design, check it out. If you’re using web design templates (shudder), someone else has probably already done the hard work for you haha.

There are many rules and suggestions regarding typography in your design. This is just one area and we are going to try to post some other tips as we pick them up. We have found some really great guides and articles out there and will be compiling them into a post.

So, with that in mind, let’s discuss some practical ways your web design can grab the attention of your visitors. Then, in a future article, we will talk a little about keeping their attention with good web site content. Remember, people spend most of their time on the Internet reading. They read search results, news items, how-to articles and forums. A professional web design company will take this into account. But that is for later. First, we have to keep visitors attention (remember the 4 second rule).

Good Web Design Gets to the Point

We live in a fast-paced society and we are used to instant results: Microwave meals in 5 minutes, lose 5 pounds in 5 days, 30 minute oil changes, see results from fitness equipment in 20 minutes a day, and on and on.

The Internet is no different and it actually may be less forgiving of poor web designs that don’t deliver results quickly.

The 4 second rule that we spoke of earlier does not mean that the entire web page must load in 4 seconds. Rather, it means that a visitor to your web site has to at least see something interesting within that 4 second window. So, to test your site, while it is loading, ask yourself:

• How much time passes before I see anything?
• What is the first thing I see on the web page?
• How much time passes before I can read some text?
• How long would it take a visitor to determine what the web site is about?

Try this suggestion yourself and then enlist the help of some of your friends. The more people you have to test your web site, the more thorough your results will be.

Ideally, the site should load top to bottom and left to right. However, your design should adhere to the reading habits of your target audience. Some countries read from right to left so, make sure you know your audience. Also, the most eye-catching elements should load first. Once these load and grab the visitor’s attention, the rest of the page can finish loading.

What Graphics Format Should I Use On My Web Site ?

This is probably one of the most overlooked aspects of web design. How many times have you visited a web site and cringed at the slow loading pictures. I’ll bet you did not stick around to see everything load.

In most cases, web sites that have this problem were created by someone who bought a Web Design How-To book, created a web page that says “Hello World” and now think they are an expert. Or, while learning web design, they created this slow loading site as a favor for a friend or family member. At any rate, hiring a professional web design company will prevent bad design from happening to you.

More about the .JPG file format

.JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format allows images to contain up to 16 million colors. It also supports Variable Compression, which allows you to reduce the size of the image at the cost of some of the detail. In order to take full advantage of this feature, you will need a graphics program which will allow you to preview the image after you have compressed it. Some of the more popular graphics programs are Photoshop, Fireworks and Corel Paintshop.

.JPG is not a good format for images with only a few colors or for text created as an image. The finished image will be of poor quality.

More about the .GIF file format

.GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) support up to 256 colors. It also supports “transparency” which allows you to specify the background of the image to be invisible, thereby letting the web page colors show through.

Graphics in this format are also “looseless”, meaning the final quality is not adversely affected by compressing.

Boiling it Down

For the most part, here is a good way to determine what format you should use for the graphics on your web site:

• If your graphic has many colors (such as a photo) use .JPG as the format, However, make sure that the file size is not so large that it prevents the web page from loading quickly. Find a good balance between image quality and file size.
• If your graphic has only a few colors (such as a chart) use .GIF as the format.

Of course, this is somewhat oversimplifying the very important role of graphics in your web site design. If you hire a professional web site designer to create your web presence, he or she should follow these guidelines during the design process. You should make sure that the rough drafts you receive from the designer adhere to good design standards.

Good Web Design Makes Them Want More

Our fellow Swansboro, NC small businesses understand the value of a thoughtfully designed website that captivates visitors and encourages them to explore further. We started designing websites in Swansboro, NC in 2005 and we specialize in more than just visually stunning designs. Our designs deliver a user-friendly experience that will engage your audience and keep them coming back. With a focus on seamless navigation and compelling visuals, we ensure your website leaves a lasting impression and sparks continued interest.

Of course, no matter how well organized your web site is and how effective it is at grabbing the visitor’s attention, they have to view your web site as important. You have to give them reasons to stay and browse your site, to bookmark your site so they can refer to it again and to tell others about your site so you can build new visitors.