What most professional web designer has that most amateur designers do not have is a web design strategy. A web design strategy involves one’s own techniques in making a website that involves carefully thought of plans implemented and then evaluated to get the desired objective. Needless to say, a website design strategy is very important to make sure that the website being made could pass standards. Also, by having a specific plan to follow even before you even think about making a site could help you save from troublesome encounters with the customer and wasting what you have worked so hard for.

It takes a lot of projects before one can say that his or her web design strategy is already full-proof. Even ripened design strategies also have to undergo revisions as it is being used again and again, especially that the technology of web designing evolves so fast.

Building a web design strategy can be likened to answering a series of checklist questions to assure that you have already covered everything. In fact there are some specific question guides that you could use to help you come up with your first website design strategy or improve your design if you already have one.

Site purpose and objective: What is the purpose of the site you are building? Is it for an online store, an informative site, marketing tool, among others? Or, is it a combination of any of these? What is the goal of your site? What does it want to achieve?

Users’ end: Does you site have any advantages? What are they? Does you site have any disadvantages? What are they? What would be the things that your users would most likely buy in your site? What would be the things that would make them return again and gain?

Income generating strategy: What form of money getting technique will you be incorporating in your store? How are you going to achieve it? Will you be collecting membership fees? Will you be getting it through affiliate programs? Will you be using advertising? Will your site be capable of implementing the money generating scheme you intend to use? What would be the possible problems you would mot likely encounter? What would be your edge against your competitors?

Answering these three sets of questions will give you a guide as to how you should go on with your web designing. It will also assure you that you will be getting the best designs there are.

No matter how complicated something is, it always started from basic foundations. And so is with web designing. No matter how many web design tips you know, whether you got it from top web design firms or you saw it being incorporated in affordable web designs, web designing stands on the use of graphics, layout, fonts, advertising and the target audience.

Don’t storm your page with too much advertising. Not only will it make your page confusing, it will also defeat the purpose of putting ads in your page. It has been found out that the more advertising there is in a age, the less likely customers would click on them.

Make it easy for your readers to access your website. To do so, your website must be able to work well with any browser and operating system. There is always a good chance that you have prospect customers using not so popular browsers and operating systems.

Content should be something interesting and useful to your readers. Give your visitors a reason to stay long in your site and come back often. Through relevant and frequently updated content, you are assured of continued patronage.

Fonts should better be understandable. What is the use of your content if is hardly readable? Your fonts should make reader understand your content. You can make sure that your fonts are easy to comprehend by using standard font families such as Arial and Verdana, and not having too many variations in the use of fonts.

When using layouts, it is better if you stick to what most audience have already been used to. It will be much easier for them to adjust using your website. Make sure that you also do not cramp your site with too much content. Space is important to make your customers’ eyes breathe. Sometimes, too cramped up pages discourage visits.

Graphics are used in web designing to add flavor, spice and flexibility in the content. It should not become a burden. However, if there is too much graphics, the site will load slow. Web sites that load slow do not get a good impression from customers. So if you are into graphics, make sure that you rein their sizes. Also make sure that your graphics is related to the content of the page or else they would just confuse your customers or get the limelight from your content.

One of the good things that web site templates have given web designers is a form of design idea or inspiration. There are a lot of things you can find in a website template design that could inspire you when you are designing you own website.

There is what we call as the swap images. Swap images are any buttons that changes when clicked. Some visitors actually think that these kinds of images are interactive and find them interesting. Fireworks is used to design these swap images.

Another image that is similar to the previous is the rollover images. These images change when the mouse is placed over them. Most web designers try to use rollover images whenever they can since most users find the touch of these images classy in its simple way. Aside for aesthetic purposes, prettying up your image presentation with rollover images will not affect your site’s loading time if you use text rollovers.

Another that you can use is the DHTML. One thing you need to know about this term is that it is not a language. It is just a term coined to refer to the creative way of making interactive and dynamic web pages. Using DHTML would require you to use a combination of CSS, HTML, Javascript and the HTML DOM. DHTML is very helpful if your navigation system is a little bit complex or if you have too many sub menus. DHTML can help you neatly organize these menus in your page. To top it all, DHTML is also very easy to use.

Using Flash as your whole web page is definitely a very bad idea. However, coming up with a Flash introduction or some Flash animation in priority pages is a good idea. They do not make your site’s loading time too slow and they also create a good impression among your viewers.

Eye-catching graphics are very useful in getting the attention of the viewers. Thus, using bevels, collages, and the likes will do a lot of good for your website.

One of the advantages of making designs using tables is that they are easy to make and at the same time do not take long to load. Using tables as your design also does not take much of you versatility. What is the use of a very over-whelming website if it loads in terms of hours? Tables create the balance between impressing designs and fast loading.

To have a good web design, it’s not always the looks and features that are important. Designers need to think it through on how to effectively design a good web page. Effective means a lot of things and here are some things that most designers overlook.

Web Design tips that you shouldn’t overlook

Fast loading – Always keep in mind, not everyone has a super fast Internet connection and not a lot of people really like over exploded designs that take a lot of time to load. Always, design a web page that is fast and efficient. Use little to none background images and optimize your CSS. It should at least load 15 seconds or less.

Simple Navigation – This is easily one of the least though about especially for a beginner. It’s really nice to have all those chromed-uber-Photoshoped buttons or those cool Flash animated navigations, but then again people won’t notice it much. Most people would just hover and click and not really care how it looks. Most people even like simple looking buttons. Also remember to put all your important links where a visitor would most likely look first (it’s usually at the top left). Try to link only those which are important but also try to link those links which you think a visitor might be interested in.

Screen Resolution – This is pretty important. You should also consider resolution aesthetics so that your design would fit in most (if not all) screen resolutions. Again, optimize your CSS and use percentages at most and not absolutes.

Browser Compatibility – Test your designs on different browsers. It should be compatible to most (if not all) browsers. As you know, browsers have different ways of displaying web content, it could look good on your IE but when loaded in Chrome it’d look messy. Common browsers that people use today are Firefox, IE, Opera, Chrome and Safari. There’s also Lunascape, it’s not a new browser but it uses different browser engines which means it’s a good browser to test your webpages – think of it like a 3 in one browser.

Readable Fonts – Yes, it’s the most basic thing that most people overlook. Using light colors as texts like green, gray, purple… it’s a pain to read. Even if the theme is high contrast, not a lot of people likes or used this kind of style. Just use regular ones like Verdana or Arial.

One of the reasons why some affordable web design fail or even those that were made by top web design firm is because they fail to put the proper things in their top priority list. Web design tips should be concerned not on what the web designer wants but more on what should be given most importance in terms of necessity.

Make sure that your site loads fast. Nobody wants to wait especially if they can find a faster service elsewhere. With our age and time, speed is one of the key components to succeed. Without speed, you will be left behind by your competitors. That is why it is important that your web design is structured to load fast.

Make sure that your navigation is easy to follow. Do not make your site’s navigation a detective story for your users. The easier to follow the navigation steps in your site, the better.

Make sure that your resolution is compatible to most computers. What good is a web design if it can’t be appreciated because it does not show well in some screen resolution? Consider other resolutions so that your site would look well no matter what kind of screen resolution your user has.

Make sure that your website is compatible with all the browsers available. There are already a lot of web browsers available. The same with screen resolution, there are some sites that may not register well in a certain browser. Thus, it is imperative to make your site as browser-friendly as possible.

Make sure that your fonts can be understood and look to mean business. Fonts carry the content of your site. They are the ones that relay the information. That is why your choice of font is very crucial. Stick to fonts that can easily be read and can look formal.

Make sure that your site is not crowded with so many images. Images make your site heavy, not to mention it also make your site look unorganized. Though images are very good techniques in relaying information fast, do not crowd your site with too many of these images. Or else, doing so might just defeat the purpose of images in websites.

Make sure that your site has spaces to breathe. Along with not crowding your site with too many images, it is also a must that you try to include as much clear space as possible. This tends to give your site a neat effect compared to overly cluttered websites that almost do not have spaces anymore.

Make sure that you get to fix all broken links. Links are important for navigation and spider crawling purposes. That is why if you a link or more is not working well, it hurts your site two ways: first, it creates a bad impression among your viewers giving them an idea that your site does not function well; and, second, it fails one of your SEO strategies.

One of the main reasons why visitors stay and come back to a website is because they found navigating in the website quite easy and very self-explanatory. They can easily find what they are looking for and you can easily show them what you want them to see. In fact, it has been found out that some users also tend to try out products in a website if they find it easy to jump from page to page.

What comprises easy navigation? How can you assure that your ecommerce web design promotes easy navigation for users? Here are some of the things that you can try out.

Properly arrange your navigation links in your website. Make sure that you put those that are important at the top and then and as the list goes down, the level of importance also diminishes. There is really no fixed list for what links should be considered as most and least important. It depends on the kind of website you have and what it caters to. If you have already decided as to how these navigation links should be organized, make sure that they appear in a consistent format in every page. That is, your navigation links should appear consistently in the same form and placement in every page. Changing the form and position might confuse the viewers.

Strategically place your navigation links. Make sure that you place them in a place that is usually seen by the viewers. They say it is the top or top-left part of the page. The primary links should be visible and the images used in navigation should be sharply integrated in the web site design. If you intend t place navigation links at the bottom, it is a waste of time since it is the last place in the page where a viewer would look. However, for the purpose of reputation, you may do so.

Make sure that your links can be easily spotted and understood by users. Again, your web site design should be all about making the users’ lives easy. So, do not send your users on a puzzle to look for the links in your site that would bring them to the pages in your website. The links should be self-explanatory to the extent that even a first –grader would know where it would lead.

What to do when you have a lot of category and sub-category links is to make use of navigation menus. These navigation menus can be installed in your site to help you with your organization.

Details | Demo

Details| Demo

Details | Demo

Details | Demo

It is not a secret in the online community that one of the gauges used to say that a website design is a hit is when it gets a lot of positive feedbacks from the users. That is, a certain website is able to appeal to the taste of a wide range of audience. One web site design tip to achieve this is to make sure that your web design is inclined to being user-friendly. Now, the question is how does one make sure that his or her website design is user friendly?

A user-friendly website is a very good in attracting people to your site. Thus, a good website gives you more opportunity to attract a large number of potential customers. You would be surprised that it is not the website that glitters and buzz that get much user attention and positive feedback. Instead, those website whose elements and contents are all of use are the top in the hearts of web site users.

It really does not matter whether you have an affordable web design or a website that was made by some top web design firms. Sometimes, as experience has told a lot of web developers, it is with the abundance of money and high-priced staff designers that often contribute to making the website more complicated and less appealing to users.

The first golden rule for you to assure that you have a user-friendly website is to pattern all the content of your website according to your usual customers’ needs. In this way, you can directly answer all of the things they want their website to be. You can monitor the frequently asked questions when they try to make contact with you and see for yourself the most recurrent questions being asked. This can give you an idea as to what people expect your website to have.

Make access of information a breeze. Unlike the old fashioned way of libraries where you are the one who searches and approaches information, make sure your website readily gives the answer to their questions (if possible) even before your audience start asking for them.

Always keep in mind that you are catering to individuals that may have varying taste. Although you may have some general understanding of the audience that you cater to, you should also not forget that as individuals they too have their own differences. So, make sure that your site could also be able to support the nuances of human differences. Such differences include the patience of users to wait for pages to load, how products are showcased in the website, getting the real deal with products, among others.

You think you have the best web site design for your online store. The problem is you noticed that a lot of people who come to your website do not get to stay for a long time. Some do not even bother to look at your site again. Then your website is not that good at all. Here are some of the web design tips that could help you make users stay using your website.

Spoon feed your visitors. The reason why the Internet has become much of a fuss nowadays is because it has made a lot of things a lot easier for a lot of people. Thus, if they happen to encounter a website that does the opposite, no matter how good its aesthetic is, they would surely not have second thoughts of abandoning that site right away. Ecommerce web designs should make easy for a lot of people. Its use should not need a lot of explaining. When a user sees a button, the user should already how to use it. You will not be there with very person who would come and use your website to tutor them how everything should work. The lesser the difficulty of using your site the more efficient it is.

Make the best out of the limited attention span of users. Expect that most of the people who would visit and use your site are impatient. You need to make sure that your site is able to sustain their patience. First, you need to limit requirements if you are offering something to your clients. The faster it is for them to try out something, the more they would appreciate it. Crowding them with a lot of web forms to fill up would only burn their patience up. Users would see such requirements as a form of barrier that keeps them from enjoying what they intended to use.

Highlight things that you want to be noticed by your visitors. You know what you want your customers to click. And since they do not have much patience to look for these kinds of information, do the job for them. Make sure that you put some form of emphasis on the things that you want our customers to notice. Since they just scan pages to look around for things that might interest them, your emphasized content would be the very thing that they would look for.

This article will give you the complete how-to steps that would give you the best web design tips that would mark your way to success.

Step 1: Know how to use functional HTML.

Compared to all other languages used, HTML is by far the easiest and the most flexible. This makes editing for changes and errors much easier to manage. There is nothing to be scared about using and learning HTML. It makes use of simple plain text with characters with special meanings. There are a lot of free and paid resources from where you could start learning HTML. You do not even have to enroll in a class. You can learn it on your own. However, if you want to make sure, you can always find a good tutorial site that could give you web design tips for beginners. For starters , it is a good idea to learn the HTML codes that are frequently used and then just move on to more complicated stuffs.

Step 2: Have a dummy site.

Even while still grasping your way into learning HTML, it is a good idea to keep a website that would serve as your practice range. Make sure that it would be like a standard website. It would help if the site is something close to your interest or something that you know a lot about. Every time you learn something new while you are still learning HTML, you can always incorporate it in your dummy site. Here you can track your progress and you can even slowly build up your own simple to complex portfolio. Once you get to become well-versed with HTML, you can also include learning CSS. Though it may look more complicated than HTML, it is also not difficult to learn especially if you already have a background in HTML since both are coded the similarly.

Step 3: Web scripting incorporation in your site.

Lastly, once you already have a good grip in using both HTML and CSS, you can then start incorporating web scripting. Two of the widely used scripts are PHP and Java. Learning scripts is important because it is what makes the web design per se in websites. HTML and CSS are just the basic. It is the web scripts that web designers use to put some form of aesthetic structure in the web site. That is to say that web scripts form the design itself.