Become A Better Designer With These Web Design Tips

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Become A Better Designer With These Web Design Tips
If you are considering getting into web design, you should be aware of the challenges. Creating an identity online can be somewhat intimidating, no matter if you're making it for you or someone else. The article below discusses some things that you have to know in order to do it right.

It is always good to add a favicon to your website. The favicon is a 16x16 image file in the .Ico format. This image is the one you see next to the URL bar, next to the title of the page on an opened tab and is also visible on your bookmarks tab if you choose to bookmark a page. The favicon will help users quickly recognize your page in their browser without reading any text or directly viewing the page.

Avoid using a lot of graphics. While they help to keep a visitor's interest, they can also make a site look cluttered and push visitors away. Never use graphics just to decorate, but only to improve. Your site will be much more usable and user friendly when you minimize the use of graphics.

Test your website before it goes live. There's nothing worse then launching your new website and having to take it down right away due to bugs or other issues. Get a group of people together who are using different web browsers and computer platforms, and ask them to use a beta version of your website, writing down any issues they come across.

Keep the sizes of your files and images small. Excessive loading times are a death knell for any site. The larger the files are that must load, the longer a user's load time is going to be. Most users will click away if the page doesn't start to load within the first few seconds of opening your page.

If you believe your site may be accessed via mobile devices, you will want to keep your designs simple. The use of flash, excessive images, and complicated menus will not translate well to a mobile platform. Keep your page clean and simple, or create a specific mobile site for your users.

To help you design a website that is optimized for search engines, do not include frames. Although users like pages that include frames, the information inside does not show up in search engines. If certain important information on your site cannot be seen by search engines, then you will not have a high ranking. When that occurs you do not get many visitors.

If you are not feeling confident in any area at all when you're designing a website then go ahead and ask for help from someone. You can either find help from a friend or from strangers on places like forums on the web. Just be sure you don't tackle anything without knowing what you're doing first.

Watch the amount of flashy multimedia that is on your site. Don't overdo it with a bunch of "extras". Flash graphics and multimedia may appear enticing, but these may make it difficult for visitors to find the desired information from the site, particularly if they're viewing your site from a non-Flash compatible device.

Try to make sure that any music or pictures that you're linking to is hosted on your own web server. Do not hotlink to any other website images. This can be construed as bandwidth theft and it could put you in violation of a copyright too. It's not worth the risk.

Now that you've reached the end of this article, you are probably itching to go out there and design a killer website. Armed with the knowledge that you've gotten from this article, you should be able to do just that. Use this information and your best instincts to design the site of your dreams.