Website Redesign- A Perilous Road examines some of the countless decisions required to redesign a website. If you make the wrong decisions, or hire the wrong web designer, you may find that years of hard work are lost and as far as the search engines are concerned- you are brand new again, with no page rank and no presence on the World Wide Web.

About a year and a half ago I started a new business and launched a new website. Since that time my site has gained a reasonable page rank on Google. A search for several of my keywords will produce my site in the listings on pages two, three and four of Google. Page Rank and organic listings are important only if enough people are contacting you for your product or service. This is your ?ROI?. This is your rate of return on your investment of time, energy and money. Most businesses have a ?big room for improvement?. Like most other businesses, I am very interested in achieving higher page rank and ROI. According to Google.com: ?PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.?

It is logical that if you redesign your site in such a way as it appears to be a brand new site to the Google search engines, you start de novo with no page rank and no other pages ?voting? for you. No matter how much you have achieved in terms of Page Rank, or if you have achieved number one, page one status for a keyword in terms of being found on a search of the web, you may have created a ?don?t get out of jail, don?t collect $200, don?t pass go? type of situation for yourself, at least in the internet short run.

These points were brought home to me loud and clear by a member of an internet affinity group who recently wrote: ?Hello,I had my site remodeled last year by a pro. I paid top dollars for SEO. Once my site was published, my ranking and clicks took a nose dive. I have done every thing to get the ranking up but have had no luck. Can someone please tell me what went wrong??Imagine a mirror that is really one way glass. In the movies, there is a common scene where the criminal suspect is being interviewed by the police in a room with a mirror that reflects his image. On the other side of the mirror, invisible to the suspect may be the victim or other policemen looking in at the proceedings. A website is like a one way glass mirror.

When you click on a website, you see what the designers want you to see. The public?s mirror: Images, text, marketing, things that move or flash, contact information, site maps, search for content engines, links to other sites, examples of products or services. What you cannot see are many if not most of the things the search engines see. Many of these things are technical and well beyond the scope of this article, and this author?s expertise. But a little knowledge is dangerous. What went wrong?It appears that the search engines, when looking at the ?other side of the one way mirror? may have concluded that this was a brand new site. Perhaps the files that were a part of the web site were renamed. Perhaps the domain name of the site was changed. Perhaps animation, called flash, or pull down menus prevented the search engines from ?seeing? the website because of their design. Perhaps in the design of the new site, the former inbound links no longer are counted by the search engines. Perhaps the designer did not use any metatags. According to Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch, ?Metatags are not a magic solution.? ?What are meta tags? They are information inserted into the “head” area of your web pages. Other than the title tag, information in the head area of your web pages is not seen by those viewing your pages in browsers. Instead, meta information in this area is used to communicate information that a human visitor may not be concerned with. Meta tags, for example, can tell a browser what “character set” to use or whether a web page has self-rated itself in terms of adult content?. There is controversy regarding the importance of metatags. One way to decide for yourself is to go to the sites of your top competitors; open their site, and click view at the top of your browser, scroll down to page source and click on it. See what your competitors are doing and decide for yourself.

The bottom line: Website redesign is a very difficult and technical area, subject to controversy and honest differences of opinion. You clearly want a website that attracts the public to your product or services, and attracts the search engines to find you. Google has a new program in beta where you can test several versions of a site to determine what the public likes best. What the search engines value is quite another matter. Choosing the best expert for this project is essential. I recommend that you look for experienced professionals with proven results with a business that is reliable and stable. Give a lot of thought to your content and to your call to action. And give a lot of attention to the requirement that your expert designer redesign your site technically as a reflection of your previous site unless you want to start de novo as if your website is brand new to the World Wide Web.

Copyright ? 2007 Gregg Financial Services www.greggfinancialservices.com

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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A website is the medium by which viewers will access information or buy products over the internet, and just like a catalog, newspaper, magazine, etc. it is imperative that the information be presented in an organized, easy to access, and professional looking manner. Obviously not all types of informational websites need to be professional looking but most types of informational websites will benefit from a professional design, and it is a necessity that any type of e-commerce site selling a product be professionally laid out and be as well designed as possible.

Not everyone can afford professional website designers to build their site, however if you are selling a product it is advisable to pay the extra money for a website designer; however, if you are well versed in website design you could take on this challenge yourself. For informational websites, the prospect of doing the work yourself can save you money and still result in a good looking website. This article will help point out some key areas you should focus on when designing your own website.

Software:

Unless you are an HTML guru, you are going to need some website design software. There are many different software titles out there ranging from free to hundreds of dollars. I recommend Macromedia Dreamweaver: it is easy to use, has a ton of features and allows you to have complete control over your website with very minimal HTML knowledge. However Dreamweaver is expensive and may not be within your budget. If you have Microsoft office you can use Microsoft FrontPage to build your website. FrontPage is not as easy to use as Dreamweaver in my opinion but is still very capable of producing an excellent website for your company. There are also a lot of free Programs out there that you can use but be warned, in most cases they will not be as easy to use and may require more knowledge of HTML code to be effective.

Templates:

If you’re not a designer and are having trouble coming up with an attractive and organized website design, templates are an excellent way to build up a professional looking website in a very short time. There are thousands of free templates, simply go to a search engine and search for website templates. Free templates are a toss up however in terms of quality. Sometimes you can find good free templates, and other times you will spend hours looking and not find one decent template. For times like these I suggest you turn to buying a template. Premium templates typically cost up to $80 or so and are very well designed. They look just as good as any major website you’ve ever visited and can include flash animations if you so desire. A template is a very wise investment and is well worth the money. Keep in mind, however, that you will still need some kind of site building software and you may need image editing software (windows paint isn’t going to cut it). Photoshop is typically recommended, but with its large price tag, you can opt for more affordable solutions. Also, some hosting services will provide you with professional template for free just by using their services. Hostmonster.com and Web.com hosting services offer this extra bonus.

After you get your software and/or templates, you can finally sit down and formulate your plan of attack. Don’t underestimate good planning as it is much easier to have all your angles figured out ahead of time than to keep redoing your site mid-stride. Don’t even touch the computer yet, take out a pencil and paper and jot down your design on paper. This pre-design should be mostly for layout and navigation, obviously you don’t need to draw each image. Write down how you want the layout of your site to be, where you want navigation, content, advertisements, products, links, etc. Be detailed in how you want your navigation to be designed. Do you want very general category navigation and then have that expand when you click on it, or do you want more specific links visible right up front on the main page. Doing this now will save you time later. Now you will need to focus on three basic aspects of website design.

Overall Appearance:

If you purchased a template then you are all ready to go here, just decide on text and link colors and your set. But if you’re starting from scratch you should begin to decide how you want your site to look. The background color should be very light. White is preferable, but you don’t have to have a white background, you can use a very light gray or blue, but the key here is to keep it very pale, very light. By making the background light, you have a bit more freedom in which colors to choose for the rest of your site. This is really up to what the sites topic deals with or what types of products you are selling; however, it is advisable not to use a large amount of varying colors. The colors you choose should go well together. Try a couple sample pages with very simple layouts with tables or layers and just change their background colors and text colors to see what looks good. Don’t be afraid to ask for others opinions also, just because you like the website doesn’t mean anyone else does. Think of it as painting the interior of your house. You may like lime green and purple on every wall, but if nobody else likes those colors, it will be a lot harder to sell your home. So make your site as easy to sell as possible. Text colors should contrast well with their backgrounds. If the text has a dark background it should be light colored and vice versa.

Layout:

Layout is extremely important in designing your website. A confusing layout, a misaligned layout or a disproportioned layout can have a detrimental effect on the design of your website. If a visitor is confused by the layout or misdirected, then that visitor may simply go somewhere else. People are very finicky and it takes only a few seconds for a visitor to form an initial impression about your site.

If you are selling a product or providing information, that is the first place a visitor should look when visiting your website. Put your main content towards the center of the page near the top. That content is typically why the visitor came to your website in the first place, so that content should be the first thing you provide them and the first thing they see. If a visitor doesn’t find what they came for right from the beginning, there’s a good chance they will simply hit the back button and find somewhere else to get their product or information.

The proportional aspect of your layout is also very important. Modern websites are typically designed with two or three column designs. One column is used for the sites content, while the other column(s) are typically used for navigation, updates, advertisements, etc. When deciding on the size of certain section, the content portion should be at least 50% of the total width, more if possible. The actual size of the columns is a judgment call, but typically the sizes should correspond to the content they contain.

In addition to column widths, the height of the header is also very important. The header typically will contain your logo, some advertisements or product promotions, and typically some navigational components. The header, much like the columns, should not be overwhelming and the content portion of your page should be visible without even having to scroll down the page.

By implementing these simple guidelines, your website will have the proper, user friendly layout.

Navigation:

Navigation is one of the most important aspects of designing your website. Without a clear navigational layout, your visitors will feel lost in a maze and find another site to visit. You want your site’s visitors to be able to find the information they need fast and efficiently, and failure to do so will cost you in traffic and ultimately sales.

There are many different ways to layout a navigation system for your website. The best way is to have your sites main categories in one area, and your sites contact info, policies, about page etc in another. This separates your “sales” navigation from your “information” navigation and keeps things a bit more organized. Its best to place navigation where the viewers expect to see it, there’s no need to get creative with placement here. Larger navigation areas are best suited for columns on the left side of the page. You can place navigation on the right side, but most visitors will expect to see those main shopping or information categories nesting on the left. The navigation column should be wide enough to fit each category on a single line of text. If a category has a long title and wraps around to a second line, that’s OK but its better to fit them on one line.

Every category you want visitors to see should be visible on ALL pages. Ideally visitors should not have to hit the back button to find the links they want. Expanding menus are an excellent way to display subcategories for the corresponding main category. They will save you space because only the subcategories under the main category that was chosen will show at a time. Its advisable not to use java script menus for e-commerce sites unless you know how to create them correctly; in addition, not every visitor’s browser will display java correctly, so stick with HTML.

Your company/policy information categories should be placed at the top and bottom of your page in the header and the footer and if you have a shopping cart make sure to have a link to it at the top of the page so customers can checkout easily. You should also have a shopping cart on the side navigation, this way the customer can find their shopping cart at any time. If your customer needs to go on a scavenger hunt to buy your product or read your information, they won’t.

Conclusion:

If you follow these basic guidelines and tips, you will be well on your way to website design success. As stated earlier, don’t be afraid to spend a little money up front on software or templates, they will save you time, produce a much better website, and will end up paying for themselves in the end.

About the Author

The author Greg McCray Mathes is the webmaster and writer for McCray Business Ventures, http://www.McCrayBusiness.com McCray Business Ventures offers ebusiness articles and service reviews for poplular business products and services.

In the past, businesses and other entities are busy mounting their own website but now, the hype is all about redesigning them. This change has shifted the interface of web design services to a different level and the focus is now on redesigns.

Website redesigning is involves a slight distinction and considerations between mounting and developing new sites. Say for instance, those that have existing sites have more or less enough knowledge on what sites and site formulas work. They have already a grasp about what they consider as assets in their site’s form and function. Recognizing these assets can pretty well contribute to a more prosperous redesigned site.

Other businesses may take a few months to decide in favor of a redesign but mind you, planning a redesign can be as easy as 123! It’s unbelievable but it’s true. Here are the three basic redesign planning tips:

1. Problem Identification. As i have stated a while ago, more or less you have already formed an idea why your site is not doing that good in the World Wide Web. This is because of certain factors. These factors must be avoided in coming up with a redesign. Remember the maxim - learn form your mistakes. Well, this is basically the main idea behind problem identification. This is done to preclude similar mistakes that have transpired in the past. In recognizing these mistakes, the site will intentionally be improved. Aside from mistakes, we should also consider the good points of your existing web design. They can be re-applied or made stronger and better.

Thus, before you plan the details of a re-design, analyze first. Identify the problem areas as well as the good areas. You may ask some of these questions in order to get the desired web site:

a. Is your site functional? If it gives the needed information of the viewers or the target market and they get it quickly and clearly then, the site is said to be functional. It pays to have organization, this is because it will refrain the viewers from transferring from one site to another.

b. Does your site clearly point the ‘call for action’. If you are into selling products, your site must have triggered the viewer’s decision to buy the product. At a glance, they must be convinced and the cobwebs at the back of their heads must be rebutted or deleted.

c. Is your site an epitome of a professionally-made site? Are the appearance, layout, images and content appealing? If not, better have it redesigned in a way to make it catchy, informative and serviceable.

2. Layout the redesign plan. The next thing to do is to establish a workable layout for the redesign. Establish plans how to solve the mistakes in web design. Each issue must be identified to serve as guidelines. Also, problems and mistakes must be given due solutions.

3. Define your Goals. Aside from giving solutions to the mistakes and problems you have encountered in your existing web site, be sure to establish and define your goals to guide you with what to do in the redesign.

The aim or the overall purpose must be made clear and flagrant otherwise your redesign will just turn out to be a waste of time and money. Good luck!

About the Author

Please visit Web Development Services Pros site at http://www.webdevelopmentpros.com for comments and inquiries regarding this article. -

If you have done any article directory surfing, you have probably noticed all types of article directory designs. You may have run across those that are visually impressive and enjoyable to look at it. They make you stop and ask yourself the following questions: “How can I make an attractive design like that?” Then you have probably run across those site that have inflicted pain onto your eyeballs and you have probably questioned yourself, “How do I avoid that?” So many people do not understand the essential basics to creating a visually pleasing website design. Let us take a look at these four important and basic subjects of design.

Contrast

Most of us understand the concept of contrast, yet when you look at different website designs, we often see this concept ignored. Contrast needs to be highly considered when creating any type of website. Ultimately, you want the visitor to come in contact with the content and information of the website. Your visitor does not want to have to *dig* through your website to find the information for which he or she is looking. If your content is hidden, people will miss the purpose of your website and simply give up trying to find the information or article they need. Reader’s eyes want a visible and clear presentation.

To put contrast in exercise, highly and carefully consider the colors you are using for your website design. The type of contrast you are looking for is black text on a white background. While that may seem boring, it is most important that your background contrasts with your text so your text is clearly visible and seen. Another mistake you will often see is the overuse of graphics and images. Use graphics wisely! Too many graphics can clutter your website and make your content buried. A graphic-laden page does not necessarily mean it will be more visually pleasing.

Contrast is a simple and effective way to visually enhance your website. Remember, that you want to bring the content to your reader. You do not want your reader to have todig for it.

Alignment

The second concept, alignment, is also extremely vital to the website presentation. Good alignment brings about unity and order. Bad alignment brings about chaos and disorder. Knowing that we want to bring content and contextual components to our visitor, we need to present that content in an orderly fashion. The basic principle for alignment is this: do not mix alignment styles. For example, if you have left aligned text, do not create a centered heading. You want your design to flow. That brings us to our next concept, repetition.

Repetition

While providing your website visitor with clear, visible orderly content, you can also create a stronger sense of unity in the website through repetition. Repetition on a website basically means that you use the same design elements throughout the design. That means you want to use the same logo, graphics, bullets, fonts, and colors. A common misconception by amateur designers is that the more color on the page you have, the more visually pleasing it is. Experience and good judgement show that this is simply not true. Stick to four similar contrasting colors. Stay consistent with your fonts. Stay consistent with your graphics. Repetition will further the sense of the unity in your document.

Proximity

Proximity ties in with presenting easy-to-find content to your website visitor. Proximity is not a hard principle to follow and it will greatly increase your website’s readability. To follow the concept of proximity, put elements together that should be together. For example, if you are talking about a book, you do not want to have the book title at the top of the page, the author at the bottom of the page, and the publisher of the book on a completely different page. To re-emphasize, you want your visitor to find what they are looking for easily. Proximity best assists your viewers in finding exactly what they need, when they need it.

Following these basic design principles will allow you to make a sharp and attractive website. Remember, you want the content to find the visitor. You do not want the visitor to have to dig through the design to find the content that they need. When the content finds the visitor, you want it to be unified, clear, and visible. Exercise these four basic concepts, and you will have yourself a very visually pleasing design.

About the Author

Brett McQueen is freelance author, web designer and programmer and the administrator for the Article Cat article directory at www.ArticleCat.com.

So you?ve bought the domain, you?ve got some great sales copy, ensure your meta and alt tags are doing they?re job, have a few graphics thrown in for good measure and are all set to publish your design to the web. Right?

Wrong. But though you?re on the right track, you might have overlooked what research is now calling one of the most crucial elements in site design: color. Having the right color scheme might be one of the ways to make or break your site. Since you only have about the first ten seconds of a user?s attention span, you need to ensure that what they first see catches their eye.

The fact that users are visiting your site means you?ve got the core elements of design on target, but now you have to keep them there. True, you?ll need great a great sales pitch and copy but don?t underestimate the importance of a color?s pyschology.

Colors mean different things to different people and can symbolise different things in different cultures. For instance, if you?re marketing your website for Asian users, a green hat with a white carnation as a corporate logo might seem creative but it might also get you backlashed and I?ll explain why. A green hat in China means a man?s wife is cheating on him and the white carnation symbolises death in Japan. Using the two in conjunction is a definite no-no.

Similarly, each color has a different meaning behind it which is subjective and relative to each user?s past experience.

Take the color red for instance, it could mean different things to different people based on their histories and associations with the color. It could mean a source of extreme pleasure for one and symbolise anger for another.

On the upside, websites created with different shades of blue or a blue-white combination are generally quite popular. Why? Blue typically represents a sense of calm, trust and security besides being easy on the eye.

However, using bright blue or bright of any color is a bad idea since the human eye will need to adjust to each color and it will put unneeded strain on their eyes.

Pink normally represents softness and gentility, which is why it is often used in baby care products while orange which symbolises potency and power is normally used in vitamins and health products, energy drinks etc.

Consider?s Newton?s first law ? every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. For each color that you choose, there will be a dfferent reaction to it by every user approaching that site. The question now becomes: how do you know which color won?t affront?

Try basing your color choices on what your site content and product sells, considering the audience & culture and gender preferences. Men and women prefer different variations of color ? men often prefer brighter colors and are generally okay with grays and blacks, while women prefer softer tones likes pastel shades. Cultures vary regarding color usage ? for instance a yellow and black site could be a wonderful combination for Americans, but might serve as a reminder to Nazi Germany for an Israeli, hence enforcing that those two colors should never be used in conjunction when designing a website for a Jewish corporation.

Let?s say you just love the blue/purple combination and have a nature-based website. Users do not often associate purple or blue with nature. Green and yellow might be more useful, with yellow used sparingly and green used predominantly due to its generally calming nature.

Multicolored websites have the least visitation span with the span reducing with the introduction of each new color. In general, not more than five different colors should be used on a single page.

Concluding, each website is defined not only by the content but by its color ? an indirect approach to marketing and propagating a message. While we use body language, websites use colors to demonstrate the subtleties and finer text.

Colors should not be used to support information, but rather to represent the site?s message and remain consistent throughout the website.

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How To Choose A Website Designer

 by: Steve Lillo

Now that you have decided that it is time to create a website for your business there are many questions you must answer. One of the most important questions is “Who should create my website?”

I like to use the analogy of playing music; in as little as a few hours, some people can strum a few chords on the guitar and play a song. But to really play the instrument and make your instrument sing requires experience and understanding. Likewise, although there are tools which are readily available to assist in the process, effective website design requires experience and understanding of many diverse areas including: marketing, Internet graphics options and limitations, effectively creating a site from the perspective of search engines, the differences and limitations of different browsers and computer platforms as well as knowledge of the software and coding required to move beyond simple static html pages.

It is also vitally important that your designer understand you and your business and know how to most effectively communicate you and your uniqueness to your Internet audience. To answer our question, well look at some important pieces of information that youll need to find out before you choose your website designer.

What do you want in a website? What are your needs and intentions for having a website? Does the prospective designer listen to and understand your needs and intentions? Have you checked other similar businesses to see what they are doing on the Internet? Can a prospective designer offer any suggestions for improving upon what others have already accomplished? The more clarity you have about your intended results for having a website, the more accurately you can communicate your needs to your designer and the more likely it is that you will achieve these results.

Is the designer experienced in website design? How long has the designer been creating websites? What is their background? How long have they been using the Internet? Three years is a long time in Internet terms. More than four or five years is a seasoned veteran. Ideally, your site designer has a variety of experience.

What are the designer’s strengths and weaknesses? The range of skills required for creating any type of website is more diverse than you can imagine. If a designer tells you they have done or can do any project, Id suggest you take that statement with a grain of salt.

Is the designer easy to work with and talk to? Is she/he able to communicate technical information so that you can understand it? The process of creating a website can often be an overwhelming process for some people. Consider hiring a designer with whom you have a good rapport and find communicating with easy.

Look at some of their previous clients sites. Do they all look the same? Do they load quickly? Are they easy to navigate through? Do you like their previous work? Do they accurately reflect their clients business? Does the designer custom create each site or would they have you select from a list of prepackaged sites?

What is your budget and what is the typical cost for the designers projects? As a generalization, the larger the company, the more they charge for their services (and often the more elaborate the sites they create.) Companies which create sites from a prepackaged template often cost less but dont provide you with custom solutions which may more closely meet your needs. Site designers who are getting started will often create your site for a lower fee, essentially using your project to develop their skills.

Your decision should be based on many of these important questions. Also use any other questions you find useful when hiring any other service business for a project. Comparing website designers is sometimes like comparing bananas to bicycles instead of apples to apples. Dont be afraid to ask questions. You might consider writing pros and cons for each designer on a sheet of paper to develop a more objective point of view.

The selection of your website designer is an important step in the creation of a successful website. With time and patience, you too can join the thousands of businesses with successful websites.

Designing a website may not seem like the easiest of tasks, but with the help of some new web building conveniences that have entered the market in the past few years it is possible to create a professional website for your business with only a small investment of your time and money. In fact, with the advent of greater choice in web design such as ready-made website templates, logos and other corporate necessities, you can build a website in three easy steps.

Step One: Plan Ahead

Before you delve into the world of web design and start looking for a suitable template, it’s important to plan ahead. You need to clearly define your company’s objectives beforehand so that the design selection process goes more quickly and you choose the right template.

For instance, who is your target audience? You must know your customer inside and out in order to choose the best site design for bringing in business. For instance, if most of your business comes from corporations and professionals you will need to choose a template that caters to that group of people - one that gives the right first impression and shows you are a serious business that can handle top-notch clients. In this case, a simple, efficient design will be your top preference. If, however, you are building an ecommerce website selling a range of goods, a template that can be customized for online shopping will probably be your design of choice. Perhaps you require a more “flashy” website? Flash templates are also an option and suit many different types of websites that rely on more than just text and a logo to make money.

Ensure that the template you eventually purchase is easy to customize and update. That’s the whole point of buying a template in the first place - to make both the building of the website and its maintenance stress-free, affordable and fast. You will need to add your own content to the template and work with the overall theme once it is downloaded. Also, most businesses will want to add fresh content, site updates, links etc. as time goes by so keep this in mind when searching for that perfect template. If you plan to incorporate interactive features into your site, such as forms and chat areas, the template you choose should be able to handle this as well.

Step Two: Choose a Template

Now that you are prepared, you can begin shopping for a website template that will work best for your business. Start by researching the many website template companies on the market that offer professional designs for reasonable prices ($20-$40). Most companies offer the choice between copyrighted and non-copyrighted material as well, so if you want to be the only one using the template design spend a little more money to receive exclusive usage. One such website template company I found that offers reasonably priced templates is http://templatedogma.com/. Once you purchase a copyrighted template it is taken off the market. If you don’t find a template that fits your business precisely, investigate which companies offer to design custom-made templates for your usage. This will cost more but prices are kept lower than hiring a designer and the results are just as good - if not better.

When you find the right template after reviewing the available designs, the rest is simple. All you have to do is purchase the template and download it to your hard drive in seconds.

Step Three: Customize

With the template all ready to go, all you have to do is add your own content, graphics, images - anything you need to make the site your own. If you can use a simple editor such as DreamWeaver or FrontPage, this can be done in a few days or less. If you are inexperienced when it comes to any aspect of web design you can hire someone to do the editing for you for a very small fee - much smaller than what you would pay a designer to create the whole site from scratch.

When adding content, if you only require a few simple words, consider writing the text yourself. If you need a lot more information, such as product descriptions, articles or sales content, consider hiring a writer to create unique, high-quality content. Because you saved so much money purchasing a ready-made website template, you can spend a little more hiring a great writer! If you write the material on your own, remember to keep it short. Keep paragraphs short and don’t bog the reader down with unnecessary information. People are in a hurry and don’t want to spend a lot of time reading pages and pages of writing. Let your visitors get the information they need so they can move on and buy your product or service, but also make sure the information you provide is actually helpful and written without grammar or spelling mistakes.

The overall design should be kept simple, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add graphics, pictures or even video. As long as you keep it uncomplicated visitors will not regret visiting your site and learning more about your business. Not everyone has high-speed Internet yet, so fast loading pages are still a consideration.

Other additions include tables, forms and quizzes. Tables specifically are an easy way to organize text on a web page and they load very quickly. Most HTML editors make it easy to generate tables on your website.

Website templates have brought web design out of its infancy and into the 21st century, catering to the unique needs of the online business owner, so don’t be afraid to take advantage of the convenience - you won’t regret the decision.

About the Author

This article was written by Katerina Mitrou sponsored by http://templatedogma.com/. Template Dogma offers a huge selection of professional, ready to use website templates and custom products too. Build your professional website in minutes with the help of Templatedogma.com. Reproductions of this article are encouraged but must include a link back to http://templatedogma.com/. -

Anyone can draw up a design in Photoshop. That doesn’t make them a web designer. I have worked with artists and graphic designers that can create some pretty cool looking “layouts” but the problem is they can’t be converted to a web design. You don’t just paste an image into an HTML page and call it a website… it has to be cut-up and laid out with lots of thought and care. Knowing the rules, limitations, and constraints of web design will dramatically effect what you draw up in an image editor.

Before you draw anything, you will need to figure out some things first:

1) What resolution do you want to develop to?
2) What layout do you want to use?
3) Will your content be static, dynamic, or mixture of both?

The first thing to figure out is what desktop resolution you are going to develop to. Based on information from http://browsersize.com/, all web user desktops worldwide can be broken up into these percentages:

1024 x 768 - 56%
800 x 600 - 22%
1280 x 1024 - 13%
1152 x 864 - 3%
other - 6%

When actually drawing a website design up in an image editor, don’t forget to subtract 30px from the width for your layouts.? This is to accommodate the scrollbar that will appear to the right when content exceeds the screen height.? Example: for a resolution of 800×600, your design should be 770px in width.

The main number you want to look at here is the width (the first number). Scrolling down is fairly well accepted as normal behavior for a website by all users. So the height is not as important as the width. Scrolling across is a different story. You will never want your design to have horizontal scrollbars at the bottom of the page. You will need to pay special attention to the width of your design when developing. If someone’s desktop resolution is smaller than the resolution you designed to, they will have scrollbars at the bottom of their page and this will be deemed to be an unpleasant “viewing experience” for that user. The lower the resolution of your design, the more people that can be included in those that will have a nicer “viewing experience”.

Before you just jump to the highest used resolutions (1024 x 768), consider your market. Who are you developing your website for? If your website is a forum about Java Web Development or CSS Web Design, then it’s probably safe to figure that most of your users will be tech savvy. That means they will probably have nicer/newer computers, which means that you could probably develop to 1024 x 768 without worrying about to many people having a bad “viewing experience”. On the other hand, if you are developing a website for a non-profit organization that provides free food and clothing to families with low incomes, you probably want to stick to 800×600. Your target audience probably can’t afford the latest computers and may more than likely have older computers that were given away to them or purchased at a very cheap price. Another example is older people with bad eyesight - if your website draws in lots of senior citizens, they will probably want to see things at a lower resolution to make text and images larger.

You might also want to consider whether or not you want to ignore a quarter your market’s “viewing experience”. If your website is for a company that markets to the general public, I doubt their marketing department will like this. They will more than likely want something that looks appealing to everyone. This can be done easily by designing to 800×600 desktops. In fact, sometimes it’s nice to have a background for your design. For those people who use higher resolutions, you can create more of an esthetically pleasing look to your design by having a background.

The second thing to figure out is what layout you want to use. A layout is how headers, footers, content, sidebars, etc. are placed on your page. Not every page has to have the same layout. For instance, you may want a unique layout just for your index (entry) page. That’s fine, as long as most of the other pages on your site are consistent in their layout.

There are all sorts of layouts you can go with. There are those with menus on the side, menus on the top, some with sidebars and side boxes, and some without. There are those whose width stretch to fill your screen (liquid) and those whose width is a set size (static). Lots of possibilities here. A good place to look at some example layout can be found at the Layout Gala: http://blog.html.it/layoutgala/. This site provides the code for some of the most popular base layouts used in web design. All these layouts use valid markup and CSS, and have been tested successfully on Internet Explorer/win 5.0, 5.5, 6 and beta 2 preview of version 7; Opera 8.5, Firefox 1.5 and Safari 2. A great starting point for your web design. Again, keep in mind the two types of basic layouts: static and liquid. If you use a liquid layout, you will still need to determine the minimal width. It should be equal to the width of the resolution you have decided to design to. Your content should “float” appropriately as the browser is resized - either to the left, right, or center until they overflow, at which point they should float downward, pushing all your content down. Once you have reached your minimal width you have designed your site for, you are no longer accountable for your users “viewing experience”. The content can overlap and run into each other… this now acceptable. You can try and force it to be static once it has reached its minimal width, at which point it will show horizontal scrollbars. This is sometimes deemed to be more pleasant than letting your content overlap itself. This is up to you.

Finally, you need to consider your content. Is it going to be fairly static? Will the content be updated by users frequently? Is there dynamic data that is used for content that comes from a database? Does the site use a content manager? The important thing here is to design to your content. In general, you should avoid designing static height pages… they should stretch appropriately to accommodate the data that is present on the page. This is one of the mistakes I see a lot of from graphic designers that don’t know anything about the web. They code a watermark background that looks cool for a page of an exact height of, say, 600px because that was how big the page was with its content. But then a month later someone goes in adds some more content -now the website has an 800px height, and there is 200px at the bottom of the page that doesn’t have a watermark and is even a completely different color/look than what was used for the first 600px. As a web designer you have to be aware of when to use “repeatable background images” or colors for backgrounds with dynamic data. Sometimes you can use static images or horizontal repeating images at the top or bottom, as long as they gracefully blend into the main background eventually.

This is also important for menus. Using a static image, like a tab, is fine as long as you are willing to go into an image editor and create a new tab every time you need to. However, you might consider using repeatable images/solid colors with text that automatically stretches when content is added. To do this is more complicated, but will save you time in the future. Plus, if you’re using a content management system, this will be mandatory. You will have no idea how long someone might make their menu link, so you will need to be prepared for links that wrap and/or stretch dynamically. Again, solid colors or repeatable background can be used here. The doodlekit website builder tool is an example of when you would want to consider this.? Advanced web designers that use this tool will need to consider these rules when developing. Some of the more complicated designs used by doodlekit have repeatable images/colors in the middle, and static images at the top and bottom, or on the left and right sides that blend into the middle.

Once you have figured out the resolution you want to design to, picked your layout, and determined how dynamic your content is, you are ready to finally start drawing! Keeping these in mind will determine how and what you design. When it comes time to convert it to an actual website, your web designer/developer will thank you!

About the Author

Heath Huffman is co-owner of doodlebit website designs & website solutions. They created the doodlekit website builder - an online tool that allows you to create and build your own website. doodlekit has the following built into it: page edit/creation, blogs, forums, photo albums, forms, shopping cart, file uploading, & website stat tracking.

Making the right choice when it comes to the web design company that you will use can be very difficult. Thanks to the cheaper and more user friendly software programs that are now available just about anyone in the world can create a web site and have it live in a matter of days or perhaps even hours. That is not to say that this will be a good or even pretty good web site. Most likely this will be the most basic and low quality of all web sites and nothing that would attract and impress the visitors that you have. Sadly this is so common place anymore that people will take what they can get, hence the reason why so many new web sites are running around the web today. If you are looking for an affordable custom website design solution company then you need to be looking in the right places and not always looking at the lowest price to be the marker.

The matter of web design should be looked at from the perspective of retail purchases that you will make. In light, the lowest price is not always the best idea. Why? Well the truth is that the lower the price the lower the quality in most cases. While the item may be the same, it will not be made as well as the higher priced models and in truth may cost you more money down the road when you have to spend more money to replace it. The same goes for the web design services. What could be gained by having a cut rate web site designed when you have to hire someone else at a greatly inflated rate to fix and repair the entire process because of the poor quality? So you can see that it is not always the best idea to go with the cheapest of them all. In most cases the absolute cheapest of all of them will invariably be the one that causes you the most problems. The customer service may be poor or they may be nothing more than a scam that takes away all the money and leaves you with nothing.

An affordable custom website design solution company will provide all the necessary information that you require upfront. There will be valuable customer service in place and you will find that the answers that you require are answered quickly and honestly.

About the Author:

Affordable Custom Website Design Solution Company Affordable ecommerce web site design offered by Jatech.

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This article is the most comprehensive guide for beginners to web design and introduces them how to design? a web page.? It also offers? tips for small businesses on how to select a? website design firm

What are some best Web Applications?

Macromedia Dreamweaver is one of the best and most popular options for users who want to be able to use complex website design applications on their computer. It offers an easy-to-use HTML editor, presentation editor and so much more.

Others important applications include Microsoft Front Page, Coffee Cup Software, ColorPic by Iconico and etc.

Where to get the content for my website?

The objective of any website design would first be to obtain your point transversely. 80% of all web page users look into the page before actually reading anything. Ensure that your point is understandable. Design should be obvious and crisp so that the user can just observe the meaning in the beginning paragraphs of your website content.

Where to hire one Website Designer for your site? ??????

By hiring a Website design firm, you get the maximum benefit and comfort. Besides this, you have the added advantage of more easily building a desired Website with your own complete specifications.

A local design firm- Merits and Demerits

A local design firm naturally provides you enhanced customer services and thus effective communication. However, the drawback of hiring with a local Website design firm is that you have an inadequate sum of choices; you may be bumped to hire designers who do not fulfill your specifications. On the other hand, by hiring offshore you can do it all in a surprising economy and you have endless options. Most popular outsourced countries in Website design include India, Pakistan, Russia and Mexico.?

Outsource Web Design Solutions in India

India is synonymous with affordable and competitive web design solutions.? World Bank-funded research in the United States has revealed that consumers rated India as their number one choice for outsourcing.

Web Design Pakistan

Pakistan website designers are known for offering quality, economical and well-timed websites. If you’re looking for a Pakistan Web design firm, you may be mystified where to start your search. Try googling or visiting major website design firms for listings in Web Design Pakistan. You can often get an inspiration for capabilities by viewing portfolios and company profiles online ahead of time.

Website Design in Mexico

Mexico and the other countries in Latin America have already gotten a refreshment stand to be in close proximity with the US and the major western hub. In turn, the effective communication between the client and the designer turns out to be more efficient and productive. It makes the overall scenario for outsourcing in Mexico more feasible and workable, actually.

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Making a website for your company helps you attract new and more clientele, make your brand recognition, execute online marketing strategies thus keep you stay ahead of the competition.

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

With so many new websites going online every day it is no wonder many of them never succeed. We all hear about the new site that has only been online less than a year and has millions of visitors each month. Why do some sites do so well and others flop? There are many reasons for this and these are just some of the more obvious and often overlooked ones.

The landing page takes too long to load. Many website designers and marketers believe everyone has a high-speed connection, which is not the case. Even with a fast connection many pages will take up to 30 seconds to load, which is just too long. Unless someone really wants what you have, and can?t get it anywhere else, they won?t wait; and forget about the person on dial-up. Unless yours is a hobby site, or sales are not important to you, forget about Flash and large fancy graphics.

Site is not finished. This may not seem like a big issue except that people who go looking for something don?t want to see an under-construction animation where the information should be. You just wasted their time and probably annoyed them ?- not a good start. Do not advertise or promote something you don?t have unless you are doing a product pre-launch, and never lead your visitor down a road to an empty page. Its one thing to upload an unfinished site for testing, however, don?t promote it.

Bad navigation. If you have ever gone to a site and got lost, then you know what I mean. You click on a link and another to the point you give up looking for the information or product and just do a re-search for another site. This type of marketing may work in an offline store but it has no place online. Offline you could keep a customer in your store by creating a maze and therefore introducing them to more of your products. Online this does not work ?- the exit is never more than a click away, and don?t forget it. Make your site easy to navigate and have links, at least to the home page, on every page. Never try to trap your visitor.

No contact information. While I am not saying you should give out your address and home phone number, you must at least have an email link on your site. Many sites do not have an email and use a contact form instead. These forms are usually to hide their identity and your visitors will pick up on that. Remember, people hide their identity for a reason. The more open you are with people, the more open they will be with you.

Old content. If you want to get repeat visitors, you need new content; it?s just that simple. Many sites never change and rely on new visitors and customers. This is the hard way to do business, as a repeat customer is much easier to sell to.

Broken Links. It is a good idea to manually check your links as often as possible. Take a run through your site on a regular basis and mainly check links heading off your site. If someone else changed their site and you are linking to them as an affiliate, for example, your link may get disabled. You internal links should not cause many problems, but it never hurts to check.

If you are expecting to get a full time income from your site expect to put some work into it. The ?build it and forget about it? idea only works for hobbyists etc.. Most people making a full-time income online work at it full-time, no matter what they would have you believe.

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Visit:

www.website-creating.co.uk

Freelance website design from only ?15 - a one-time fee! Websites created using Macromedia software and MS Office XP. Websites created for personal and business use. Examples given of completed websites, and more information found on the website.

Ask for your free quote today! No harm in having a look

About the Author

Robyn is the owner of www.website-creating.co.uk who has a passion for designing and creating websites at an extremely affordable price.