Archive for the ‘design’ Category

This post is dedicated to some common mistakes that may make your website hard to read. A hard to read website can send your website visitors away to other pages listed in their index of search results. The idea of having a website is keeping your visitors on your page and getting them interested enough in your products or services to contact you. Avoiding these common mistakes that make your website hard to read may help.

Appropriate contrast between text and background is important so your content can be read easily. You don’t want your website visitors squinting to see what you write, so make text as readable as possible with high contrast against the background.

Don’t tire out your reader by writing long paragraphs. By breaking up the text into shorter paragraphs and using headings to break up the page, you give your reader the ability to scan your website page much easier.

Avoid using wide columns so your reader’s eye doesn’t get lost following a long line of text. Divide your text into multiple columns or use right and left margins to fit everything on the screen.

Highlighting with bold, italics, bullet points and hyperlinks can break up your paragraphs as well. Draw your readers into your website by linking to other pages that have a common theme with what you are writing about.

Avoid long website pages and using too many navigation links because this is just too much for the reader to take in. Keeping a minimum of links could keep your readers from being overwhelmed by so much to choose from.

Avoid these mistakes that make your website hard to read and you may find that your visitors will stay on your website longer when you track your stats. Visitors that stay on your website longer are more likely to use your products and services because they are impressed with how comfortable your website makes them feel.

Read more on related subjects on my blog:

Small Business Website Navigation
Small Business Website Home Page Advice
The 7 Best Website Optimization Techniques
10 Ways to Come Up With Blog Post Ideas

I’ve recently added a site index for the resources section of my website, seeing as it has grown to over 150 pages. A site index, much like a table of contents, has made navigation much easier because now you can see an entire section of my website at a glance.

The difference between a site index and a sitemap is that a sitemap is usually organized by importance or navigation, where a site index is an alphabetical order list index. This site index provides content overview at a glance to help my visitors navigate around my website. This way I could help engage my website visitors and interest them to navigate through other pages of my website.

By adding a site index to your website you offer easier navigation, more stickiness, increased SEO, and a clear layout of what your website contains. In turn, this could lead to greater traffic and more customers to your business. Have a look at my My Webdesign Resources Site Index.

Read my blog posts on:

Add a Google Searchbox to Your Website
Sitemaps For Your Website

For effective website design I tend to follow these tips to design a fast loading website. Website visitors won’t usually have the patience for a site to load and skip to the next one in search results. A fast loading website can help avoid missing out on potential customers who don’t want to wait for a website to load.

Minimal Number of Images
Minimize the number of images you use on a website and make them simple because load time is more important than a flashy site.

Optimize Your Images
Make sure images are in gif or jpeg format and minimize the image size for fast loading.

Minimal Animated Gifs
Animated gifs can take a long time to load and can distract your website visitors. Using smaller animated gifs could be used to redirect your visitor’s attention to a particular section of your website.

Small and Simple Icons
Avoid large and bulky images because they slow down loading time significantly.

Background Images Instead of Big Images
Using background images for headers and footers reduces the size of the web page, and decreases loading time.

Use CSS Stylesheets
CSS stylesheets can create pleasant text effects and rollovers and still maintain a fast loading website with simple yet good looking text effects.

Utilize Flash Sparingly
Using minimal flash can help your website load faster as well. Flash may slow down loading time for your visitors, and they might just move on to the next website in search engine results.

Design Mostly With HTML
Use HTML as much as possible, using tables, simple fonts, CSS stylesheets and minimize gifs, Flash and bulky images.

Next you can check your load time and get a free evaluation of your website at WebsiteOptimization.com to improve website performance. This tool helps calculate download time, web page size and composition, and incorporates latest, best practices of optimization, web page size trends and guidelines, and website optimization techniques.

Have a look at my website for more about Websiteoptimization.com at my Website Speed Diagnosis Report page. Also have a look at these other tips on my blog.

Using SEO tools for website design can give you the cutting edge over your competition. When you keep track of your backlinks, domain stats, duplicate content, keywords and keyword density, and Google, Yahoo and Alexa rank, you may be indexed more often with search engines. When your website is indexed better by search engines, the amount of your website visitors may increase, in turn generating a greater number of potential customers.

SEO Tools from Tools For Search Engine Optimization:

Alexa Ranking Tool
Backlink Builder
Backlink Anchor Text Analysis
Backlink Summary
Check Yahoo WebRank
Domain Age Tool
Domain Stats Tool
Keyword Density Checker
Keyword Playground
Keyword-Rich Domain Suggestion Tool
Link Price Calculator
Reciprocal Link Check
Redirect Check
Search Engine Spider Simulator
Similar Page Checker
URL Rewriting Tool
Website Keyword Suggestions
Website to Country

Before utilizing a website you may need to evaluate it and be assured the website is a reliable source for information. Here are some of the ways to evaluate a website quickly and easily so you can feel confident about trusting them.

Consider the website’s first impressions, that it looks good and catches your attention. The purpose for the website should be clear whether it’s for goods or services.

The pages of the website should be clear, easy to comprehend, and not too cluttered with text and images. Colors that clash should be avoided and the font size should be clear and readable.

The content should be current and up-to-date. Check whether the website’s blog has been written on recently, and that all information is recent and accurate. Checking the information given can give you a clear concept of the owner’s level of expertise.

Have a look at the navigation of the website you are evaluating. When you roll over the links at the top or left hand side, you should see the landing page at the bottom of your browser.

The website should have contact details on the home page such as phone numbers, email address, and business address, giving a personal feel for the website you are evaluating.

In the search engine you use, change the keywords a few times to see if you can still find that company with just a small amount of information.

By checking when the domain was registered, you can see how legitimate the website is. The age of the domain is an indicator of a trustable website because generally, a legitimate website should be registered for at least a year or two.

Checking the traffic rank of the website could indicate it’s value. These websites are useful to check traffic rank:
Alexa.com
Compete.com
Quantcast.com

By evaluating websites for online value, you can feel more comfortable online by knowing who to trust. You can analyze a website with “Who Is” from GoDaddy.com.

Check the Page Rank for a Website

Use these Webmaster Tools on your website to monitor your pagerank, paid links, competition’s keywords and much more to keep the leading edge in website design.

Here’s a list of Website Design Webmaster Tools:

Adsense Preview Tool- Find adsense ads connected with a website
Browser Checker- Check info passed to the server by your browser
DoFollow Blogs Search Engine- Find blogs without a nofollow tag in comments
Google Pagerank Checker- Bulk check of Googlerank
HTML Code Obfuscator- Encode your mailto links
HTML Encoder- Encode your HTML
Keyword Density Analyzer- Find the keywords used by your competitors
Online .htpasswd Generator- Generate a password restricting file and folder access
Paid Links Detector- Detect if paid links are in a website
Search Engine Update Monitor- Find out when search engines change algorithms
Site Information Tool- View pagerank and whois info

Find out more about Website Design Webmaster Tools

Have a look at these other Resources for Web Design:

Website Design Tools
Web Browser Add Ons
Useful Web Design Resources
Website Design Webmaster Tools
Other Free Useful Resources Online
Useful Computer Maintenance Tools

Add your contact information to every page of your website and give your website visitors the option of contacting you for business no matter what page they might land on. This gives you a better chance of being easily found by your website visitors.

When someone finds your website in a search engine, they might land on any webpage that you have. By having the contact information at the bottom of every page, you give your website visitors the option to contact you no matter where they land. Keeping your email address, phone number, and perhaps even your address at the bottom of each page of your website is a good practice for making good use of your website traffic.

When you add your contact information to every page of your website, you make it easier for your website visitors to reach you for business. Keeping an easily accessible line of communication between your website visitors and your business can make it easier to turn visitors into customers.

Use different website browsers for cross-compatibility to see how a website will display differently in each. Have a look in my resources section at Different Website Browsers for Cross-Compatibility for options to download multiple browsers whether you use a Mac or a PC.

By using different website browsers surfing the internet you may find that certain features give you a more positive experience in certain website browsers.

Webdesigners utilize multiple website browsers to find out whether a site is cross-compatible, meaning it displays properly in each website browser. When your website displays properly in different website browsers, your visitor gets to see your site in the way you intended:

Downloadable website browsers for PC:
Internet Explorer 8
Google Chrome
Opera
Firefox
Safari

Visit Different Website Browsers for Cross-Compatibility for a list of alternate downloadable browsers including those for the Mac.

Have a look at these other Resources for Web Design:
Website Design Tools
Web Browser Add Ons
Useful Web Design Resources
Website Design Webmaster Tools
Other Free Useful Resources Online

It’s helpful to have a custom 404 error default page that allows the visitor to continue navigation on your small business website. Rather than having the default error page come up when a visitor types the address improperly, a custom error default page allows the visitor to continue navigation within your website instead of having them continue to the next site in search results. This may aid your website visitors by giving them the option to continue on to other sections of your website instead of continuing on to another site indexed in search results.

A custom 404 error default page can have the same look as the other pages of your website to keep visitors from exiting right away. By using a custom error default page that has the same links across the top, your visitor can continue naviation within your website. It’s always better to have one more potential customer staying on your small business website instead of losing them.

By making a custom 404 error default page you’ll increase stickiness, aid potential customers in navigation on your website on improper links, and hold the interest of your visitor with your own custom website page. This can keep small business website owners from losing visitors, and turn them into potential customers instead.

See My Custom 404 Error Default Page

Custom small business CMS website design is what my business is all about. Whether you want to convert your existing website to a CMS Content Management System, or create a new custom small business website, I can help.

I specialize in natural methods to get small business websites on Google page one by using Whitehat SEO. By comparing Website Design Quality vs. Cost you’ll realize that you get what you pay for, and that choosing my website design service is like choosing a Porsche over a Pinto. You can spend less for a website, but you need the engine to drive a Winning Website and get to Google Page One.

Custom small business CMS website design is all about giving the customer the ability to add pages in plain text, translated into perfect XHTML without code errors, and invest time instead of money hiring a website designer to add, edit or delete pages. By letting Coderepair handle your website design, you’ll find you’re getting a website worth $5,000 to $10,000 for a fraction of the cost.

Related Blog Posts on Custom CMS Website Design:

Ideas for Creating a Sticky Website
Website Design Quality vs. Cost
Comparison of Static and Dynamic Sites
Small Business Website Home Page Advice
Obtaining a Winning Website
How I Hit Google Page One in Two Months
The 7 Best Website Optimization Techniques
Advantages of CMS In Website Design
Custom CMS Website Design Advantages