Posts Tagged ‘design’

There was a need for a new custom CMS website design template for my site and a cleaner layout for easier navigation.  I decided to do an entirely new design and change a few things around for the desired look.  Compare the old home page at the left of this blog post and the new one to the right.  By moving the sidebar from the left to the right, using a lighter scheme of colors and changing the fonts, button styles and background, this is a look that I can be proud of to represent my business.

In order to solve the situation with having a clean, easy to navigate website, moving the Custom Google Search Box to the top of the sidebar seemed like a good idea.  Also now it’s easy to add different items into the sidebar exclusive to certain sections of my website.  This clean layout with lighter colors gives my website visitors a more pleasant browsing experience.

As a result, by using a new custom CMS design template for my website, navigation is easier and an improved browsing experience is attained.  Customizing the sidebar for each section is the next step, but for now, enjoy exploring my site for more tips and advice on small business website design.

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.

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

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

Color reference tools for website design can be useful to come up with color schemes for a website, names for hexadecimal values and vice versa.

Finding out HTML color values in hexadecimal notation, putting together color themes and identifying color names is necessary for coming up with website templates. With these free tools for website design you can easily pick and choose the hues that suit the color palette for your small business website.

By using color generators, schemers and color value identifiers you’ll find coming up with an aesthetically pleasing website design can be fast and easy.

Have a look at the Color Finder page on this website for these and other color reference tools for website design.

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

The previous custom cms website launch for Masterson Construction earlier this month included an announcement that a matching blog was planned and involved performing a Blogger to WordPress blog conversion. The general contractor matching WordPress blog has been converted and launched.

During evaluation of the blog content it was decided to enhance the seo, or search engine optimization, of all the posts going back two years. Post headlines, URLs, and on page content was changed to improve the seo value. To maintain rank value of these aged pages, custom 301 redirects were included in the htaccess file to forward external links pointing to old file names to the new file names created in the redesign. In addition to posts, labels became categories, plus archive file names all required redirects to maintain the existing seo value, as well.

Moving the existing blog to WordPress provides ease of use and near perfect xhtml code quality, plus optional plugins that were easy to install for added functions of social bookmarks, seo automation, and automatic database backup operation. While Blogger is fine, and my choice for a blog platform, WordPress is considered superior especially for site owners without advanced technical skills.

Have a look at these other blog related posts that give tips and advice on writing blog posts, filtering spam, writing to increase traffic, WordPress advantages over Blogger, ways to come up with post ideas and more.

Have a look at other posts regarding website launches.

A new converted website design for Masterson Construction of Los Angeles and Orange County, California launched recently in a cms content management system. Jack Masterson wanted a well-designed layout with quality search engine optimization to attract visitor traffic. My intent is to eventually redesign the blog as well to match the “new look”.

Masterson Construction is a licensed general contractor in California for residential and commercial construction, remodeling, and additions. The conversion of Masterson Construction has recently been completed from static pages to a custom CMS content management system design. His website has been designed for better search engine optimization by concentrating on how the competition hit google page one and focusing on what people search for to find this business niche.

Success online depends on a growing website. The benefit of having a custom CMS website design is that you can add content to your website without paying your designer for each revision. This allows Jack to upgrade his website constantly by investing time instead of money.

High quality similar to the revised design is what you can expect from CodeRepair. Learn more about the advantages of a cms custom website design by exploring our site, or email us from any page with questions about a new custom website redesign for your small business or for a prompt quote on your next web design project.

Have a look at other posts regarding website launches.