Web Design Tips That Make You A Smarter Site Designer

Everyone wants to become a great web designer. At the same time, few people are willing to put in the time and effort to learn the basics. If you are committed to learning web design, keep reading.

Make sure your website passes a test by NoScript. Download this extension in Firefox and see how your site looks. Some types of content, such as product ordering systems, wont work without scripts, however if your website looks completely blank without any scripts, you have work to do.

Frames have not been used on websites since the 90s. The fact is that while frames were popular in the past, they were simply one of many early techniques that were necessary then but are not today. They are the stone wheel of the Internet generation and should not be used today. Using frames makes it hard for viewers to bookmark your website and can make scrolling a chore. There are easier ways for you to give your users good flow throughout the website.

Minimize your page sizes. Not all Internet users have fast connection speeds, and the longer your site takes to load, the less interest they will have. If the wait is too long, your visitors may give up and leave.

Use ALT tags whenever possible. These helpful tags describe an image to a viewer, assisting the visually impaired, as well as those who prefer to browse without images. As an added bonus, some search engines include these tags in their rankings, so you may get a boost by using them.

To help your web pages load quickly, you should compress all the images on the website page. If you have images that are compressed then pages will load much faster. Nothing is more frustrating to viewers than waiting for a 250k graphic to load when it should really only be 20k.

While you want to keep the aesthetics of your site in mind, you also need to make every effort to keep your file sizes to a minimum. Your file sizes have a lot to do with the speed of your site loading. You want your website to load very quickly when potential clients visit. Bear in mind that some site visitors are still using dial-up. Perform a test of your website to be sure that it will load quickly on every speed of internet connection.

Do not use blinking, scrolling text or other animations. Also, steer clear of sounds or music that plays automatically. All of these things are distracting to users and provide nothing of value. In addition, connection speeds vary from one site visitor to the next, and everyone does not have the same speed. Those users with slower connections will resent the slow-loading elements of your site.

Learning some basic HTML will help you add some interesting extras to your site. For example, you can have words that follow your cursor, or a banner that flashes important information. Make sure to change the colors and fonts occasionally, so you seem more involved with the web site and its design.

Minimize the amount of clicking or scrolling visitors must do to access information. The more a user has to click or scroll around to find the information they seek, the more likely they are to give up looking for it. Aim for having at least 400 words on every page of your site by combining pages that have content that falls below this number of words.

Now that you are better equipped to engage in web design, you should be able to profit from it. No matter what the purpose of the websites you are designing, you can earn a tidy profit by doing so.