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HTML - 15 Important Website Design Tips
Hey Chaps, Being a professional web designer, I used to read articles in this discipline and recently got a superb one and thought of sharing it with you..
Here are 15 important website design tips that you might not be aware of or have overlooked. Consider taking advantage of them if you haven't already done so... 1. Custom 404 Pages Create a custom 404 web page, so that any time your website visitor mistypes or misspells a URL on your site, they will still be provided with navigation options for your site (instead of getting nothing but a "Page Not Found" error message, which is neither friendly or helpful). 2. Redirect Non-www. To www. Website visitors will often leave out the "www." portion when they type a URL or link to your website. Set the website up so that it automatically redirects any non-www version of your domain URLs (http://domain. com) to the www version (http://www.domain. com) of your website. 3. Properly Sized Graphics Size and define all graphics and images on your web pages properly and correctly. Web pages will load quicker if the graphics contained on each page are properly defined so they don't require the web browser to re-size them. Properly sized and defined images can reduce the web browser workload and speed up the page loading time. 4. Favicon Add a Favicon (favorite icon) to your website, so that your company or product logo appears in the URL box. This icon will also show up in a bookmark list, and gives the web site an added level of professionalism. 5. Include RSS Auto-Discovery If you offer an RSS feed for any content on your website, be sure to include auto-discovery code in the header of your website. This will allow many browsers and RSS readers to automatically detect the presence of an RSS feed and alert the visitor that it is available. 6. Alternate Domains Domain names are relatively inexpensive, so you should register multiple domain versions and extensions in order to protect your brand. The varied domains can be parked on the main website, simply to prevent others from obtaining them. Registering alternate domain versions will help protect your brand. 7. Consistent Navigation Navigation should remain consistent on a website. As a website visitor moves through the website, the navigation bar should remain in the same place on each page. This will make it easier for visitors to navigate your website, and become more comfortable as they move through your site. 8. Home Goes Home The main graphic, company logo, or "header" at the top of the site should be included on every page in the site, and should always return the visitor to the home page of the website. This has become a web standard, and most visitors now expect to return to the main page of the site simply by clicking on the main top graphic from any page within the site. 9. Copyright Notice Include a copyright notice on the bottom of each page contained on the website, and keep it current! It may seem trivial, but an out-of-date copyright notice can send a message to your visitors that the website and its content may be out-of-date as well. 10. Meaningful File Names Use meaningful file names for any files, graphics, or web pages. Many search engines look at file names as part of their search algorithm, and using keywords in file names may help to improve search engine rankings. 11. Hyphens vs Underscores When naming files and webpages, use hyphens (i.e. web-page.html) rather than underscores (i.e. web_page.html) for the file names. It is much easier for search engines to separate and index the keywords when hyphens are used. 12. Alt Tags Use ALT tags to describe what images represent on web pages. ALT tags not only assist visually-impaired visitors in knowing what the images are, but they also help with search engine ranking. 13. Spell Check Use a spell-check feature on the text of all web pages in a website. A website that contains mistyped or misspelled words just shouts "unprofessional". Take the extra few minutes necessary to check the spelling of text on each page of your website. 14. Test After making changes to a website, test it! Many times, a webmaster will upload changes, confident in their abilities, only to later discover that in their attempt to fix one thing, they have "broken" something somewhere else. Make testing a habit after making even the most minor changes! 15. Keep It Simple Simple is good. Remove unnecessary clutter and distractions from a website and navigation menu. ... Good luck mate.. TIA for your response. Similar TutorialsIts Look: Your site looks fresh and modern, while maintaining the same brand image you're offline. Choose the same colors for your website if you use in other marketing materials, and the same logo. The site must be visually appealing, with many interesting features, but not too finicky or distracting. The layout should be easy to understand, let visitors to the site easy to navigate to the pages they want. Put Your Customers First Thinking about search engines and how your page rank in Google is great, but there is no point if your visitors will simply click away from your site within a few seconds of landing. Your goal is to convert visitors into customers, so make sure your site is customer friendly. Keep popular items and contact information easy to find and keep multiple menus where visitors click a few links to find the information they need to bury your site structure. Do not Be spammy This follows from the above point, that your site must be designed primarily for visitors with SEO as a secondary consideration. Not stuff your pages full of keywords so that the content does not make sense. You also need to clearly send the wrong tactics such as adding a list of keywords to the bottom of your pages, and cluttering the site with too much advertising. Make it quick Online visitors want information fast, and they have no patience to wait while a large image or fancy graphics load. Make sure your pages load quickly, with key information charging first. If you have large files or videos, put them in a position where the reader can still browse the rest of the page, while the larger elements to load. If you have a Flash site to think about offering an alternative simple html link for visitors with slow Internet connection. Do your homework Think long and hard about your audience before you search Use Neat and Easy Navigation You make sure your site is browser compatible Minimize the use of images Use of white space Check for broken links Design for all Screen Resolution Typography Colors use good Layout make perfect Fast Loading web site designs. Clear Navigation. Browser Compatibility. YAY SOLVED THANKS TO COOTHEAD This thing is driving me nuts... over the last 36 hours i, along with a helpfull member of this community have been trying to fix some SIMPLE code that wasnt broken in the first place. It displays fine, when tested in Dreamweaver, tests fine in IE, FF. The several adjusted codes even display fine inside the test previewer of the mail program on www.yourmailinglistprovider.com ! The trouble starts when the email HTML code gets sent to the Gmail & Hotmail inbox. Both my inbox' are stuffed with test mails.. and it isnt going to end any time soon I have CODE 2 that wont load up the CSS image tags. And CODE 1 that wont display the text in its right position, not on top of the image, instead it shows it way down, like so: http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/2625/frustration.jpg So finally... i discovered, why.. the Gods have put me in this misfortune. Google Mail is in BETA, and that means the following: Quote: Google Mail, LotusNotes, and Outlook 2007 present special coding problems. The good news? If you code to account for their oddities, your html email code is more likely to display well in most if not all email software. Because Google cannot control how senders will code CSS and HTML, they have to take steps to ensure their application displays properly regardless of the code quality of the html email that is displayed. As a result, Google Mail acts like an artifact of the mid 1990s when web standards were primitive. It takes some work, but it is possible to crack open a Google Mail page and see just how convoluted their approach is to rendering html email. For one thing, Google Mail deletes any CSS style reference to a set of styles, no matter where it appears in the email. And fonts displayed in html tables have the odd habit of appearing larger than intended no matter how the html email is coded. &#^&%$@3(*(2@#*&y#!!............................. Why Now all my work ive put into this could be all for nothing,.. since I believe the solution given by the website is too far fetched for this amateur. The solution: Quote: Here are coding techniques that appear to work well in Google Mail and older email softwa * Define the background color in a TD cell with bgcolor=, not the CSS style. * Use the background= attribute in the TD cell for background images, not the CSS. A corollary is that the background image can be made as tall as needed. If the content of an email template might be short or tall depending on the email content, using an extra-tall background image this way lets the email layout height shrink or expand based on the height of the copy from one email to the next. Note, however, that Outlook 2007 ignores background images. * If it works better, use the padding style to control margins within a TD cell. The margin style does not work in these cells. Padding does work. * If a border around a TD cell is needed, Google Mail displays a border when defined in a DIV but not when defined as a border style in a TD tag. * If a light colored link against a dark background color is needed, put the font definition in the TD cell (so it applies to P and A tags equally) then add a color= style to the A tag. * If the P and A fonts appear to be different sizes, wrap the A tag in a P tag. * Google Mail aggressively uses the right column of their interface which squeezes the html email into the center panel. Be sure the padding style in the content TDs is set at 10 pixels all round so text does not smash against the left and right edges. * When testing an html email with a Google Mail account, it is likely one or more missing font styles in the TD, H1, H2, P, A, and other tags will be found. Inspect every font carefully to make sure Google Mail displays the fonts correctly. SOURCE I need either of these two amateuristic codes (they are basically the same) re-coded with the rules up above. Could anyone who can do this fluently without breaking a sweat help me out? I am near desperation and willing to transfer a fee to whatever paypal account. I just need this mail template sent out asap. Thank you for reading. CODE 1: HTML Code: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html lang="en">
<head>
<base href="http://xx.com/">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="language" content="english">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<title></title>
<style type="text/css">
#container{
width:711px;
margin:auto;
font-family:verdana,sans serif;
font-size:16px;
background-image:url(blokje.png);
}
#pic {
display:block;
}
#content {
padding:0 0 60px 50px;
background-image:url(onderkantcurve.png);
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-position:0 bottom;
}
#p-one {
font-weight:bold;
color:#410d3e;
}
#pic-one {
text-align:center;
}
#pic-one img {
width:170px;
height:190px;
}
#link {
font-size:12px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p align="center"><font face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="http://xx.com/template3.html">Klik hier voor de web-versie mocht de nieuwsbrief niet goed worden weergegeven.</a></font></p>
<div id="container">
<img id="pic" src="top.png" alt="">
<div id="content">
<p id="p-one">
Nieuwsbrief februari 2010
</p><p><br>
Beste Lezer van mijn eerste nieuwsbrief,
</p><p>
Graag wil ik je opmerkzaam maken op de nieuwste activiteiten van <br>
Sessio Communications.
</p><br>
<p id="pic-one">
<img src="koord.jpg" alt=""><br>
<a href="http://www.xx.com">www.xx.com</a>
</p><p>
<br>
Ik nodig je van harte uit om <a href="http://www.xx.com">mijn website</a> te bezoeken.<br>
Reacties zijn welkom. Doorsturen naar andere belangstellenden mag. <br>
<a href="[FORWARDTOFRIEND]">Stuur deze email door naar een vriend of vriendin.</a></p>
</p><p>
Mocht je geen belangstelling hebben om op de hoogte te blijven van<br>
mijn verschillende workshops en trainingen dan kun je dat via de <br>
link onderaan de pagina aangeven. Je e-mail adres wordt dan verwijderd.
</p><p><br>
Met vriendelijke groet,
</p>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<p align="center"><font face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="http://ymlp154.com/u.php?YMLPID=gejseubgsguejeg"> Uitschrijven / Gegevens wijzigen </a></font></p>
</body>
</html>
CODE 2: HTML Code: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html lang="en">
<head>
<base href="http://xx.com/">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="language" content="english">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<title></title>
<style type="text/css">
#container{
position:relative;
width:711px;
height:910px;
margin:auto;
font-family:verdana,sans serif;
font-size:16px;
}
#pic {
position:absolute;
top:0;
left:0;
}
#content {
position:absolute;
top:170px;
left:50px;
width:651px;
height:680px;
}
#p-one {
font-weight:bold;
color:#410d3e;
}
#pic-one {
text-align:center;
}
#pic-one img {
width:170px;
height:190px;
}
#link {
font-size:12px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p align="center"><font face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="http://xx.com/template3.html">Klik hier voor de web-versie mocht de nieuwsbrief niet goed worden weergegeven.</a></font></p>
<div id="container">
<img id="pic" src="big.png" alt="">
<div id="content">
<p id="p-one">
Nieuwsbrief Februari 2010
</p><p><br>
Beste Lezer van mijn eerste nieuwsbrief,
</p><p>
Graag wil ik je opmerkzaam maken op de nieuwste activiteiten van <br>
Sessio Communications.
</p>
<p id="pic-one">
<img src="koord.jpg" alt=""><br>
<a href="http://www.xx.com">www.xx.com</a>
</p><p>
<br>
Ik nodig je van harte uit om <a href="http://www.xx.com">mijn website</a> te bezoeken.<br>
Reacties zijn welkom. Doorsturen naar andere belangstellenden mag. <br>
<a href="[FORWARDTOFRIEND]">Stuur deze email door naar een vriend of vriendin.</a></p>
</p><p>
Mocht je geen belangstelling hebben om op de hoogte te blijven van<br>
mijn verschillende workshops en trainingen dan kun je dat via de <br>
link onderaan de pagina aangeven. Je e-mail adres wordt dan verwijderd.
</p><p><br>
Met vriendelijke groet,
</p>
</div>
</div>
<p align="center"><font face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="http://ymlp154.com/u.php?YMLPID=gejseubgsguejeg"> Uitschrijven / Gegevens wijzigen </a></font></p>
</body>
</html>
Thanks for reading.. Hi Guys, I have owned one website, Can anyone Get me some good Tips for get traffic to my website ?? Im trying to copy the design of http://www.bluelounge.com but for the content instead of a page, i was trying to make it iFrame. Because i will be putting a streaming music on the Nav bar on the left, and its not going to be moving so its just stuck there while the iframe resizes and scrolls on different pages. What im having trouble with is, i have no idea on how to code the iFrame so that its the main scroll bar and i dont know how to automatically resize it. The main page for the iFrame is going to be the contents of a blog from blogspot.com Can someone help me please? Thanks! Here is what i want. Hello, I've been working on the design for this website - http://www.keison.co.uk/test/ . The side menus are in javascript, which I realise is not a generally good thing, as this website's search engine rankings are important. However, my way to combat this is to use the text links at the bottom of the page (specifically the Product Index) to list the other pages on the website, so that technically every single page can be indexed via standard text links. My question is by doing the above, will this have any adverse effect on search engine rankings? Any help is appreciated. Hello! I need a website built and have very basic knowledge of html. I will be selling t-shirts and need a professional looking web page. I want the customer to be able to select a variety of options for each t-shirt, starting with size. Once size is picked, the available options for colors will reduce to the available colors for that size t-shirt. Once color is picked, the available options for the type of shirt will reduce whatever types of red XL t-shirts I have in stock (v-neck, button up, tee, etc). As well as t-shirts I will also be selling other product, which will just be added to cart, with no customization. I would also like a shipping estimate for the customer's cart based on their zipcode. I also need a referral program added into the site. I want to be able to give some my url with their code in the string that will automatically add 30% of the profit they generate on my site. Note: this is profit made from each product, not revenue. I want them to be able to be able to check their balances quick and easy. This is the basic layout I would like, if you have any other ideas feel free to implement them or ask my opinion. I will choose the design that I feel is: a.) simple to use and edit, b.) looks professional, c.) user friendly. Thank you for your time and their will be more chances at making money from your home in the future. Hey, Well I'm a complete newbie to html and css, I only know the basics and I'm designing a companies website(dont ask why). The design is attached and I have a question. The image used under the menu is a FrontPage Slideshow it will have around 5 images and change around every 5 seconds. The menu is a dropdown menu also, so what I want to know is it possible to make all of this using Dreamweaver and Inkscape or Photoshop or Gimp or whatever as long as its free or low cost. I already tried making it using Dreamweaver but as I said I'm a real newbie so I couldnt really od anything the main problem was making a menu which i couldn't find out how to and a slideshow/imagerotator. Sorry the design wouldn't attach but here it is Oh and the dots and stuff was me just checking how much I could write. Hi friend i want to design my personal website,Please anyone can help me or suggest some resources. Heylo, been a frequent visitor of here for awhile now but never registered. Anywho, I'm in a bit of a stuck position with a website of mine for our family's condo we have in Destin, FL. I created the website maybe 3 years ago or so, when I knew little coding and what not, so I did everything in images using Adobe Photoshop. Well, it's gotten really old/annoying to have to do the updating for my Dad & Step Mom and I'd like to make it into a regular website that they can update themselves. Sooo, I need to make it into a site where they can use an html editor to add text/images w/o using photoshop and moving everything. Here's the website link to check it out for yourself: www.sundestinresort.com I recently updated it to make it have a small bit of php so that the header and footer only load once, while the middle part (including the side navigation) is an image alone with lots of maps for the links using Fireworks 8. I'd really like to know how I can make it so that I can have the navigation on the left side alone, and then have the main text area an editable region. If this means losing the background image and making it white, that's acceptable. I'm not really sure how to do this really (tables?) or what, so ANY help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance, and I hope I've given enough info on what I'd like to do to get a couple good responses about this. -Brent Hi everyone! I've been away for quite a while and I'm very happy to see things are still up and running around here It's been a fairly long time since I've focused on website development. However I find myself back in the saddle and ready to shine away my rustyness Over the past several months I have noticed many sites around the world changing their website designs to a more image oriented design and with eye-pleasing results to many of their visitors. Does anybody know if there is some sort of "website design standards" that came out detailing these new kinds of websites? @Scoutt: I bet you know right off the top of your head -- Thanks in Advance everyone! ucm Ok I need to take things like this forum: http://lmiinc.com/forum/ http://lmiinc.com/forum/calendar.php And make it active on the new site I'm building for LMI. So what files exactly do I need to copy to the new directory & then reference as a link in my navigation bar in all of my .html files? Hello, I need help... I am making website for Ipod/iPhone games... It will be most for Game Friend codes.. However I can't find any info how to make option that if person will want to add code.. I need that box for puting code and then that code goes to the lines for example: http://www.petslivecodes.com/ This site is not my, but I want to make same or similar table with option that person will be able to add his friend code... Please It will be great if I Get this help. I post here because I think it is just html code.. But I am to dum make one ^^^ Waiting For help so Bad =0 Replay here if u know how to do it I will pay you Through paypal for INFO Hi, i seem to remember that it was possible to have a different layout in IE and FF by using "!important" somewhere in the css page. does this still work? how does it work exactly? thanks You might say that html, body, or head are most important as maybe search engines are not so forgiving of seriously faulty markup. This poll is more for keywords - which tag is most important for keyword optimization? title there is three technique of seo . black hat technique white hat technique i wud like tell u white hat technique . there is two process of seo on page title code meta keyword meta description analytics code w3 validation off page optimization. book marking submission directory submission press release submission....... and many more This is my feeling on the entire subject. .net is a perfectly acceptable domain extension, it is valid and I have never really heard of .net domains as disrespectful. However, the majority of internet users when typing in a web address will by reflex use the .com extension. So, if you only have one domain and it is .net, the odds are pretty good a person typing your web address in their browser window will type xyz.com and not .net, leading them to never reach your website. For the domain name you really like, would it still make sense if you added the two letters va (for virtual assistant) after it? You can always purchase your second choice domain and keep an eye out for your favorite (they expire, so at some point down the road you may be able to purchase it). One other piece of advice, buy both .com and .net domain extensions for the domain you choose. Domains can be purchased pretty inexpensively...this way you are covered should a person use the .com OR .net extension when typing in your web address. hi my friends I have question and please answer me, how to write the HTML code design a calculator? Hi, First of all I want to thank you ahead whoever can help me out with this; I need someone to help me to finish the table layout that I have attached in the picture This is the code I got so far but now I'm just stuck; HTML Code: <html> <head> <title> Sep 7 Tables</title> </head> <body> <!--Table code--> <table bgcolor="yellow" width="100%" height="100%" border="2" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="20"> <tr height="100"> <td colspan="2" align="center">This area is the header for logo</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2" width="40%">Links <table WIDTH="100%" BORDER="1" bgcolor="white"> <tr> <td> Nested table-r1c1</td> </tr> </table> </td> <td height="2" align="center">New </td> </tr> <tr height="199"> <td colspan="2" align="center">Sports</td> </tr> <tr height="50"> <td colspan="2" align="center">copyright</td> </tr> <!--end Table code--> </body> </html> thank you Hi all i am new to this forum i am designing my forum in html language i need a very important html code that prevent visitor from viewing the content before registration could any member help me plz ? best of luck for all I have been creating a number of sites just using title pages and i never used meta tags such as keywords and description. i now realised that someone advised that many pages goes into similar ones shown by google. so, do i need to use meta tags? is not using meta tags hurt my se rankings? |
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