Advice To Enhance Your Web Design Skills

An online business must have a quality web design to be successful. Your competitors could easily be beaten if you properly plan your website design. You may not know how to do this, but this article will help you out. You will learn some things that can help you with web design.

Make sure your text and background has the proper contrast. There’s evidence showing that white text on a black background is easiest for most people to read, but other colors are fine so long as they’re readable. Also keep in mind that people with visual impairments may not be able to read your site if the contrast is poor. Check to see if your site complies with various contrast standards using the tool at http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html .

Watch your use of color combinations when building your site. Be sure that your written content is clearly visible and easy to read against the background you choose. Using dark colored text on a light colored background generally ensures that the text is easy for visitors to read. Ask your friends to give you feedback on the colors you choose.

Although it is common to see the www. at the front of a website URL, you should try to make sure that you can access your site whether you choose to include it or not. This will make it much easier for anyone to access regardless of how they type it.

Learn the basics of HTML and CSS. Although there are many templates that allow you to just fill in the blanks, in order to create a web page, these templates provide only limited design possibilities. Understanding how the mark-up language and stylesheet work together will enable you to customize your website to your heart’s content.

To help your website visitors find their way home on your site, always include a link to your homepage on each page of your site. Having a home page link that is visible allows your reader to easily make their way back to starting point. If you do not have a home page link then your visitors might get frustrated and leave your site altogether.

Choose your web host carefully. Some hosts require you to link to them, while others may force you to install their pop-ups. You should also test their performance using one of the many tools available for free online, as you do not want to host with someone who is consistently slow or crashing.

Avoid using animated GIFs on your site. These were popular in the late 1990s, but newer technologies have replaced the uses for animated GIFs that were actually useful. Animated GIFs are low in quality and large in file size. Use static icons for page elements and actual video files for complex animations.

Choose fonts that are legible, and look professional. The quality of a professional website is measured by it’s fonts. Do not employ exotic fonts that will be absent from many visitors’ computers or over-used fonts such as Comic Sans. If you use a font that not everyone has, a default font will appear on their computer. Doing this can make it look even worse.

Hosting your own site is not a good idea. Having an experienced team of experts running your server for you, including upgrading the software and dealing with hardware failure, will leave you time to focus on your site itself.

As you read, your site’s web design is what will make or break you. A poorly designed site can end your online career before one dollar is earned or launch your finances to a new level. However, you must first keep some things in mind. Apply what you learned from this article for effective web design.