Are you interested in learning about San Diego Web Design? But there are lots of people with a high level of proficiency out there too; it’s highly competitive. This article will give you some tips on how to get a leg up on the competition.
Be sure you have a search tool that lets others search when on your site. If visitors to your website are searching for something in particular, they will immediately look for the search box. When one is not available, chances are they will move to a site that is searchable. Always put the search box on the page’s upper right corner, since this is where visitors usually look first.
Break up long text blocks. Having a huge wave of text is unnecessary for any site, especially when you can break it up by using images, or even separating it into different pages. Boring your viewers will only make them leave, so keep things as simple and fresh as possible.
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.
Make sure you design your website with older Internet Explorer versions in mind. People may say they dislike Internet Explorer, but a majority of them still use it. This creates problems for web designers, but there are things that can be done. Familiarize yourself with the concept of the notorious “box model bug” which caused trouble for Internet Explorer for years.
For your image tags, always try to include a brief description in the ALT attribute. Not only is this good for search engine optimization, but it is also beneficial to the sight-impaired users who rely on screen readers to describe image tag contents. Make your description short and as descriptive as possible.
Be sure the websites you’re designing are cross-browser compatible. You must check your site in the most popular versions of every top browser. Some examples include Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Many users use these browsers for surfing online, so you need to be sure your designs are being seen correctly on whatever they use.
Use conditional loading and independent CSS pages when creating your site. These two things make maintenance and testing simpler. You have to maintain your website, so why not keep it simple and easy?
Watch the amount of flashy multimedia that is on your site. Don’t overdo it with a bunch of “extras”. Flash graphics and multimedia may appear enticing, but these may make it difficult for visitors to find the desired information from the site, particularly if they’re viewing your site from a non-Flash compatible device.
Visitors do not enjoy seeing a website counter on your page. You may think it’s improving your site, when in fact, it is not desirable. As you can see, the counter can be counterproductive and you can use other tools in the back office or online to check visitor count.
Become familiar with photoshop as much as you can if you are just starting out with web design. You want to be as diverse with a lot of programs as possible and photoshop is crucial towards becoming a pro at web design. So learn this program and get ready for others as well.
Make sure your site includes a search box. This is really important, because people are accustomed to having that function, and when they want to find something on your site, they need to be able to find it. If they can’t find what they need, they may leave your site altogether.
It’s important to keep your learning moving forward all the time to become the best designer possible. Apply the tips you’ve just been given, but don’t every stop learning. Every new bit of information you learn will make you better than you were before.