In many countries around the world, there is a high potential for you needing to produce a bilingual web design. This could be anywhere that the website owner is trying to reach a wider audience. Perhaps by catering for ex-pats or in fact where a country has more than one native language.

You may have to produce a combined English/French site but this could easily be English/Spanish, Portuguese/Spanish or any other combination for that matter. Also it does not necessarily follow that English will be the lead language e.g. you could be producing a French/English arrangement.

So now the question arises of how the site should be structured in order to be discovered by the search engines and in a way that gives the site proper recognition and appropriate ranking; so that it gets listed in relevant search engine results.

There are a few general rules of thumb to adhere to:

* try not to mix languages in side-by-side or above/below translations
* identify individual pages in the language they represent
* use the meta tag for language to tell the search engine what language is being presented
* provide links from one language to the other that are easy to follow
* for sites that are multiple language sites consider an entrance page as the ‘index’ page that offers all the available languages so that the visitor can decide which set of pages they would like to visit i.e. they select their language of choice

Expanding on the ‘linking from one language to another’ statement a little, there are a couple of options available. You could provide a link that takes the visitor from the page they are onto the replica page in the alternative language, or you could just take them to the ‘index’ page equivalent for the alternative language and let them navigate from there.

The latter is obviously easier and has some benefits in that it takes the visitor to the main welcome/landing page for the site so that they get the site message before moving onto the detail.

But this may not always suit the visitor who may see it as an unnecessary click. This is really a judgment call and probably a decision that needs to be made by the customer.

Either approach works for multilingual sites as well, although the navigation is a little more complex.

There are a couple of preferred ways of approaching how the language pages are collected together. Folders can be created for the alternative languages or alternatively sub domains can be created for the alternative languages e.g. fr.mydomain.com

This general approach to bilingual or multilingual sites does mean that the web designer needs to be fastidious in his site updates and to ensure that all pages where required get updated appropriately in all languages.

With respect to Google there are assumptions that are made on a sites geographic location based on the domain name that is used, what server the site is located on and to an extent the language used. To ensure that the site is targeted to the correct geographic location you can use Google’s webmaster tools to define a location. But this feature does need to be used with caution and this makes it worth searching their help files for information on how and when to do this.

So if you are planning a website design in France or any other country that is going to be bilingual or multilingual make sure that the design is being approached in the correct way.

You can choose between a templated static website design or create a WordPress blog and configure it to look like a static site at very low cost.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Bilingual Website Design – There Are Special Requirements

If your company’s Web site just isn’t cutting it these days, there are ways to improve its look, in turn, hopefully driving more business your way.

Business owners need to remember that their Web site is oftentimes the initial impression that potential customers acquire of the company.

In the event your company site is outdated, stale as it relates content, or difficult to surf, many visitors will leave after just a few seconds. The resulting impact is that you may have and will continue to lose out on revenue.

Upgrading the Company Site

In order to better position your site to attract more business, keep several factors in mind as you and your I.T. team or others look to improve:

1. Give the site a thorough review from top to bottom. Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion or take constructive criticism from others regarding the site. Remember, you and your employees are a team, so make this a group project;
2. Is your site positioned to take advantage of search engine rankings? The easier it is for customers and those interested in your products and services to find you, the better it is.
3. Is the site easy to navigate, with no broken links? Nothing turns off a visitor more than a site that is hard to maneuver on and doesn’t provide them with the details they came for in the first place;
4. Listen to your customers. If they’re providing feedback, take it in stride and see where you can accommodate them. Your customers are your most important item (along with your employees), so don’t turn a blind eye to them.
5. Lastly, in order to stand out from the competition, remember that your site’s appearance needs to be professional from start to finish. If it means spending some more money to upgrade the site, do it.

In the event your site does need some upgrading, it is actually not as costly as you may think. By upgrading your company’s site, you can add to your revenue and put together a steady customer base in a relatively quick manner.

When all is said and done, your site should be the envy of competitors, allowing you to stand out in your respective industry.

If you’re reluctant to upgrade your site, just think about what message that is sending to your customers in this technologically-driven world that we live in.

Perhaps they are not that important to you? Perhaps you’re not a visionary and you’re too reluctant to change with the times? Perhaps you’re not willing to invest the time and money into being a premier player in your industry?

If you can say that any of the above mentioned may describe your business, perhaps you won’t have to worry about being in business too much longer….

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Make Designs on a Better Company Web Site

Over the past few years, the stock photography market has exploded and expanded exponentially. Iconic stock giants such as Getty Images, Corbis (privately owned by Bill Gates), Alamy, and Jupitermedia, Inc. (parent company of Jupiter Images) dominate high end publications and websites. Unfortunately, most of the images available from the companies listed above are simply too expensive for most small businesses to purchase for their web use, advertising campaigns, and media related ventures. Many times you’ll see images owned by these companies used in highly publicized magazines and websites such as Time, Sports Illustrated, CNN, and many others. So, how do small businesses locate quality stock images that they can use effectively to promote their business and/or products?

The answer lies within the microstock websites. This emerging group of sites (such as iStockPhoto, BigStockPhoto, and Dreamstime) allow customers to purchase high quality images at much lower prices. Each site has certain licensing options and distribution restrictions for images, but most of the time a customer can purchase the desired image and the necessary license for a relatively low price.

For most companies, finding a good, applicable image isn’t a problem. Just between the three stock sites listed above, there are over six million images. Yes, some of them are duplicates, with the same artist creating galleries on each site. However, there are still several million different images available.

A word of caution though when you are selecting an image to use – try to stay away from the most popular images. Why do I say that? Well, they are popular due to being sold and downloaded more times. Why do I caution you against using popular images? Because you don’t want to create branding material for your company or product that is being used elsewhere. Your business is unique… your product is unique… it may not be in your best interest to use an image that has been sold hundreds or perhaps even thousands of times.

What am I talking about? Well, perhaps it’s best to just use some visual examples. I came across this blog post which shows how three major electronics companies used the same image in various promotions. Check it out for yourself: http://www.brianbehrend.com/archives/2004/09/more_stock_foot.php

Better yet, here’s a nightmare scenario that you would never want to have occur for your company. Can you imagine the constant explaining that Design Matters has to do regarding their (lack of) association with Vagisil? You see, they both used the same image of a young teen girl in their promotional materials. Unfortunately, the link to the Vagisil ad is no longer active. The Wall Street Journal also featured an article on this dilemma several years ago that is still worth reading.

These examples are the risk that you run when choosing to use stock photography for your business. I am certainly not telling you to abandon the use of stock photography for your business! Please don’t misunderstand. However, I am recommending that you proceed with caution. There are very valid risks to consider. The customer’s perception of your business is on the line.

David Ogilvy said, “Always give your product a first-class ticket through life.” This incredibly important concept is applicable to not only a product, a brochure, or your website – but your business as a whole. Is purchasing an image for a buck or two really the best route to take? It can be if you navigate your way through the process wisely.

Choose a Photo That Matches Up With Your Purpose

Don’t just choose one to “fill space.” Rather than use a potentially risky or dull photo, fill that space with great content. Or, at times… empty space might be the best option. Space is good.

Be Creative in Your Choice

Instead of using a picture of a man or woman, (who isn’t employed by your company), perhaps a graphic of some sort will convey the same message just as effectively. Or better yet, hire a photographer to take pictures of your actual employees. It may be slightly more expensive to choose this route, but the end result will certainly be more genuine.

An example that comes to mind for me was a Sear’s sales flyer that I received in the mail not too long ago. It completely missed the mark with me. I flipped through it until about page 3. On that page, I finally realized that every person in every picture had well placed smudges on their faces. (The flyer was geared toward outdoors/construction clothing and accessories.) I even saw painters with paint on their hands and face…however, their painting clothes were spotless. I also wondered why the “architect or engineer” in the picture seemed to have a
big muddy smudge on his cheek when there wasn’t any mud around in that particular picture… he was standing on a nice, dry concrete slab.

The pictures were a complete bust for me. I didn’t look at anything in the catalog with the mindset of “hey… I wonder what’s on sale”; instead, I was just looking at the ridiculous pictures. In my opinion, the whole catalog was a ridiculous attempt to get me to purchase something…and it didn’t work.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Stock Photos, Custom Photos, or a Blend of Both? – A SPN Exclusive Article

As a business owner, you’re focused on your company’s products, services, and finding ways to grow and sustain your business. Your focus isn’t generally on image file formats and what’s needed in order to properly reproduce your company’s logo, letterhead, brochures, and business cards. But, if you’re a small business owner, you wear multiple hats and have the “joyous” task of managing not only the growth and success of your business, but all of the little, technical items associated with getting items printed for your company. And, you’re probably the head of your own “Online/IT Department” too.

So, in order to help you become more proficient with the IT hat that you wear, we thought it would be a good idea to introduce you to some basic file format information concerning images (for your logo/letterhead/business cards/etc).

Choosing the right file format for saving your images is of vital importance. There are six major image file formats used consistently in the design field – TIFF, GIF, JPG, BMP, WBMP, and PNG. Each format is well suited to a specific type of image, and by matching your image to the correct format, you should benefit from a fast-loading, high quality graphic. It’s also important to understand how these file formats work in certain applications. So, enjoy checking out these six image file formats:

TIFF – The TIFF (Tagged Information File Format) is a file format used for storing images such as line art and photographs. It was originally developed by Aldus (now Adobe Systems) and Microsoft. This is a popular format for high color depth images and it is supported by many image-manipulation programs such as Pagemaker, QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, PhotoShop, Paint Shop Pro, etc. Tiff is extremely high in its image quality, providing excellent compatibility with publishing and printing companies. Tiff can be modified and resaved, with the images being used an endless number of times without losing any image data. In addition, the image is extremely usable since it doesn’t require software post-processing during or after its download from a camera. It is a flexible and adaptable format.

GIF – The Graphic Interchange Format is an image file format that was originally developed in 1987 by Unisys using the LZW compression algorithm. For years it has been a standard image format used on the web. However, it has seen its share of difficulties due to licensing restrictions and requirements placed on it by Unisys. In 1989, they also developed Gif89a which allowed animated images. While GIF has enjoyed a significant presence on the Internet, it is being phased out by the emergence of PNG.

JPG/JPEG – JPEG is a commonly used compression method for photographic images. The name “JPEG” stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the name of the committee that created the standard. The group was organized in 1986, issuing this standard in 1992 and finally approving it in 1994. The degree of compression may be adjusted to allow a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. Typically, JPEG achieves 10 to 1 compression with little perceivable loss in image quality. In addition to being a compression method, JPEG is often considered to be a file format. JPEG is the most common image format used by digital cameras and other photographic image capture devices. It is also the most common format for storing and transmitting photographic images on the World Wide Web.

BMP – The BMP file format, sometimes called bitmap or DIB file format (for device-independent bitmap), is an image file format used to store bitmap digital images, especially on Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems. The simplicity of the BMP file format and its widespread familiarity in Windows and elsewhere makes it a very common format that image processing programs from many operating systems can read and write. Other reasons for its widespread use are that it’s well documented and free of patents. While most BMP files have a relatively large file size due to lack of any compression, many BMP files can be considerably compressed with lossless data compression algorithms such as ZIP since they contain redundant data.

WBMP – This is short for Wireless Bitmap, a graphic format optimized for mobile computing devices. This is a relatively new file format that only supports monochrome images at the moment. A WBMP image is identified using a TypeField value, which describes encoding information (such as pixel and palette organization, compression, and animation) and determines image characteristics according to WAP documentation. TypeField values are represented by an Image Type Identifier.

Currently, there is only one type of WBMP specified; the Image Type Identifier label for this is 0. 0 has the following characteristics:

- No compression
- One bit color (white=1, black=0)
- One bit deep (monochrome)

Any WAP device that supports WBMPs can only support type 0.

WBMP is part of the Wireless Application Protocol, Wireless Application Environment Specification Version 1.1.

PNG – Portable Network Graphics is a bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression similar to that of a GIF file. PNG was created to improve upon and replace the GIF format, as an image-file format not requiring a patent license. It was basically created in direct rebuttal of Unisys’ licensing requirements for using the GIF format.

PNG supports palette-based (palettes of 24-bit RGB colors), grayscale, or RGB images. PNG was designed for transferring images on the Internet, not professional graphics, and so does not support other color specs (such as CMYK). PNG works very well for geometric or line drawings, lettering, cartoons, and other images with flat color and sharp borders, such as computer screenshots.

PNG is mostly superior to GIF, since it is newer, supports more colors, and is free of patent restrictions. Unfortunately, PNG cannot be used for animation. However, it does offer highly sophisticated transparency and color support, among other features. In most cases where animation is not required, it is best to use PNG over GIF.

It’s interesting to note each format’s strengths and weaknesses. Overall, each of them definitely displays benefits in certain applications. The best way to approach these is to know ahead of time what the ultimate application and use for a certain image is going to be prior to creating it. As a business owner, it’s important to find a reliable printer that can service your company’s needs. CCA is able to accept and modify virtually any image file format in order to create a high resolution, quality image for use on your company’s business cards. If you have any questions or concerns about your logo or business card file format, please feel free to give us a call or inquire on our website.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Six Popular Image File Formats: What Are They and How Are They Best Used? – A SPN Exclusive Article

Creating a business website can be a difficult task. Not necessarily from a technical standpoint, but rather from a design and communication standpoint. How do you make a business or corporate website interesting and include some personality in it? You need a professional presentation but that does not mean you cannot be creative or personable. You need to create interest in the business and persuade visitors to venture further into the site and learn more about the company which can lead them to contact the company or make a sale on the site itself.

As a designer, it can feel as though your creativity could become stifled when you first begin to work on a corporate web design project. This does not need to be the case though. You should be able to incorporate some interesting and creative aspects into the design and ultimately make the visitor’s experience a pleasant one. But how?

Break Out of the Cold Shell

There are many types of businesses besides large corporations that can appear dull and send the visitor into a light sleep very quickly. Business websites like insurance agencies, real estate companies, wealth management and consulting firms can all appear cold and lifeless. Yes, they are professional in presentation, but that does not mean creativity and personality cannot be included in the website.

As a designer working with any type of business, you want to explain to your client the importance of making a connection with the visitor to their website. This does not have to be something distracting with a lot of animation or as a client once said to me, “We need more wiz-bang.” It can be subtle and still be direct.

One of the keys to accomplishing this is to find the starting point for a conversation with the visitor. Simply invoking the right question, or a laugh can be the perfect ingredient to make the visitor want to stay on the site just long enough to make your point or to make a sale.

For example, to help set the tone you may want to incorporate friendly or imaginative photos of the owner of the business or employees at the company on the home page giving the site a welcoming feel to any visitor.

Even if you just have graphics with calls to action, it could be enough to invoke your visitor to stay and find out more about the products or services that are being offered. There are many websites that feature these minimalist characteristics. Their presentation focuses mostly on typography. They ask the right questions or have a direct approach in saying who they are. They do not offer too much information or answers on the home page and invite the visitor to look further into the site and find out more. These are great ways to include a little personality and create interest at the same time.

Welcome the Visitor

Large businesses and corporations could learn a lesson from some small businesses. When a visitor arrives at a website, they do not want to feel like they just walked into the giant lobby of a company and there is nobody there to greet them, answer some questions they may have or direct them to their primary destination. You certainly do not want to drive people away from the website by not offering enough information.

Sometimes smaller businesses have an easier time making visitors feel welcome. This is true with both the brick and mortar businesses as well as their websites. Simply featuring a friendly photo or graphic on the home page of the website or maybe a quote about an approach to business, outside interests, or an approach to life itself can offer a small connection and invite the visitor to stay.

Incorporating the personality of a small business owner can also offer the right kind of personal connection. Using this approach can make the visitor feel like they know what the owner is like. There is a feeling of trust and value in their presentation making you feel like doing business with them. Showing the typical stock photo of a handshake, a missing puzzle piece or a picture of a large glass building are not the kind of elements that will draw the visitor’s interest. You want to make them feel welcome and offer them a reason to stay. They are taking time to stop by and visit your website, so welcome them and take advantage of the opportunity.

Tell Them More but Do Not Repeat

In web design, it is common practice to include an “About Us” – or a “History” – page on a site. Stop and think how often you see an “About Us” or a “History” link on a particular website and then you visit the page only to be disappointed in finding out that it is exactly the same information that you read on the home page.

Why? Why repeat what has already been presented and frustrate the visitor? The “About Us” or “History” page is a prime opportunity to make a personal connection with your visitors. On this page you should dig deep and elaborate more about who the company is or who you are as a business owner. This doesn’t mean you have to divulge a favorite dessert or a favorite sports team.

Depending on the type of business and the size of the company, there are many ways you can make a personal connection with potential customers. If it is an older established company, tell your visitors about the rich history of the company and how your approach to your customers has not changed through the years. If it is a fairly young company, then you could explain to visitors about how you can provide a more one on one approach to business as opposed to some larger companies where that personal connection may become lost. Take it a step further and discuss company or individual accomplishments within the industry. Has the company won awards or have people within the company accomplished achievements in their work? Is the company involved with any charitable organizations? Do employees take part in giving their time and talents to a particular cause outside of work? If this is the case, tell the visitors about it. Show how employees have been recognized for particular accomplishments or how the company gives back to the community. These are all great ways to make a connection with your visitors and show there is more to the company and its employees.

Conclusion

Creating an interesting business website by including some personality can be very beneficial. You want to grab the visitor’s attention in a professional manner. You want to let the visitor know what services or products you have to offer.

You also want to make a connection with the visitor and not offer a cold presentation. Hopefully the ideas and suggestions mentioned in this article will help you in creating a business website that is interesting and inviting to any visitor. By adding a little personality to your business website, you can create the interest needed that will persuade your visitors to stay and hopefully develop a long lasting business relationship.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Website Personified: Making Your Business Website Interesting – A SPN Exclusive Article

I’ve spent considerable time over the last week bringing a new employee up to speed on a variety of topics. He’ll be performing many duties for us (such is the joy/curse of working for a smallish firm), and among those tasks will be consulting with prospective new clients about their current sites.

After I walked him through the analysis of several sites, he finally posed a question to me, “just what makes a website suck?”

That’s not an easy question to answer – at least not succinctly. The reality is that a website can fail in many ways, yet still be a success. The tricky thing is that most site owners truly don’t know if their site is failing or succeeding, simply because they’ve never established any kind of measurement standard. BUT…that’s not what we are talking about here; we’re speaking only of “first glance” evaluations of websites.

So with that in mind, here’s a list of things we look at when we evaluate the sucktitude of a website.

Design Failures
The first thing we consider is the overall look and feel of the site. For the most part, we’re trying to determine if the site looks like it was developed in the last year or two. Here’s the thing – the details that make your website look sparkly new are the very things that make it look dated quickly. Designers and programmers can sometimes get caught up in the most recent trends, which are fantastic if you plan to facelift the site every 18 months. Otherwise, they become the green shag carpet of the interwebs.

Another comment regarding design: it’s extremely subjective. The same site that makes me wince in pain elicits happy squeals from others. I get that, which is why this list stays away from criticism about color theory and other important (and more subjective) elements of design.

With that said, here are some obvious design failures:

• "Floating Island" syndrome
  For many years, websites were developed to be viewed within a screen resolution of 800×600. Today that resolution accounts for less than 1% of all screens, and 85% of all visitors use a resolution greater than 1024×768 (stats courtesy of w3schools.com). Sites that were developed for smaller screens look like tiny islands floating on a massive background. Visitors feel pity for the poor, tiny, isolated website – and it’s doubtful that’s the feeling you were trying to evoke.
• Annoyances
  Most of these items have been discussed ad nauseam (and thankfully aren’t as common as they used to be), so I won’t bother to address why they make your site suck – just know that they do:
• Splash screens or entry pages. You know, those pages that cost a ton to build and then everyone clicks the "skip this" link.
• Sounds. Any sounds. Yes, even those "super cool" sound effects when you click links.
• Gratuitous Flash or rotating images. This decade’s version of animated GIFs (shudder).
• Funky navigation. Don’t make me figure out how your navigation works – I’ll simply leave.
• Reverse text, particularly black background with white text. Ugh.
• Outdated information. In this day and age of technology and access, there’s just no excuse.
• Left aligned or full width websites
  Early websites were all left aligned or full width. Typically when you see this now, it’s on a neglected site, a government site, or a neglected government site. There are some very creative designers that can pull this off, but it’s rare.
• Cheesy stock imagery
  There’s a reason that good professional photographers make the money they do. They can see things through a camera lens that the rest of us don’t. Want to know the single best upgrade you can do to your site? Replace all the images with professional photos that are specific to your organization. It’s well worth the investment.

Functional Failures These are a little harder to quantify, but site killers nonetheless. Obvious functional issues include things like broken navigation, sites that don’t work in all browsers, malware and missing pictures.
Additional failures include:

• Narcissism
  No one cares about you, or your website. There, I said it.

  Your site visitors only care about whether or not something you have will benefit them. Answer that question FIRST, before you tell them "About Us" or about your awards or anything else. Take a look at your site’s navigation. What comes first – About Us, or information about your products and services? Most websites need to have their navigation reversed in order.

  Quick tip: when writing copy for your website, spend 90% of your time on addressing what your prospects want or need, and 10% on info about your company. When people send us copy, it’s obvious they have done just the opposite.

• No Clear Message
  Yes, the picture of the blossoming flower on your home page is evocative and inspiring. Here’s the thing – it does nothing to tell visitors who you are or what you do. Oh, and there’s this little company called Google that would also like to know what you’re about so they can help searchers find you. Much like people, the search engines will simply move on if it’s too difficult to figure out.

  Visitors should be able to determine who you are and exactly what you do in 3 seconds or less.

• No Engagement
  This is the area in which more than 90% of all websites fail. There should be clear cut call to action on the home page that encourages visitors to click and see more of your site. A call to action can be anything – a contest announcement, newsletter signup, a download, contact form, even simply driving visitors to current/updated information on your site.
• Poor Search Engine Visibility…or worse

  Some sites are built strictly for credibility’s sake; the site owner simply wants their clientele and prospects to see that they have a presence. There isn’t a need to spend extra time and money to optimize the site for the engines. But for the majority of websites, SEO is an important consideration. It’s very easy to determine what sites have had optimization done and the level of competency.

So what’s worse than poor visibility? Violating the guidelines, which can get your site delisted and erase any possibility that a visitor could even stumble on it. Most site owners are oblivious to the fact that their site is breaking rules.

Feel Me
The last element to be considered is the most esoteric of all – the "feel" of a website. What is the" feel"?

It’s the connection users feel to the website, the emotions that are invoked when they visit. It’s the sense that the visual impact matches the image visitors have – or want to have – about the product or service they are after. It’s the difference between the About Us page for Wilson Sporting Goods and the About Us page for Franklin Sports.

It’s the final factor that turns site visitors into site ambassadors.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Why Does My Website Suck? – A SPN Exclusive Article

The web is a wild place. It is an art gallery without the admission fee. Web designers are artist of a different medium. Like artists not all of the website designs that they create are going to work. Some websites are truly annoying. Take for instance a painter that really likes the color blue. If it is used in every piece of art the painter makes it will visually not stimulate our eyes and we will become bored or annoyed with the artists art. The same is true for web design. As a website developer you need to make sure that your “art” is different for each client and you need to avoid common mistakes that draw attention away from the client’s product or service. There are several things to steer clear of when designing websites to ensure a perfect site for your client.

Top Five Most Annoying Website Design Techniques

1) Colors that assault the eye – If your clients insisting on using every color of the rainbow in their site design it is your job as the website designer to talk them out of it. Even though they think it adds just the right touch of pizzazz to their site you know better. Colors that are too bright or morbidly dark will not be suitable to promote your clients work. Even if you are promoting a circus keep the main site colors down to a maximum of two or three. Do not give in to the more is better philosophy with color.

2) Background sounds – Nothing is worse that a site that replays the same sound bit throughout the entire site. Or worse yet a slogan that plays each and every time you click on a new page within a site. Full songs are also an absolute annoyance. It is best that the site visually provides the entertainment leave the background noise out of future web designs.

3) Spelling Errors – You are using a computer with a spell check button make sure you use it. Nothing is worse than bad grammar, incorrect punctuation or pour spelling. Before you go live with any site make sure multiple eyes have looked over all text. Even if the client has provided the text for their site do not trust that it is correct. Always double and triple check for errors or inconsistent tenses. They will thank you for catching the error before the site has become viewable to their clients.

4) Font Size – If you use all capital letters in your design people will feel like the site is shouting at them. Using all small letters will make people feel like you are whispering. It is best to stay consistent with normal text and punctuation. This way it will make the website feel as if it speaking to the viewer in a normal voice which will make it more pleasing to read.

5) Blinking links and popup windows – These items are to the web what junk mail is to our mail boxes. Useless information that gets in the way of important information. Stop using popup windows and blinking lights to attract attention to your art because the reality is that they are just annoying.

Remember in web design it is all about how your website design is perceived by the people viewing it. Make sure the art you present does not detour anyone from visiting the websites your clients have had you design.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Creating Art on the Web through Website Design

When visiting websites you know that not all websites are equally attractive. Good web design is not really difficult but there are a few things you should avoid if you want to create user-friendly websites. The 10 most common mistakes inexperienced web designers make are:

1. Technology for technology’s sake

It’s very nice to play with new toys, but your website is not a suitable playing field. Visitors to your website are interested in content, not whether you have Brand X Version N of flashy stuff on your website. Keep things simple. Use tried and trusted technology, not web tools that require the user to download special add-ons just to view your website. They won’t.

2. Using frames for page layout

Frames are a cop-out. They are easy for the designer, that’s why they are used so often. But they have a stack of disadvantages from the user’s point of view – and it is the user that we need to cherish, not the designer. The biggest problem is that the back button becomes unpredictable. You can’t bookmark the current page and come back to it – you will be returned to another version of the frameset. It’s also difficult for the user to know when to scroll, because different bits of the page have their own scroll bars.

3. Scrolling, blinking and animations

Moving images are distracting. Don’t use them. Visitors want to be able to read and digest what you are saying on your website. They don’t want the text to be bouncing around or flashing on and off before their eyes.

4. Color clashes

Yes there are 256 different colors you can use for text and background, but that doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. Nor does it mean that you should use color combinations that give your visitors eye-strain. Choose color combinations that provide a good contrast – dark on light is easier to read than light on dark.

5. Where am I ?

All pages must have a clear indication of which website they belong to, either in the browser window or on the web page itself. This is to help users who come to pages directly without coming in via the home page. For the same reason, every page should have a link to the home page as well as some indication of where they fit within the structure of your website.

6. Long scrolling pages

It’s best to avoid pages that have several screens full of content. Users will only scroll if they believe that there is something useful further down the page. If you really can’t split the page up, then at least provide content and navigation options on the top part of the page.

7. Lack of signposts

Your users won’t know their way around your site like you do. Provide a clear idea of structure and place. Use a menu bar or column in the same place on every page. If you have more than two levels of page hierarchy, provide a site map and search function as well.

8. Non-standard link colors

It has become conventional for links to pages that have not been visited by the user to be blue, and links to previously seen pages to be purple. Don’t invent your own color codes, you will only confuse visitors to your site.

9. Long download times

In our increasingly “time poor” society, people are getting more and more impatient, and when websites take too long to load, they will go somewhere else and probably won’t come back to you. So do everything you can to reduce download times. When designing your website, consider reducing the number of images on each page, and definitely reduce the size of the image files.

10. Outdated information

Nothing is worse than a website that advertises an event that has already passed its date, or a product that has already sold out. Have a plan to review and modify your site on a regular basis. When designing your website, identify pages that are date sensitive and remove or amend them as soon as that date has been reached.

Avoiding the design flaws highlighted above will enable you to create appealing websites that visitors will find easy to use.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Web Design Tips – 10 Common Mistakes To Avoid

When you are designing a website, also think about the photos or “images” you want to include. Images in this context means diagrams and drawings as well as standard photos. All of them are held in a digital format on your computer and saved as such on the web server. Be aware of certain pitfalls in their use as this will make all the difference for visitors to your website.

Size matters

Images or photos come in all shapes and sizes. As digital cameras have advanced, the available camera size has soared from barely 1 mega-pixel to 10 or 12 or more mega-pixels, with a consequent increase in the photo size. You may have experienced what happens when a friend emails you a photo taken on their nice new camera. The attachment can be huge, and takes forever to download, even on broadband. Now imagine what would happen if you put that photo on your website – exactly the same: it would take ages for the image to be downloaded by the browser.

What you have to do is “re-size” the photo, using your photo-editing software. It’s an easy thing to do: open up the photo-editor and the photo you want to re-size, and click the menu button marked “image” (this is how most editors label it). What you have to do is change the horizontal width to a number of pixels that fits inside your web page. So if you have decided on a page width of 1,000 pixels, a photo size of 250 pixels would be one-quarter of the page width. Let the photo-editor work out the corresponding vertical length for you automatically, so apply the option to “maintain aspect ratio” or similar wording.

When you save the image, you will be given the option of saving it in different resolutions or qualities, from low resolution to high resolution. Unless you are building an “arty” website, low resolution will be quite adequate. Some photo editors actually give you a specific option to save at a suitable resolution for websites.

Finally, use “save-as” with a different file name rather than just “save” so that you don’t overwrite the original version.

Help the browser

When you include the image in your web page, you will have a line of HTML code looking something like this: img src=”mynewphoto.jpg” alt=”Words for Photo” height=”125″ width=”250″

It’s important to provide the height and width data. You can make a note of these values from when you re-sized the photo. By providing the data you are helping the browser allocate that amount of space on the page, and process the remaining HTML while the image is being downloaded.

If you don’t specify these values, older browsers will stop formatting text, download the image, check its dimensions, make room for the image and then start formatting text again.

If you follow these tips when designing a website, you will speed up the download time for your web pages, which will make it better for visitors to your website.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Website Design Tips: Image Sizing – Why Big Isn’t Best

There are thousands of web designers and web design companies out there ready to design your website. How can you choose the right one – someone who will understand your business and make sure your site is visible to search engines and your potential customers? Here’s a quick guide to help with the process.

What to Look For in a Web Designer

First of all, take a look at the designer’s own website. Is their information up to date? Browse the site and its pages to make sure the site is functional, and appears to be updated regularly.

Don’t forget to take a look at the portfolio to see what they’ve done recently. See if the sites they’ve created look like something you would want designed for yourself. If you’re looking for an e-commerce site with a shopping cart and thousands of products, check whether the firm has any experience in this area.

You should look for a web designer who knows how to help you get found in search engines. Check for the following:

• Do the websites they’ve created follow search engine optimization (SEO) best practices? You can do this quickly by looking at the Website Visibility Report for each website.

• Is the web design company’s own website ranking well in search results? If they show up on the first page of results for a search like “web design [the firm's city],” they probably know what they’re doing when it comes to SEO. You can also check the PageRank of the firm’s home page.

Tell Your Web Designer What You Need

Knowing exactly what you need for your site is the most important part of scoping out the project. If you don’t know what you want from the beginning of your engagement with a web designer, you can both get confused and frustrated – and the project is almost guaranteed to run over time and possibly over budget.

A lot of elements go into any website. Your web designer needs to know everything you want to include in yours so he can accurately scope and price your project.

What’s the main goal of your site?

Start off simple. Let the designer know what the main goal of your site is. What message are you trying to convey, and what is the purpose of your site? Think about what you want visitors to do when they come to your site. A few examples:

• Sign up for an email list
• Download a file
• Participate in a discussion on an article, message board or social network
• Click on ads
• Purchase a product or service

What kind of site do you need?

There are plenty of different kinds of sites out there: e-commerce sites for selling products; portfolio sites for photographers and artists; informational sites with articles or blog posts…and many more.

Web designers specialize in all kinds of different sites. Some designers stick to specific kinds of sites, so find one who’s good at the kind of site you need. Make sure you describe your requirements to any potential web designer you talk to.

Is your website going to sell something?

If so, there are quite a few details that you need to think about. You could have a huge e-commerce site with hundreds of products, or you could offer one special service and sell just one thing. E-commerce sites often have hundreds of pages – if not thousands – with product images and descriptions on each one. You need to tell your prospective web designer what kinds of details you’ll want on each page.

Do you want customers to be able to leave ratings or reviews for products? Do you want them to leave testimonials for your service? Reviews can boost your site’s position in search results, so it’s worth thinking about.

You need to let the designer know if you will be adding content to your site’s pages on an ongoing basis, or if that job will be up to him. Keep in mind that designers charge by the hour for tedious tasks such as adding hundreds of products to a site. You can save a lot of money by doing all this yourself, if you’re on a budget and willing to learn how.

Payment is a critical component of e-commerce. How will the payments be handled? Are you going to use PayPal, or some other kind of software? Integration of different scripts may take more time and cost more money. Discuss with your designer what’s right for your budget, and even more important, what will work best for your visitors. You want to make it easy for them to give you money, don’t you?

What about multimedia?

If you want to include any kind of audio, video, or interactive content on your website, you need to explain very clearly what it’s for and what it should do. Think about what the experience should be like for your website visitors. Remember that creating any kind of interactive experience will take more time and cost more money.

How social will your site be?

Social elements such as message boards, contact forms, guest books, order forms, blogs, or live chat can make your site more interesting and attractive to visitors. They also need to be explained fully to your web designer. Think about how you want these things to look. A web designer can give your blog or message board a custom design – which will cost more – or create them from pre-designed templates, which will be cheaper. Take a look at a few different blogs, message boards and other social elements of other websites, to get an idea of what you want for yours.

What about updates?

Guaranteed: At some point you will want to change some of the content on your site. You may need to update your phone number, change some text, or add new products or articles. Will you want to make simple changes yourself, or are you prepared to have your web designer make changes, and charge you for his time? Your answers will help your web designer determine whether you’ll need a simple content management system (CMS) that you can use yourself, or whether he should use a system that’s intended for a web design pro.

If you follow these guidelines, you will be well on your way to getting the website of your dreams.

Need to pick an SEO agency, too? Check out our related article, Choose the Right SEO Company.

This article was originally published by AboutUs.org.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

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