Thursday, April 28, 2011

Simple Website Design Tips


Professional website design is very important for your business. It’s even more important if you’re a webmaster or have an internet business, because you market your products and services directly on the web. If your website doesn’t look attractive and doesn’t grab visitor’s attention, then your sales will crash and you will easily lose your potential customers.A pleasant website design will be appreciated by your visitors and customers.

Plan Your Website

This is the first step in web design process. A good plan will make it easier to develop and maintain your site in the future. Start with these questions:

  1. What is the theme of your website?
  2. What is the purpose of your website?
  3. Who is your target audience?

Think about the future growth of your website as it's not difficult to maintain 10 pages of your website, but as the website grows to 100 or 1000 pages, it will be tough and time taking.

Important points to remember

Loading Time

If your visitors have to wait 20 seconds for a page to load, you'll lose half of your audience and limit your sales as well.

Consider the following tips to optimize your website and increase the loading time.

  • Graphics increase loading time, so try to use no more than 6 in a page. Also, keep the file size down to minimum.
  • Put your cascading style sheet into one external file and link it to all pages. 
  • Try to use relative links instead of full URL. 
  • Don't use fancy images as background
Browser and Platform Compatibility

This is another web development issue - computer and browser incompatibility. Do not forget to check your website in various OS and Browsers as there are lot of people using different OS (Windows, MAC), different screen resolutions (1024x768 or 800x600), different browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, Mozilla, Chrome) and different browser versions.

Paragraphs

Use a lot of white space in your pages. It will be easier to read, because visitors will have time to rest their eyes.

Navigation Menu


Make it readable and easy to find.  Use a navigation bar on all your pages.

Consistent Page Design


It happens that people change the design from page to page. Keep your design consistent on all pages.

Font Size 


Use large fonts for headlines. But use normal font sizes for a main text. eg. 10px , 12 px.

Frames


Try not to use frames. Don't use horizontal scroll.

Order Button

If you sell something, put the order information in visible place. Use order button on every page of your site.

Thus a good website design should be clear, simple, easy to navigate and good looking. It should be subtle and concentrate on your visitor's needs. A good website design makes you stay longer and come back to the site later. A great looking and functional website should be your key to online success.

The 101 Useful Websites !!!



  1. 
screenr.com – record movies of your desktop and send them straight to YouTube. 

  2. bounceapp.com – for capturing full length screenshots of web pages. 
 
  3. goo.gl – shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes. 

  4. untiny.me – find the original URLs that’s hiding behind a short URLs. 

  5. localti.me – know more than just the local time of a city 

  6. copypastecharacter.com – copy special characters that aren’t on your keyboard. 

  7. topsy.com – a better search engine for twitter. 

  8. fb.me/AppStore – search iOS app without launching iTunes.
  9. iconfinder.com – the best place to find icons of all sizes. 

  10. office.com – download templates, clipart and images for your Office documents. 

  11. woorank.com – everything you wanted to know about a website. 

  12. virustotal.com – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses. 

  13. wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching  – see more wolfram tips. 

  14. printwhatyoulike.com – print web pages without the clutter. 

  15. joliprint.com – reformats news articles and blog content as a newspaper. 

  16. isnsfw.com – when you wish to share a NSFW page but with a warning. 

  17. e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs. 

  18. coralcdn.org – if a site is down due to heavy traffic, try accessing it through coral CDN. 

  19. random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more. 

  20. mywot.com – check the trust level of any website – example. 

  21. viewer.zoho.com – Preview PDFs and Presentations directly in the browser. 

  22. tubemogul.com – simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and other video sites. 

  23. truveo.com – the best place for searching web videos. 

  24. scr.im – share you email address online without worrying about spam. 

  25. spypig.com – now get read receipts for your email. 

  26. sizeasy.com – visualize and compare the size of any product. 

  27. whatfontis.com – quickly determine the font name from an image. 

  28. fontsquirrel.com – a good collection of fonts – free for personal and commercial use. 
 
  29. regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF tools. 

  30. tineye.com – this is like an online version of Google Googles. 

  31. iwantmyname.com – helps you search domains across all TLDs. 

  32. tabbloid.com – your favorite blogs delivered as PDFs. 

  33. join.me – share you screen with anyone over the web. 

  34. onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs and images – see other OCR tools. 

  35. flightstats.com – Track flight status at airports worldwide. 

  36. wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online. 

  37. pastebin.com – a temporary online clipboard for your text and code snippets. 

  38. polishmywriting.com – check your writing for spelling or grammatical errors. 

  39. awesomehighlighter.com – easily highlight the important parts of a web page. 

  40. typewith.me – work on the same document with multiple people. 

  41. whichdateworks.com – planning an event? find a date that works for all. 

  42. everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time zones. 

  43. warrick.cs.odu.edu – you’ll need this when your bookmarked web pages are deleted. 

  44. gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online. 

  45. imo.im – chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk, etc. from one place. 

  46. translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office documents. 

  47. youtube.com/leanback – enjoy a never ending stream of YouTube videos in full-screen. 

  48. similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what you like already. 

  49. wordle.net – quick summarize long pieces of text with tag clouds. 

  50. bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser. 

  51. kuler.adobe.com – get color ideas, also extract colors from photographs. 

  52. followupthen.com – setup quick reminders via email itself. 

  53. lmgtfy.com – when your friends are too lazy to use Google on their own. 

  54. tempalias.com – generate temporary email aliases, better than disposable email. 

  55. pdfescape.com – lets you can quickly edit PDFs in the browser itself. 

  56. faxzero.com – send an online fax for free – see more fax services. 

  57. feedmyinbox.com – get RSS feeds as an email newsletter. 

  58. isendr.com – transfer files without uploading to a server. 

  59. tinychat.com – setup a private chat room in micro-seconds. 

  60. privnote.com – create text notes that will self-destruct after being read. 

  61. flightaware.com – live flight tracking service for airports worldwide. 

  62. boxoh.com – track the status of any shipment on Google Maps – alternative. 

  63. chipin.com – when you need to raise funds online for an event or a cause. 

  64. downforeveryoneorjustme.com – find if your favorite website is offline or not? 

  65. example.com – this website can be used as an example in documentation. 

  66. whoishostingthis.com – find the web host of any website. 

  67. google.com/history – found something on Google but can’t remember it now? 

  68. errorlevelanalysis.com – find whether a photo is real or a photoshopped one. 

  69. google.com/dictionary – get word meanings, pronunciations and usage examples. 

  70. urbandictionary.com – find definitions of slangs and informal words. 

  71. seatguru.com – consult this site before choosing a seat for your next flight. 

  72. sxc.hu – download stock images absolutely free. 

  73. imo.im – chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk, etc. from one place. 

  74. wobzip.org – unzip your compressed files online. 

  75. vocaroo.com – record your voice with a click. 

  76. scribblemaps.com – create custom Google Maps easily. 

  77. buzzfeed.com – never miss another Internet meme or viral video. 

  78. alertful.com – quickly setup email reminders for important events. 

  79. encrypted.google.com – prevent your ISP and boss from reading your search queries. 
  80. formspring.me – you can ask or answer personal questions here. 

  81. snopes.com – find if that email offer you received is real or just another scam. 

  82. typingweb.com – master touch-typing with these practice sessions. 

  83. mailvu.com – send video emails to anyone using your web cam. 

  84. ge.tt – quickly send a file to someone, they can even preview it before downloading. 

  85. timerime.com – create timelines with audio, video and images. 

  86. stupeflix.com – make a movie out of your images, audio and video clips. 

  87. aviary.com/myna – an online audio editor that lets record, and remix audio clips online. 

  88. noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online (review). 

  89. disposablewebpage.com – create a temporary web page that self-destruct. 

  90. namemytune.com – when you need to find the name of a song. 

  91. homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3d. 

  92. snapask.com – use email on your phone to find sports scores, read Wikipedia, etc. 

  93. teuxdeux.com – a beautiful to-do app that looks like your paper dairy. 

  94. livestream.com – broadcast events live over the web, including your desktop screen. 

  95. bing.com/images – automatically find perfectly-sized wallpapers for mobiles. 

  96. historio.us – preserve complete web pages with all the formatting. 

  97. dabbleboard.com – your virtual whiteboard. 

  98. whisperbot.com – send an email without using your own account. 

  99. sumopaint.com – an excellent layer-based online image editor. 

  100. lovelycharts.com – create flowcharts, network diagrams, sitemaps, etc. 

  101. nutshellmail.com – Get your Facebook and Twitter streams in your inbox.