Build Your Own Site With Help From These Great Tips

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Build Your Own Site With Help From These Great Tips
You have scoured the entire world wide web for the greatest tips on web design, however now that you have found this article, you can stop your search. Here, you will find some fantastic advice provided by experts who know web design inside and out. Read this article and you will not be let down.

It is always good to add a favicon to your website. The favicon is a 16x16 image file in the .Ico format. This image is the one you see next to the URL bar, next to the title of the page on an opened tab and is also visible on your bookmarks tab if you choose to bookmark a page. The favicon will help users quickly recognize your page in their browser without reading any text or directly viewing the page.

Use a tracking service, rather than displaying your visitor counter for all to read. Many websites still display their counters, yet they do not serve any real purpose. There are many high quality tracking services available, and some are even free. Use these instead of showing off how many people visit you.

Use a newsletter to gain repeat visitors. You can keep your visitors informed about important events, updates, and changes when they sign up for a newsletter, and the flow of information will often tempt them to revisit your site. Place the form for signup in a sidebar or at the top of the pages in your site, and track those who sign up. Your newsletter should only go out to those who specifically request to receive it, or you run the risk of turning off your customers.

To help you design a more professional looking site, do not include an image in the page background. A background image screams low quality site, plus these site usually take forever to load. When you are going for a more professional look, the last thing you want is your visitors waiting forever because images are still loading on your pages.

If you plan on having a commercial site, you should seriously consider buying your own web hosting. Most free host sites force you to display their advertisements, which is counter-intuitive if you are attempting to sell something as well. Purchase your own hosting to avoid this advertising hassle, so that you can choose your own ads.

To help you design a website that is free of clutter, do not include any scrolling text on your site. Websites that have things constantly moving back and forth on the screen is really distracting to the visitor. Not only is this distracting and annoying, it screams unprofessional and will cause your visitors to leave quickly.

Make text easy to ready by using colors that contrast or backgrounds that are easy to read text on. When your text is harder to read because the background or text color creates eye strain or portions of text that are unreadable, site visitors are less likely to stick around.

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.

When you are designing a page with links, make sure that the link has text content. Links that show content are clearly visible to the visitor so they know what they are clinking on. If there are links on your page without text content, they could accidentally click the link through a keyboard shortcut.

When designing a website with a lot of text, choose your fonts wisely. While serif text will work well for a title or headline, the body of the text should be in a serif font, which is easier to read on a computer screen. Try to use common computer fonts such as Times New Roman and Ariel.

To summarize, your search has stopped for how to make sure that your web design fits in with your company's overall plan. Ideally, the information that was provided here is not only going to get you energized about creating great web design, but will also prepare you for the best ways to implement it.