Web Design For The New Web Designer

You want to gain more knowledge about web design but your time is valuable and you may find it difficult to spend time reading up on it. Use this set of tips in order to quickly and efficiently learn some great knowledge that has to do with web design and how to use it for success.

It is important to choose great graphics for your web design. Keep in mind that bitmap images are quit large. For this reason, they dont work well; however, PNG images work very well indeed. PNG is the right choice for non-photo images, such as text buttons and screen shots. If an image has in excess of 256 colors choose PNG. If it does not, GIF is another option. JPEGs are ideal for photographs.

You should frequently peruse various forums and sites to learn more about web design. With a quick search on Google, you can uncover plenty of information that wont cost you a dime to learn.

People dont like to wait when they browse the Internet, so your pages need to load fast even on slow connections. If Internet users have to wait a long time for your website to load, they will probably leave your site before it loads and vow never to return.

Test your site to see if the major translation services work properly when translating your site. Some sites receive many international visitors, and these visitors sometimes use services like BabelFish and Google Translate to translate the text to their language. Certain web design problems, especially poor server side code, can break these services.

Test your website in the most popular browsers and platforms to make sure that it displays correctly. Sometimes scripts that work in one browser may not produce the same results in another browser. So you may need take extra measures, like adding a function for browser detection, in order to ensure that your website will display properly under most conditions.

Be sure your website works both with and without the "www" prefix. Some people will type this in before they head to your site as a force of habit, and some may not. You should make sure that customers will be directed to your site either way, or you may have some confused people on your hands.

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.

The best web sites communicate a lot of information in a small amount of words. If you are long-winded, people will easily get bored and find another site that is more concise. Make sure any content is relevant and easy to understand - newspapers use an eighth grade reading level, which is the most common literacy level.

Even more important than a good looking website is one that loads fast, and that means all of your files should be small. Your file sizes have a lot to do with the speed of your site loading. You want your website to load very quickly when potential clients visit. Remember that there are still lots of people who do not have high speed Internet. Run tests to ensure that even dial-up users report a smooth user experience.

In conclusion, web design is something that you are interested in learning more about but you often find that you do not make the time to do anything about it. As mentioned earlier, you have just read some of the best tips around, organized in an easy to digest format. Use this expert advice and become a great web designer.