Friday 27 August 2010

Website Design - Advantages and Disadvantages

Posted by

Web Design Doncaster



Getting a website designed is a must for most businesses but what are the advantages.

This article talks about the various advantages and disadvantages associated with website design. You should keep these in mind while designing your website.

Website designing can easily be defined as a specific skill of presenting contents, which are mainly hypertexts, usually delivered to any end user while using the World Wide Web with the help of a web browser or any other web enabled software such as internet television clients, micro blogging, auto blogging clients or as RSS readers. Website design mainly serves the purpose of creating a website with well defined electronic documents and applications which are meant for a particular web browser, while presenting contents with interfaces to the users, in the typical form called web pages. It is mainly achieved by using HTML or XML tags. If displaying media is required, you can use Adobe Flash, Quick Time or Java runtime environment plug-ins, which is usually embedded in the web pages with the help of HTML tags.

Website designing may sound easy, but there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of. Website design has lots of advantages as well as disadvantages. Most of the times, people feel the need of web design mainly for customization. People also ask for specific requirements which they want on their web pages. But until or unless you are proficient in HTML, catering to such enhancements is not possible at all. Sometimes it gets really difficult to provide the client with exactly what is asked for, because of some technicality involved. If you concentrate more on the look of the website, then it may affect the layout or navigation systems. Or sometimes, using Flash or CSS can also create problem for you.

If you need better visual effects for your site, then using flash is certainly a good idea. But if you are trying to draw more visitors through SEO, then it is better to limit Flash as it may distract the visitors. But when you are working with CSS, there are many advantages and disadvantages. This is mainly a popular style sheet tool for web designers. It helps great in terms of bandwidth, reformatting, progressive enhancement, consistency and flexibility of the site. But using CSS in website design can have negative aspects too. There may be vertical control limitations, lack of variables, inconsistent browser support or even poor layout controls; or in other terms, it may not provide layout control for flexible layout.

Moreover, Website Design is always a better idea when thinking of building a website; but a proper planning always helps. You need to keep in mind the purpose of creating your website; otherwise your website designing might prove worthless.

Wednesday 18 August 2010

How to Build Custom Websites

Custom websites are a great way for a merchant to reach out to potential customers. However, most of them have no idea about building websites. Web designers can help them build personalized sites that are very effective in drawing in traffic.

Good custom websites help business owners to reach out to potential customers and maintain contact with their existing customers worldwide. If you want to make a mark in the current marketing and business oriented world, then you must have an online presence. Having a website is an excellent way to interact with people and usually a good way to get exposure for your business.

You can get a website designed by your company's web designer or you can hire an outside firm to do the job for you. Once you decide on the web designer, you have to give him your specifications and requirement based on which he will come up with a design concept for your website. Custom websites are usually designed from the basics. They differ from template websites in the sense that they do not have a generic structure, or a layout, which is utilised repeatedly with a few changes in colour text and layout. Template websites typically have fixed number of rows and columns, backgrounds, navigation menus, headers, links, and logos. You choose a design that suits you and add elements of text, images, and graphics to it to create your own website.

Drafting custom websites with new ideas and body structures is no easy task. It requires years of expertise. An amateur web designer who has insufficient knowledge and experience will not be able to create a satisfactory custom website. Websites designed by skilled professionals give the essential distinctive and professional look to your company's online venture that helps it generate more site traffic.

While designing custom websites, keep in mind that your home page should have a welcoming and clutter free look. Visitors to website are usually turned away by heavy web pages that take a long time to load. Your home page should not give away all the details of your company but have essential information presented in a professional manner.

Make sure that navigation bars, headers, company logo, and the links to the other web pages of custom websites are all strategically positioned on the home page. Good navigation is the key to a good website. Make sure that all the internal links are redirected to their corresponding pages. A link to the home page is necessary on all the web pages.

Custom Websites enable your website to have a uniqueness that template websites do not offer. These websites also get you a higher ranking in search engines, increasing the volumes of traffic to your site.

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Keys to Building a Successful Small Business Website

A small business website serves the primary function of providing information about the business, the products, and the services. The purpose of creating such a site is to attract visitors, create inquiries or leads, and generate more business. A small business website should be able to market the products and services over the Internet and create a sense of need in readers so as to achieve greater conversion rates. So what are the keys to building a good small business website?

* Quality content is of utmost importance. No matter how attractive a site looks, it is ultimately the content that will hook people and keep them coming back. After all, when you recommend a site to a friend, do you do it merely because the site looks good or because the information available is helpful, useful, and interesting? To ensure the online success of a site, it is extremely important to have unique and fresh content. You can try blogs, or can update content at least once every week. Remember that search engines are not too fond of stale sites either and if you have not added new content in a long time, it is bound to reflect in the form of poor search engine rankings.

* Reciprocal link exchange is a great way of directing visitors to your site. It basically means that you share links with other sites to ensure mutual traffic. Reciprocal linking constitutes an important part of search engine optimization. As a website owner, you can submit your site to various reciprocal link exchange directories so that even if a visitor is on a different site, he/ she can get directed to your site. This considerably increases chances of greater sales. In addition, reciprocal link exchanging influences better ranking in the search engines.

* It is important to pay attention to the site's structure. If it has flashy graphics, too many advertisements and pop-ups, or loud music, chances are that visitors will get distracted and leave the site. You should also ensure that your site is easily navigable. This plays a crucial role in the success of your online business because unless visitors are able to locate what they are searching for, the entire point of having an online presence is defeated.

Tuesday 3 August 2010

Tips on How to Profit From E-Commerce Development

E-commerce development is very instrumental in ensuring that you benefit from modern online transactions by promoting your business on the internet through your website. To get the most out of e-commerce development, you will need to consider the following tips.

First of all, it is very important that you hire the very best web developers. They will have the requisite experience that is bound to enable you make the most out of your site. They will therefore be able to develop your site in such a way that it will actually sell your products online (and this is what e-commerce is all about, right?).

Secondly, you will need to get your site developed in such a way that it will rank high for any search paradigms on search engines. This means that you will have to get the Toronto web development company that has the best experience in undertaking Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO will ensure that you get more hits to your site and hence be able to make more sales.

However, you can never benefit from e-commerce development if your web pages are wacky. The design has to be of the highest standards. The implication is that the content and the graphics have to be designed in the best way possible in order to attract more clients, retain them and also convince them to subscribe to your services and purchase your products.

To conclude, the development of your site will largely determine the effectiveness of your e-commerce ventures. Look for the best web developers and you will get much higher returns in comparison to the affordable services and products they will put at your disposal.