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30 Tips to Effective Web Design Provided below is 30 great tips to effective web design. These tips are followed by SEO Experts and are also common sense when you get right down to it. HTML Editors Try to refrain from using HTML editors and using notepad. HTML Editors are less customizable than doing it yourself. No Flash Flash animations are nice, but make it difficult for people who don't have flash support and is harder for SE Spiders to crawl your site. Framed Websites Frames on websites are not a good idea as they are becoming outdated and are considered unprofessional. Website Colors Dark colors are generally a bad idea to use on a website as they appear gloomy. Try using light colors with a few strong colors to support it. Music Music on a page is generally a bad idea unless you have a specific reason for it - IE. your website is music related. Add features to allow people to turn it off/on/pause if you do. Broken Links Broken links on a website is a website crime! Make sure all your links work correctly or else leave them out. Under Construction "Under construction" signs are generally not a good idea and can cause visitors to leave immediately as content is lacking. Speed Keep your pages load time as fast as possible - people don't want to wait a whole minute just to load each page. Splash Pages Splash pages are not ideal as first impressions are everything. People generally scan a website between 10-30 seconds before deciding to leave or stay. Proper Code Properly coding your site is important - big businesses, professionals, and search engine spiders look for these things. Content, Content, Content Content is everything. There are websites who have poor presentation but their quality content makes up for it. Try to have content that is appealing to your visitors. Site Validation Validate your website. You can validate your website's coding at http://validator.w3.org Text Over Images Try to use text rather than images containing text for faster load times and to improve search engine results. Update Frequently Update your website constantly. This will let visitors know you are hard at work - even if it is something small. Annoying Popups Do not have popups on your website. People hate popups. Try using "popunders" instead if you must. Navigation Navigation. Keep your navigation accessible to your user where they can instantly have access to your site's content. Scannability This is a must. Use contrasting colors for text to allow visitors to be able to scan your website for content. Design. Think about the little things that you could add to improve your site's overall presentation. Be creative. Originality. People don't want to go to websites that have everything any other website has. Try to give your visitors reasons why your website is better than others. Partnerships Partnering with other websites related to yours is very important if you want to become well known. It also allows you to grab and share ideas with your partners. Consistency Keep your layout and presentation consistent through your whole website. Always keep your navigation links at the same place otherwise it may confuse your visitors. Cross Browser Compatability Ensure your website looks the same in all browsers. Many people use many different browsers so it is essential that you think of your visitors by making your website compatible with most of them. Duplicate Content Ensure that all your content is unique and do not have the same content on multiple pages - search engines will dock you for it. Site Title Make sure the title of your website is descriptive in what your site contains. A good title is vital to search engine optimization. Meta Tags Include keywords to your meta tags that fit your website. If your website doesn't have the keywords contained in your meta tags search engines may not include your website or it may decrease your ranking. Look around Find other websites that are related to yours and see what they are doing to be successful. Imitate their actions and success will follow. Website Width Keep your website's layout width spannable if possible. Everyone has different resolutions and people don't like having to scroll in all directions to view your website. Adjustability is usability. Links Keep your links distinguishable. People want to know when something is clickable. Keep your links a different color than the rest of your text. Alt Tags Add alt tags to your images. This helps search engines better understand your website. Descriptive URLs Use descriptive URLs for your files. Descriptive URLs better you chance of ranking high in search engines.
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