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Web Design - What You Learn Today Will Prevent You From Losing Thousands of Dollars Tomorrow!
This subject could be the title of a book by itself. However I will try to be concise and to the point about what to do and what not to do. This article does not pretend to be a course in design either. However, I will mention some elements and principles of design you might want to consider for your website.
There are two major components on every website. Graphic art and text. Both play an interesting role. Graphic art is the candy to the eye. Any person looking at your website is going to react in one way or another according to what he or she sees. A web page could be made entirely of graphics. You can have the text embedded to the graphics and the element will still be one hundred percent graphic.
So let's make it clear, graphic elements are intended to cause a human emotion or reaction. A graphic element in a page can transmit an idea subliminally as well. You might be asking, who else is going to read my website if not another human?
There is another group of readers you want to consider also -I am not talking about the visually impaired who can not see and have to hear the computer reading the text of any particular web page-. I am talking about the search engines. In order to index and catalog your website, they have to read it also. This second group where Google, Yahoo and Bing belong, read your website in a totally different way. Yes, they are very important too.
So, for humans you have to have graphic elements in your web site, most people prefer to see graphics instead of just text. The search engines will read your text in order to classify you. If people happen to be looking for your service and you want them to find you out on the Internet jungle, more likely they will visit one of the 3 search engines mentioned previously. Do you see the dilemma? Most entrepreneurs don't think about search engines right away. There is a belief among people that in order to show at the first page of the search engines either you have to pay Google or you have to be a big company. This is not necessarily true. Your website can do a lot to help itself in order to rank well on the search engines. I will describe several tips and tricks ahead on other articles that will help you to climb your way up in the search engines, and stay there.
So we have arrived to the point where the technology used to design your website has an impact on humans and search engines. There are so many different ways to create a website that it will be impossible for me to describe all of them here. I will concentrate on technologies that are are very popular.
A website with a lot of movement and impacting graphic design will probably be one made with Flash technology (Adobe). In my opinion it is very difficult to surpass a well designed Flash website when it comes to eye candy, they are the best. The downside is that they do not index well in Google. They are also expensive when you order them, and expensive to maintain.
You can have the typical HTML website, now with PHP, CSS and Javascript (Sun/Oracle) technology you can create some impressive graphic arrays and still be search engine friendly. There are literally hundreds of tools out there to create this type of websites. From Dreamweaver (Adobe) and Frontpage (Microsoft) that allow you to have a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment so you can preview your website, to a just simple text editor where the code can be written.
So my recommendation to you is, if you want to have an effective website without braking the bank, stay away from a full Flash website.
But I want pretty graphics! Yes, I know you want them, we all do. If the explanation I gave you has not convinced you yet it is not a good idea, then there is even another think to consider: I am sure at some point in time you will want to edit, add or delete graphics or text in your website. This is a point most entrepreneurs do not think about when ordering a website. The traditional way web designers make more money out of you is by charging you for changes.
Yes I have heard so many horror stories about them. Small companies getting bills for $500 or more a month just for changes! I had a customer once telling me how he disliked to be trapped by his designer. They were charging him fee after fee. He was sold on the idea of paying a very small amount for his website to later realize he ended up paying thousands just because the changes he had to do every month. This practice happens regardless if your website is Flash or non-Flash.
Also, if for any reason your web designer moves somewhere else or you don't like him anymore, If you have a Flash website, unless you have the source file for it, you will not be able to modify it at will. Another big disadvantage.
But here is the main reason. As technology and procedures to create websites evolve, the entrepreneurs and small business owners have another way to have more control of their websites: A back door. Yes, a back door to your website will allow you to create a new page, edit or delete content, add new graphics or pictures, etc. I am not talking about access to the files where you can see the code, probably you will not understand it anyway. I am talking to a back door that is technically another website to change the content of your website.
This solutions have been in place for big corporations. They have people contributing with content every day, they don't have to worry about page design, the system does it for them. Well, now that solution called CMS (Content Management System) is available for small business too. I will talk more about them in other articles. For now just think how great it will be you had your own CMS website. They are designed with typical and common elements such as HTML, CSS, PHP and Javascript. I personally try to use the less possible elements of Javascript because those elements don't index well at the search engines either. And yes, with a CMS and traditional HTML websites, you can have Flash elements that will spice up your website.
Summarizing. You want to stay away from full Flash websites unless the designer is a well established company and your pockets are deep, remember the search engines will also read your website, so SEO (search engine optimization) is very important to consider. If you are able to use a computer, you want to have a CMS website with a back door for your to create, edit or delete content.
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More on getting your website design
right List of Things to Avoid When Designing Your Website 10 Questions to Ask Before Contracting a Web Designer |
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