Etips is a publication of:
Your Guide to Professional Web
Site Design and Development
| Issue: |
#135 |
| Date: |
April 29, 2003 |
| Circulation: |
29,324 |
| Publisher: |
Shelley Lowery |
| Email: |
admin@web-source.net |
Hello,
Welcome to this week's edition of Etips!
The response to the new PDF version of Web Design Mastery has been overwhelming
to say the least.
Thank you to all who wrote me last week. I sincerely appreciated your kind
comments.
For those who may have missed the announcement, after months in development,
Web Design Mastery is now available in PDF format!
This eight volume series is now over 500 pages of solid information written
specifically for the Internet marketer interested in designing (or improving)
their own web site.
Click
here to pick up your copy of this powerful series.
In today's edition of Etips, I will be featuring part three of our ten part
series, "The Birth of a Professional Web Site," and focus on some basic
professional web design guidelines.
If you missed any of the previous articles in this series, you can find them
at the following web addresses:
The Birth of a Professional Web Site:
Part One
The
Learning Process
Part Two
Your
Strategic Plan
I hope you'll enjoy this week's edition of Etips.
To Your Success!
The Birth of a Professional Web Site Part
Three Basic Guidelines
The appearance of your web site
is one of the most important aspects of your success. Your product or service
will literally be judged by the appearance of your web site.
Poor web design is one of the leading causes of small business failure. There
are literally thousands of home- based Internet businesses struggling to
make a living online. Most, make very little or no money and end up closing
their site in defeat.
I have received many messages over the years from struggling Internet marketers
wanting to know if I could look at their site and tell them what they're
doing wrong. Most of the time, I can tell them the problem as soon as their
site has loaded -- poor web design. They failed to take the time to learn
how to properly design their sites -- how to design a professional looking
site specifically designed to sell their products and services.
If you really want to succeed, you must take the required time to educate
yourself.
Creating a Template
When you begin designing your web site, your goal should be to create a template
that you can use to create each page of your web site. This will give your
entire site the same look and feel.
A template is simply a web page "shell" that contains your entire page design,
logo, images, navigational links and a specific area for your content. However,
your template won't contain any content, as each time you create a page with
your template, you'll save it with a different page name.
Formatting Your Pages
I highly recommend placing
your entire page content within HTML tables. Tables will enable you to have
complete control over your content and how it will be displayed.
For example, you can create three tables, stacked on top of each other, for
each section of content. The cellpadding, cellspacing and border attributes
should be set to "0" to enable your tables to seamlessly flow together. In
addition, the widths for each table should be the same. The top table would
contain your page header content, the middle table would contain your content
and the bottom table would contain your footer content.
As placing your entire page content within a single table will significantly
increase your site's load time, stacking your tables will enable you to benefit
from the powerful
formatting capabilities of tables, while at the same time, keep your site's
load time down.
If you've ever designed a web page without using tables, you know how limited
you are as to how your content will be displayed. Your text will be displayed
right up against the
left border and will span across the entire width of your page -- certainly
not a good way to design a professional looking web site.
Tables will enable you to display your content in sections like a newspaper,
set up a specific number of rows and columns, and even place additional tables
within your main
content table to create special content sections with colored backgrounds.
Your Storefront
Your main page is the storefront for your business and should specifically
let your visitors know exactly what you're offering. If your potential customer
can't find your product or service, they definitely won't waste a lot of
time looking for it. They'll go on to the next site and probably never return.
They're visiting your site for a specific purpose. They want something your
site offers. Provide them with what they're looking for and you'll reap the
benefits.
Branding will play a major role in your success. Make sure you place your
company logo and slogan in the top left corner of each page. This will not
only assist your visitors in remembering your site, but it will also give
your pages the same look and feel.
Instead of trying to cram all your content into your main page, consider
creating sections. These sections can contain highlights of your information
with a link to further information. You can set your sections up in tables
with colored heading sections for information such as articles, products
or whatever you'd like.
It's much better to keep your main page down to the most essential elements
and link to the detailed informational pages.
A good rule of thumb is "less is more." In other words, keep your main page
as small as possible and include your most important elements.
Navigation
When you begin designing your pages, keep in mind, your visitors may enter
your site from pages other than your main. Make sure you include good
navigational links on every page. Place your navigational links together
at the top, bottom, left or right side of the page. Use tables to neatly
align your links and maintain a nicely organized and uniform appearance
throughout.
Try to keep the number of clicks required to get from your main page to any
other page on your site down to three or four.
Fonts
One of the most important parts of a web page is text. The way in which you
display the text on your web page will have a great impact on your success.
It can make your page look very professional or very unprofessional.
When placing text within your web page, always be consistent with your fonts.
In other words, don't use different fonts throughout your pages. The standard
fonts used on the Internet are Arial and Verdana. The standard text size
is 2. Arial and Verdana are the standard simply because they are the easiest
to read on a computer screen.
Headlines, which require a larger font size, are a bit different. A popular
headline font used is Georgia, as it displays nicely in the slightly larger
font size.
Background and Text Colors
Use caution when selecting your background and text colors. Busy backgrounds
make text difficult to read and draw the attention away from the text. In
addition, always be consistent with your background theme on each page of
your site.
Select your colors very carefully, as colors affect your mood and will have
an affect on your visitors as well.
Bright colors, such as yellow and orange, cause you to become more cheerful
or happy. Colors such as blue and purple have a calming effect. Dark colors,
such as brown and black, have a depressing effect.
A good rule of thumb is to use colors based on the type of effect you're
trying to achieve. However, it's always best for your text areas to have
a white background with black text.
Above all else, you must take the time to educate yourself before you begin.
I can't stress this point enough. If you don't, you're honestly just wasting
your time. Although it may take a little longer, it will be well worth it
in the long run.
(Continued in part four)
Copyright © Shelley Lowery 2003.
About the
Author:
Shelley Lowery is the author of the highly acclaimed ebook series,
Web Design Mastery -- An eight volume (500+
pages) in-depth guide to professional web design. Web Design Mastery is being
hailed as the "Bible" for professional web design.
http://www.webdesignmastery.com |
|
| Tip of
the Week |
 |
The standard fonts used within
a web page are Arial and Verdana, size 2. Arial and Verdana are the standard
simply because they are the easiest to read on a computer screen. Headlines
are a bit different. A popular headline font used is Georgia, as it displays
nicely in the slightly larger font size..
Today's tip is an excerpt from the highly acclaimed
Web Design Mastery series.
|
| Syndication
Feeds |
|
| Internet
Marketing and Promotion |
|
| Business
/ Sales |
|
| Web
Design |
|
| Dr. Kevin
Nunley's Biz Tips |
|
| Web Site
Design Tips |
|
|
 |
