If you’re looking for affordable web design, the best option you have is to do the designing yourself. Yeah, it might sound like a difficult task, but it really isn’t. As long as you’re willing to read the tips below and follow them to the letter, you will be able to design a website like you’ve been doing it for years.
Avoid useless scripts. Scripts like counters and date/time scripts don’t really serve any purpose, and since they are all JavaScript, can add a few kilobytes to the page’s file size. Getting rid of these elements also frees up space on the homepage. Replace those useless scripts with useful content that keeps users coming back.
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.
Avoid creating user interface (UI) controls that mislead your visitors. These controls include elements, widgets and more that create an interactive experience, such as a link, drop-down list or button. You do not want to make visitors think that clicking on an underlined word or phrase for example, will lead to a new page if it is not actually linked to something else. When your visitors have expectations of something working a certain way and it does not, they are more likely to assume there is something wrong with your site and leave.
Minimize the amount of clicking or scrolling visitors must do to access information. The more a user has to click or scroll around to find the information they seek, the more likely they are to give up looking for it. Aim for having at least 400 words on every page of your site by combining pages that have content that falls below this number of words.
Your site should be optimized to handle older Internet Explorer versions. Lots of people grumble about IE, but they still use it, and they often use outdated versions. These do not render the web elements to the web standard, so there must be workarounds. An example would be the vexing “box model bug” which troubled IE for quite some time.
Avoid using animated GIFs on your site. These were popular in the late 1990s, but newer technologies have replaced the uses for animated GIFs that were actually useful. Animated GIFs are low in quality and large in file size. Use static icons for page elements and actual video files for complex animations.
Test your site as much as possible. Testing early can help weed out problems before they get bigger or affect other aspects. Keep testing and improving as the design nears completion.
The most important thing in site design is that you do it correctly. Other than that, you’re free to roam wherever your imagination takes you. Use what you have learned throughout this article so that you understand how to code correctly. After that, you’re ready to put your personal touches on your own website.