There are website design companies making huge profits through designing sites that you can easily design yourself, given the right info. Don’t allow yourself to be a victim; be in charge by learning some simple web design tips. Begin with these simple tips.

Be careful when introducing new colors into the design of your website. You have to be certain that your text will be readable on top of the background colors you use. Dark text on a light background is the easiest for your visitor to read. Soliciting feedback from a friend can help you determine how effective your color scheme is if you develop doubts about it.

Web Browsers

Try not to use JavaScript too much. While Java opens many doors towards an interactive website experience, a lot of Internet surfers are going to have difficulty with it. All web browsers vary, and each one releases new versions on a regular basis. Many visitors use outdated versions of various web browsers, which means your code might not be supported. Not all computer users keep JavaScript running on their internet browsers. In either case, you are preventing your visitors from using all or some of the features of your website.

Use free alternatives to pay web design software whenever possible. There is a pervasive myth that expensive programs do the job of web design better than the alternatives, but there is plenty of free software that does a great job. Finding good free software does require a bit more legwork, however.

When you design your website, avoid using a variety of different fonts. Think about how the various fonts look on a standard computer display. Tiny fonts can be difficult to read. Fancy fonts may look attractive at a glance, but a closer look reveals they can be extremely annoying to read.

Learn your subject. For instance, if your site is meant for blogging, know about the topic before writing about it. You won’t win any followers by giving them bad information. It is important to know what you are talking about.

Let site visitors give feedback. This will help you recognize mistakes in your design and give you the opportunity to fix them. If you actively seek your visitors’ feedback and make changes as a result, your visitors will feel like active participants in your site. This will encourage them to keep visiting the site.

White can be a smart and effective choice when you’re contemplating which color should be the background for your site. White puts the focus on the content, making it easier to read. If you are trying to to exude a professional tone, a white background lends a trustworthy feeling to your site. However, intricate designs on your background can distract users and give your site more of an amateurish look. For backgrounds, simpler is usually preferable.

You constantly want to test your page to ensure it is functioning well. It’s imperative that you employ usability tests frequently to ensure a pleasant user experience. Keep testing and improving as the design nears completion.

If you plan to have multiple websites down the road, then consider reserving their domain names, now. Come up with a creative name, but once you do so it is vital that you reserve it as quickly as possible. You’d be shocked at how many people share the same thoughts. We are all connected and think in similar ways.

Keep your early site building efforts small, so you can more easily identify what is working, and what is not. Learn from your successes and your mistakes as you expand your site.

HTML5 is important to become knowledgeable about if you seek to succeed in web design. If HTML5 is something that is foreign to you, you have a learning curve ahead of you.

Perhaps you have heard about software like Photoshop and how you can create amazing designs with them. Strangely, Photoshop’s companion program, Dreamweaver, is far less known, even though it is a purpose-built tool for web design. The many potential benefits Dreamweaver can offer you make it well worth investigating.

The web design process doesn’t end when you roll out your new website. Keeping on top of your website will help you to ensure it’s always current. Daily updates aren’t necessary, but you should update your site regularly, at least a few days a week. This is especially true if you have videos or deal with current events. Updating a website is much different than updating a blog. Website updates require more time and work.

When adding videos to your website, you should take into account that some people’s Internet bandwidth isn’t very high at all. The higher the quality of the video, the more bandwidth it takes to display it. The result will be an annoying video that is constantly buffering.

If you are designing websites, you truly are an artist. Act like one. By this, we mean that you should always be ready to let inspiration strike you. If you have a good idea for your site while you’re eating out, jot it down on a napkin. If inspiration strikes at the office, VPN to your home computer and put the idea in a text file so you can use it later.

Stay away from using Flash with your website. Flash does allow for all sorts of imaginative content, but some visitors will have a poor experience if their machine or connection is not capable of handling the resources being passed to them. On top of this, some mobile devices and tablet computers lack an installation Flash software and there is also an ongoing standardization of open software that performs the same tasks that Flash traditionally has done, an example being HTML5 video.

Web Design

Once you know what makes web design tick, you can start to fuss with the design features. The tips outlined here show that web design techniques are not hard to apply. Just read on to learn how to design your own site.