TIP! Use fixed-position navigation. This keeps the site menus in place as visitors scroll through your site.

The Internet is one of the most popular things in the world today. Regardless of what your interests are, there is a website for you. Knowing website design basics will help you to build a successful site. The following advice will be helpful.

256 Colors

TIP! You don’t ever want to use too much graphics. Even though graphics might give you a professional looking website, too many may result in a crowded site.

Graphics are important for any designer but beginners should focus only on the standard graphics on their first several builds. Keep in mind that bitmap images are quit large. For this reason, they don’t work well; however, PNG images work very well indeed. For images that are not photographs, use PNG format for over 256 colors. If under 256 colors, use GIF format. Try using JPEGs for photos.

TIP! Check for broken links before publishing your web page. An error page after clicking a link is very frustrating for visitors to your page.

One of the biggest mistakes a newbie designer makes is not verifying how a site looks in several different browsers. What you see might not be what users will see. So keep up with the latest browsers an test them out and check out your website on them. You may also want to view your site using a different computer operating system to make sure that everything is compatible whether they are using Windows, Mac, or Linux.

TIP! Do your best to store any personal information of your users so that they don’t have to enter it over and over again on your site. An example of this is if someone fills out a form to register, and then has to fill out other forms for other things.

If you want to have a successful website, you need to design it in a way that works for all browsers. It is crucial you test out your site that and see that all pages show up properly in each browser. What may work great in Firefox, may not work well in Internet Explorer or Chrome. Check how each page displays in the major browsers before your site goes live.

TIP! Use shortcuts when designing your website. Most web design techniques have shortcuts you can use.

Do not utilize pop-ups. Nothing is worse that going to a website and being bombarded with pop-up ads. They’ll be much more likely to leave your site out of annoyance if they are confronted with pop-ups. Stay away from those irritating ads and your visitors will be pleased. If your web hosting company requires the use of pop-ups, consider moving to a new host.

TIP! Whoever your target audience may be, loading time ought to be under ten seconds. An efficient site that is nicely designed is going to load properly and quickly.

Make sure all topics are clearly divided. If you’ve got a few discussions going, put each on its own page. This will keep things clear and simple for readers, and also help you rank with search engines.

TIP! It is important that you incorporate meta tag into the design of each of your website page, if you want to increase your website’s exposure. Quality meta tags will help the search engines to recognize what your site is all about.

White is perhaps the best option for background color. Few visitors take issue with a white background, which looks professional or, at worst, neutral. Text content is also more clear on a white background. Complicated, artsy background designs look cool, but they can often be distracting to the reader. For backgrounds, simpler is usually preferable.

TIP! Visitors enjoy knowing more about the webmasters of their favorite sites. Many sites use very boring, trite ideas on these pages.

Make sure your site loads quickly through optimization techniques. When a visitor must wait lengthy periods of time to see information, he or she will probably give up. Try reducing your number of graphics, Flash, and script on your pages, optimizing your HTML, using SSI files, using client and server caching, creating expire headings, and minimizing your JS and CSS coding.

TIP! Practice as often as possible, as you begin to learn web design. Start trying out ideas as you learn them.

Be very critical of the fonts you choose. The most well-designed sites use professional-looking fonts. Do not employ exotic fonts that will be absent from many visitors’ computers or over-used fonts such as Comic Sans. Use a font that is part of the default font subsets on user computers. This could cause it to look bad.

TIP! Most people are familiar with the Adobe Photoshop program and understand the importance of mastering it for designing websites. On the other hand, Dreamweaver is lesser known, and many people are unaware of the benefits it has for web designers.

Do not add pop-up advertisements to your site. Ads are crucial for making money, but pop-ups are needlessly annoying. People won’t want to visit your website again. Use simple ads and skip the wild and intrusive pop-ups.

TIP! Make judicious use of graphics to give your site eye appeal. To make sure you don’t have a bland site, make sure text wraps around images.

Once you understand the basics involved in web page design, it is a simple matter to create a website of your own. As you learn, your site will become more attractive. Use the tips you learned here if you cannot wait to design an excellent site.