web development

Improve Your Web Design Skills With These Tips

It is widely known that in order to have a successful website, you must have good web design. That said, the amount of conflicting information about web design, as well as constantly-changing standards, can make it tough to learn new web design concepts, and stay up to date. That is what this article is all about. The following article will you solid advice on web design.

Start small when learning how to build a website so you can figure out what you know, and what you need to get better at. Start with an index page that introduces your business and products, then use what you learn from that page’s feedback to build additional informational pages.

It is not imperative that you handle all the design elements for your site. Great web design incorporates many different skills, including graphic design, programming, SEO, and the creation of memorable content. Don’t be afraid to get help if you need it. Hire professionals who specialize in the areas that you are least familiar with if you need to.

If you have a logo on your site, make sure it links to your home page. People now have an expectation that when they click on a company logo, the result is a return to its main home page. If your logo isn’t “clickable”, that frustrates users, because they have to look around the site for the “home” link. Your site’s navigation and ease of use will be much improved by making your logo into a link.

You should cultivate the attitude that you want your websites to be as close to perfect as possible if you want to be a successful web designer. Of course there is no such thing called a “perfect site”, but aiming high will help you get better and enrich what you have done already. No matter the type of website you are constructing, this is an excellent attitude to carry with you.

If you find yourself needing to create many similar pages in a subsection of your site, use one of those pages as a template. Rather than creating brand new code for each individual page, merely copy and paste the main code section, change it as necessary, and save the tweaked code as a brand new file every time. By saving the master copy, you will have a tool that you can use ad infinitum.

You need to pay the web design company on time. After all, this company is keeping your site up and running. When you don’t pay them in a timely fashion, they might not feel the urge to make you a priority when something happens. Paying regularly will help improve your relationship with them and help your website remain in good working order.

Learning about web design is a subject that becomes easier the more you work at it. Start with simple pages of HTML until you have a handle on the fundamentals. The sooner you start practicing, the sooner you’ll be an expert.

The design of a website is an important factor in how popular this site will become. You want the first impression of your site to be a favorable one. The tips that you have read has offered a lot of advice on how to design your website so that people will want to look around.

For more web design and development tips, visit the premium themes section to find out the latest trends like the Genesis 1.8 update and more.

Filed under Wordpress by Amelia Finn

Permalink Print Comment

Steps for Hooking Up WordPress Themes

What is WordPress? Why is it so famous? How could it really benefit me?

These are the questions running through the minds of many thousands of designers out there who have not tapped into this invaluable resource. WordPress is the future of your web design world. It is what empowers freelance designers to meet tight deadlines and not die of stress when it comes to new and complicated manageable functionality. It is what gives so many an edge over the masses and enables us as designers to work faster and better.

If it’s this valuable, how do I get it? How much does it cost me in the means of time and effort?

It costs nothing in the way of price, and minimal in the way of time learning to use it, with unparalleled dividends. How to get it is simple: Go to http://wordpress.org/ and go to the download section. Get the zip file, and read the directions for how to mount it. More or less this is the process:

Go to the directory where you have your site, and upload the unzipped package of the WordPress files. Nextly, open example.com/wp-admin/ in your internet browser of choice. This will walk you through as simple form of installing some simple things for your WordPress site. One it says that WordPress works, you can go to your dashboard and get a feel for it. Now comes to uploading your work to it. Add your XHTML, CSS, etc. (the entire site you have made) to a folder in a subdirectory called wp-content. You will see other premade themes that come with WordPress already there. Create a directory for your own WordPress theme, and upload it.

Then go back to the wp-content folder. Go into another one of the theme directories, and go to their CSS file. You will see at the top a section with some info. It will be inside of some “/* */” brackets. Copy and paste this into the top of your CSS file, and change the info to feature your info. From there, go back to your WordPress dashboard, and go to the sidebar. Go to appearance, themes, and click. You will see your theme with no picture as one of the options. Click activate, and presto, you’re ready to go.

From this point, the sky is the limit as to what you can do with WordPress. There are many hundreds of plugins, add-ons, and tricks that will take you into your future with this design style. You can make any style, any type of site, and have it fully content manageable so that you can leave it to the client ready to use.

WordPress can be used for so many things including e-commerce sites, photo blog functions, social networks, SEO optimization, and so many more things. Learning how to use it, accessing your files through it, and so much more is within your reach as you use it for your advantage. You will see in no time at all that WordPress is perfect for you and your needs.

Next, learn how to build phenomenal landing pages or build a custom WordPress theme using Catalyst.

Filed under Wordpress by Peter Lawlor

Permalink Print Comment