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Posts Tagged ‘Web Tutorial’

Get your website designed in 5 easy steps

Posted by weblinkindia on July 21, 2010

Wish to have a successful business and do not have an online presence…..then this wish tends to remain more or less unfulfilled. In the current scenario, business having its online facet has become a mandatory deal. Having a website online is a key to success but usually people think that getting a website will ask for a lot of money and efforts. However, it is not as people think, contacting a web design company will make the website development process simple and easy for you. Web designing companies have web experts who assist you until your website goes online.

Here in this write up you will see how you can have your own website designed in 5 very simple steps.

Step 1.  Discussion about your requirements and estimated budget

What you need to provide is simply few details like :

  • Your business details
  • Objective behind having a website

That web expert will provide you the quote along with the deliverables based on the requirements and business objectives you have provided.

Step 2. Booking of domain and space

Domain name, the address to your website and the server space are the two important things that need to be booked prior to the designing of the website. The web expert will suggest you the domain name example www.yourcompany-name.com. This domain name will be suggested in accordance with your business objectives and the SEO perspective. You have the complete liberty to choose the domain name and only after your approval, domain will be booked along with the web space for the hosting of your website.

Step 3.  Collection of Basic Data

For designing an effective website, company’s details are required like :

  • Establishment year
  • Details about infrastructure
  • Details about the company’s offerings
  • Images of the products and the company premises
  • Contact details

The web expert will help you to gather the details required on (hyperlinks) different pages of your website. Any assistance needed in this regard is readily offered by the web expert. Ensure that you provide only authentic data that is supported with proofs.

Step 4. Promotional Measures

After the collection of data, the information is handed over to the SEO Experts who analyse and reframe the data as per the web promotional norms. This is an integral step as it helps a website achieve higher rankings on various search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL etc.

Step 5. Designing and development phase

The final and the most crucial step is the designing phase. All the reframed and edited data is handed over to Web Designers and Developers who prepare the website for hosting. Before the actual hosting, the site will be shown to you on hidden URL. Any changes for the improvement of the website can be suggested by you at this very stage.

Once you are satisfied with all the aspects of your website i.e. its appearance, content, loading time, etc. the site would then be launched on the domain booked for you i.e. yourcompany-name.com.

Following these 5 simple steps, you get your well-designed website that is ready to earn you more and more web traffic and thus business. ALWAYS remember to choose a renowned and trusted web development company in order to have a well-promoted website.

Posted in Web Design, Web Design Tutorial, Website Development | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Expandable Website Design

Posted by weblinkindia on January 18, 2010

Earlier there were only limited types of screens so the websites were displayed without any hassles. Now with the time charting further and technology becoming highly advanced, more and more designer and high resolution screens are being used. Most of the web sites are created only for one type of resolution but different people use different resolutions. The need of the hour demands that a website that is under construction should be such that it should work in all resolutions. Visitors having higher resolutions have to scroll less and thus can see more content within one page. We provide you with steps to create a web page or site that will fit in all screens.

Steps to design a website that will operate in all kinds of resolution

 Step 1:   The Lowest Screen Resolution should be decided upon
The first thing you have to do is to select a lowest screen resolution and design the website keeping the same in mind. The important smallest resolution that is widely used is the 800 x 600 resolutions so all websites should be made to fit resolutions equal or higher than this.

 Step 2:  Web Site to be designed on this Resolution
After deciding upon the lowest resolution, graphics have to be designed for the decided resolution. Then after the designing of the website images are exported.

Step 3:  It should be assured that all the tables are measured in terms of percentages
This is a very important trick for developing a website for all resolutions. Do not work in terms of pixels, instead make use of percentages. Percentage provides you a relative measurement and hence a table gets easily fit in all screens whatever might be the height and width. The percentage can be chosen at your own fancy depending upon how much white space you require around it.

Step 4:  Measure cells in the table (in pixels) except for the Content Cell
All cells must be given a fixed measurement (in pixels) except the content cell, which can be kept blank.

Step 5:  Insertion of Content and Images
After your tables are designed, images and content have to be inserted. The commonly used layouts have on the top left corner a logo and the navigation buttons on the top right. A more complicated layout demands background fills while designing a website. For all resolution web sites images have to be positioned accordingly. The most convenient principle that can be followed is to put fixed images on the top left and right corners.

Step 6: Testing of the site in all the Resolutions
The final step will be the testing of the site in all resolutions. Steps to check the proper working are: -
  • Right click on your Desktop →click on Properties amidst the set of different options
  • Click on Settings tab
  • On the Desktop click shift the scale to 800 x 600, 1024×768 or higher if needed
  • After choosing the resolution, check the site by clicking on the Test button
  • If you are able to clearly see the bitmap then click on Apply

After the successful testing of your website in all resolutions, it is assured that you have developed an ideal website. This will make your site more accessible and thus in turn lead your business towards new heights.

Posted in Web Design | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Skills Every Graphic Designer Should Have

Posted by weblinkindia on January 4, 2010

Every design created by a graphic designer ought to be unique and appealing. With more and more techniques setting in the field of graphic designing, the bar of expectations has been raised. The graphic designers are now expected to generate latest and highly advanced designs. We provide you with some skills that should be employed by a designer in order to create something new.

Skills that a graphic designer must possess:

Unique Style:
  Every designer has his/her own peculiar style. The designs are the marker of his creativity and extraordinary talent. The styles that the audience is familiarized with find greater popularity. Every project should be invested with a new style.

Project Management: A well-organized designer who is capable of carrying out his task in a large project is preferred over those who have to be spoon fed. If a designer becomes an able leader and manages his work efficiently, he is surely to prosper. Also a graphic designer needs to be flexible and well-planned.

Typography:  It is one of the most important skills that the top advertising companies are in a lookout for in a graphic designer. Typography involves a deep knowledge of kerning, apt use of line and height, tracking and font families. If a graphic designer is well-versed in this skill, he is considered to be excellent. With the help of typography, clarity and variation seeps in the designs.

Creative thinking:  This is the foremost thing, a graphic designer should have. A Creative flair and an eye for detail help a designer and his styles to stand apart. He should be able to think beyond the demarcated boundaries of the mind and should have the ability to produce ideas that have never existed before.

Print Design and Layout:  This is one area where a graphic designer should be strong enough. Every employer searches for these skills in a graphic designer. If a designer is acquainted with Quark Express, Adobe, etc. , he is sure to acquire success. Also knowledge of printing press is very essential.

Web Design:  With the advancing world it has become very necessary for a designer to have some understanding of the CSS and HTML. The knowledge of these will enable the graphic designers to work on web Graphic Designing. This will help open up various opportunities for a graphic designer.

Photography: An all-rounder graphic designer must have complete knowledge about camera handling. This will help enhance your skill. So a graphic designer should also be well versed in various photographic techniques.

Networking: They should have a good network in order to flourish their career. They should make active contacts like Marketing Experts, Design Magazines, SEO’s, publishers, etc. Also it helps in their brand promotion.

The skills that we have highlighted are a must for a graphic designer. The possession of these will enable him to reach respectable heights in the field of graphic designing.

Posted in Graphic Designer | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Speed Up Your Website Downloading

Posted by weblinkindia on December 7, 2009

Today web network is swamped with information providing sites. If you make an online search, you are provided with numerous options. In that case if one site takes much time to load the user switches to other.

The sites with longer uploading time face grave lose as these sites are visited by less number of users, to avoid this situation site designers improvise different ways to speed up the downloading their websites. The best way to increase the speed of downloading is by making it the site compact. This can be done using various techniques.

Techniques to speed up your website downloading :-
>>  CSS
>>  White space, line returns and comment tags and line returns must be minimized
>>  Relative call-ups
>>  ‘/’ at the end of directory links
>>  Unnecessary META tags and META content should be removed

CSS :-  Cascated Style Sheets is the highly advanced and effective way in which you can reduce the size of the website. The various properties of CSS help minimizing the load of the website thereby increasing its speed. The properties of CSS that are used by web designers are:-

  • CSS Sprites- it enables the designers to use single image file that contains all the other image sin the form of grid.
  • CSS Shorthand-helps the web designers to minimize the CSS code.
  • Substitution-help substitute Java scripts techniques in place of CSS effects.
  • Smaller style sheets-reduce size of the sites using various techniques like group selectors, selector specificity, etc.
  • CSS layout – most preferred as against tables as it takes much less time to display the tables
  • White space, line returns and comment tags and line returns must be minimized :-  By eliminating needless comments and space from your Web Page you can save a lot of bites. This will in turn help your sites to shed off the extra load and download faster.

    Relative call-ups :-  Absolute call-ups eat up a lot of space so to use relative call ups will be a better option.

    Use of the sign ‘/’ at the end of directory links :-  Slash / at the end of the URL indicates that the given link is referring to a directory. If it is not used then the server gets confused as to whether link is pointing towards a directory or a file and thus wastes time.

    Unnecessary META tags and META content should be removed :-  In SEO, Description tags and keywords are of more importance than Meta Tags. Lengthy Meta tags use a lot of space and increases the content.

    If your website is invested with these techniques, it is surely going to become a fast loading website. The brevity of the site will enable it to load faster and hence allow more users to visit your site and this help generating more money.

    Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Web Design | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

    Common mistakes to avoid in ecommerce designing

    Posted by weblinkindia on December 2, 2009

    With the emergence of ecommerce sites or the online stores, people all over the world are eased of buying anything and from any part of the world. E-commerce sites are the ones that allow you to buy products (gifts, grocery, apparels, toiletries, appliances, etc.) online. The customers are offered an extensive range of products to choose from. These websites facilitate fast and hassle free shopping. While designing of the e-commerce sites various mistakes are committed by the designer and developers that ends up in providing confusion to the customers. In order to comfy visitors and avail full potential of e commerce website we have highlighted some of the mistakes that a designer and developers must avoid while creating an e-commerce site.

     Mistakes that should be avoided while designing an e-commerce site

    Lack of product information: As the customer who shops online does not have the facility to physically examine the products, they expect to receive detailed information. Size, dimensions, material used, weight, colors available, etc, should be clearly mentioned so as to provide complete detail to the customer. Lack of this information might distract the customer from buying your product. So provide maximum information about product on offer. The details provided should be in simple language rather than in technical terms. 

    Contact Information should not be hidden: The mention of contact details on your ecommerce site assures the customer with your authenticity and reliability. With this customer gets an assurance that post sales he can speak to somebody in case of need. The contact information should be clearly visible on the site; it can be placed on your header or footer of every page. Also there should be more than one contact number, emails Id, etc. in order to provide utmost satisfaction to the customers.

    Lengthy or Confusing Checkout Process must be avoided: The process of buying a product should require minimum number of steps and time. More complicated is the process more are the chances of the customer to leave your site. Ideally the checkout process (placing order, billing and shipping) should be carried out on a single page to ease the customers. The process can be made concise with the help two-column layouts.

    Account should be created very carefully: It is very important to create an account in order to purchase anything online. Asking for details at the very beginning might annoy a customer and he may lose interest in the transaction. This could be avoided by asking for details of the customer after he has chosen the product and that should be done in a polite manner, giving customer’s an option of saving his details.

    Poor Customer Service Options: A customer should be provided with all the requisite services options like contact details, help requests forms, etc. if the services provided by you are inadequate the customer might lose his trust in you.

    Small Product Images:  It is widely seen that the web designers while designing a e-commerce site incorporate small product images that does not provide a clear idea of the product to the customers. The designer should insert large images or provide an option of zoom. This will help attract more customers.

    Single Image:  The sites that provide single images for their products are always at loss. There should be numerous images of the product in order to satisfy the customer. The customer should get a detail of the product after looking at the pictures. The details include like the colors, patterns or grades they are available in.

    Poor designed Shopping Cart: It is the most essential part of an e-commerce website. A cart should be designed in a way that it allows addition of multiple products and should be transparent. The option of editing of the products on the cart is a mandatory thing. The detail about the shipping charges should be provided before they enter the transaction process.

    Limited Payment Options: This is the most vital mistake that the sites commit. If the customer is provided with limited number of payment options, he might not be able to continue. Mostly the sites have either Visa or Master Card gateways but the customers may have AmEx. The sites should provide a Pay Pal Account option that increases the choices of the customer and thereby making him more comfortable.

    Confusing Navigation: The navigation through an ecommerce site should be a smooth process. If the customer have to strive hard to search for his products, there is a possibility of his discarding the site and switch to other. This can be avoided by providing categories and sub categories of the product, so that a customer can easily find his product.

    Shipping Rates and store policies not mentioned: Most of the times, order is abandoned by a customer if he is not provided with adequate shipping and store policies (return, exchange, etc.). These should be properly highlighted to the customers so as to ensure him of a fair deal.

    If these mistakes are carefully avoided the site designed will be a customer friendly one. The aim of the e-commerce site is to provide the customer’s with a wonderful shopping experience and not a tumultuous one. Also a well designed e-commerce site ensures a fair deal to the customers.

    Posted in Ecommerce Web design, Web Design | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

    Avoid Web Design Mistakes – part 1

    Posted by weblinkindia on November 20, 2009

    Web Design is a term that is most commonly associated with the styling of websites and various other web applications. It is the most active field of web world, which is often updated. We will discuss some of the points in this blog, which will act as your Web Design guide. Why do the mistakes occur? The mistakes committed by the web designer are a result of his lack of awareness. Also the mistakes occur because the web designers try to improvise many techniques at one time.

    Below is the list of recurrent mistakes

    • The purpose of the site should be communicated in about in seconds: A site should be designed focusing on the point that the site should communicate its purpose within a couple of seconds. If the visitor is unable to figure out what the site is about within few seconds, then he will be move to other options.
    • Content should be made Scannable: The site should have content that can be read in a single go. Use of Headers, Lists, and Bulleted Points enables the user to filter the stuff he is looking for.
    • Unreadable Fancy Fonts and Tiny Fonts should not be used: Very often, we witness that the sites have some Fancy Fonts and Tiny Fonts that are very difficult to read. So these should be avoided in order to make the read of the visitors comfortable.
    • User’s browser windows should not be resized: Let the control of the browser be in the hands of the user. Resizing of the browser might lead to confusion at the user’s end and he may leave your site.
    • Subscribing the user for something without his permission should be avoided: Subscribing the user for newsletters or any other thing without his permission can annoy him and he might lose trust in you.Overuse of Flash must be avoided: Flash Images eat up a lot of space, increases the loading time of the sites. Also at times they irritate the visitors, so they use should be minimized.
    • Let the user start a music file: If a music file is being inserted to a site, then its control must be left on the user.
    • Do not clutter your website with badges: Use of badges of networks and prizes seems very unprofessional.
    • Contact details must be added: Contact details of the website owner must be added. Its absence might make you lose important feedback.
    • Do not use a homepage that just launches the “real” website: A site should be designed in order to provide ease to the users. There shouldn’t be much steps to reach the main content as it reader’s might lose interest.
    • Ensure that the “Back” button is not broken: Use of some JavaScript Links and new browsers may break the ‘back’ button. After its broken the visitor might not come back to your site.
    • Do not use blinking text: it is an outdated style, simply avoid it.
    • Complex URL structures must be avoided: Simple URL structure with keywords should be used as it helps in improving your search engine rankings and also makes the search and read of the visitor easier.
    • CSS to be preferred HTML Tables: It will allow you save a lot of time and will speed up the downloading time.
    • Ensure that the users can search the whole website: ensure that the users are able to navigate through your whole website easily.
    • We are leaving the discussion in mid, as there are many other common mistakes. We will talk about them in the succeeding part of our blog.

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    Posted in Web Design | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

    Web Design is different from Website Development

    Posted by weblinkindia on October 31, 2009

    Web Design is different from Website Development

    For a neophyte the terms Website Development or Website Designing may sound same but the fact is that they both greatly vary in Scope, Functioning as well as Importance. When looked into the details, one can easily observe that there are sea-like changes amongst the two. Austerely speaking, we can say that the essence of web design lays emphasis on look and feel of a page whereas web development emphasizes on the functionality of a webpage or website.

    Before proceeding further, we would like to ask you something.web design and development
    Have you ever pondered as to what all yo’ve seen on a website? Definitely, the answer of most of us will be “No” because we go to a website just to gain information we’re looking for. Who has the time to look into a web page’s details! However, you should know what all is there on a page if you are eager to know about either website Development or Designing.
    Now first we are shedding light on the key ingredients (to have a clearer understanding between web designing and web development), which a website has on its different pages: -

    Appearance : - The appearance of a web page is made viable through different color patterns, images, graphics, navigation factors and so on.

    Functionality: - In a website, functionality is rated with the results a user achieves after Click(s)/Enter(s)

    Content: - The informative values which a user gets majorly in the form of text or sometimes in images.

    Usability: - It can be termed as features available for a user on the website. They might be interactive tools, videos, navigation etc.

    Based on aforementioned parameters, the distinction between Web Design and Web Development can be easily made. In the parlance of internet technology, web design mainly entails appearance building including content creation. However, with web development all the tools are made functional which are further examined for usability. A web designers should be cognizant with various graphic design tools (knowledge of HTML is desirable) whereas a web developer should have proficiency in making a program functional using different HTML codes and other languages.

    A number of designers usually perform the testing of usability so as to avoid hassles in page loading time. On the other hand, web developers do usability test to ensure that whether the program made by them is functional or not.

    Albeit there are many distinctions between the two terms, with perfect liaison between web designers and web developers the ultimate purpose of any website can be achieved in the best way. Last but not the least, the results of website development could be enriched if website development tips as well as website designing tips are followed with bit of prudency.

    Posted in Web Design, Website Development | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

    Best Website Designing Tips and Technology

    Posted by weblinkindia on October 16, 2009

    web designing tips An attractive website is not the only yardstick to determine the substance of a website. Instead of making it flashy and gaudy with all sorts of colours and pop-ups, it is sometimes better to keep things understated, especially if your site means serious business.

    Cross browser compatibility:  Website usability is a pre-requisite for any website design. Today, web standards is an important factor, more so with millions of websites floating in cyber space. New and new browsers like IE 6 +, FF 2 +, Opera 9 +, Safari 2 + have secured a foothold in the market. This requires you to make sure your website is compatible with different browsers. So, it is suggested you have a program on your computer that checks your website’s browser and version compatibility.

    Fast Loading:  Low loading speed of your website will result in high Bounce rate. Studies indicate that the level of patience of a net browser is ten seconds. To ensure prompt service to users, take care that you maximize content area, avoid excessive use of graphics, flash and stick to simple designs. These measures will reduce your website loading time.

    Refrain from Pop-ups:  If you intend to make money from your website and take up desperate measures like use of pop-up ads, it is a myopic strategy. It will not bear long time results. For most visitors, pop-ups are intrusive, irritating and annoying. Many prefer to block pop-ups. In that case, why should your bother about using them in your website design?

    Make your website Search Engine Friendly: Never ever undermine this aspect. The more Search Engine Friendly your website will be, the more will be your website’s visibility. Internet visibility is an important aspect if you want your website to be in a high position in search engines like Yahoo! and Google. This will rope in more visitors who might be your potential clients and customers

    Posted in Web Design | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »