Subscribe:
Showing posts with label Steps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steps. Show all posts

Wednesday, 13 June 2012

How to Learn Web Design - 8 Must-Have Steps


You want to get started with web design. Perhaps to create your own site or create web sites for other people. The questions are: What is the best way to learn web design? How do you decide what is vital to learn, and possibly what you don't need to know at all? This article will dwell in-depth on the vital elements you need to learn in web design, and focus on some of the ways you can employ to find out more. To make a web site that will work you need very valuable we design skills. They include:

• Marketing

Simply put, web design is marketing; a process of matching markets to propositions. The more successfully you do that, the more effective your web design will be. Your web site cannot be successful if people who visit your web site cannot get what they are looking for. Search marketing, advertising, and email marketing are all interwoven with your web site, and should be viewed as fraction of the marketing mix. Learning and applying the fundamental principals of marketing is crucial for effective web design.

• Branding and positioning

Branding is the discipline of choosing what you want your communication to say about you or your product(s), or your client web site. A strong brand creates a strong impression that communicates vividly what is unique about your site and helps people to differentiate your offering from all other thousands of options out there. It is pointless to create another web site that resembles other sites in your target market. If you want to create a powerful web site, it should be built around a clear identity. It should display a personality that your visitors can connect to. And that is the work of a web designer.

• Traffic generation

For a web site to prosper it must attract the right number of the right visitors, and at the same time convert those visitors into customers or friends. If your site does not appear on the first page of search results for a range of terms, it won't be getting a lot of attention. Build your site from ground up and focus it at the right market sector. Ensure your site is search engine friendly. Any web designer who does this will be far more valuable and successful.

• Information architecture

A competent web designer should be able to build sites that are easy to navigate. Helping your visitors find their way around is vital to that experience. In addition, the way you build your site will have impacts on its ability to convert prospects to customers, and even more significant its ability to compete for your target search terms.

• Graphic design

Graphic design is very vital as it covers use of imagery, styling, typography, page layout, ease of navigation and iconography. Learn how to use features that are easy to understand, and should look appropriate for its message and its audience.

• Production

Web page production is the process of converting your graphical design into a working web site. A well produced web site is quicker and easier to build than a trashy one. It is also easier and cheaper to edit the web site when the need arises. Furthermore, a good produced site will transfer well to other user agents, especially mobile browsers which mean more people can interact with your site.

• Accessibility and usability

Web accessibility is the process of making your site usable by every one-disability not withstanding. On the other hand, web usability is the process of testing how easy it is to accomplish what you want on a site. To create a successful web site, you have to be familiar with the principles of accessibility and usability. In addition, creating a web site that is readable to somebody using a text-to-speech reader is a bonus because your content will accessible to search engine spiders.

• Copy-writing

Copy-writing is the ultimate skill in making effective web pages; it impacts on everything that matters. A web page should have the ability to grab visitors' attention and encourage them to keep moving forward confident that they will attain what they want. The language you use should be simple and easy to understand. All these fall under the remit of copy-writing. Any web designer who can't yet write a good copy is a half baked designer.

In conclusion, the best way to go about this is to practice. You can further enhance your knowledge and skills from other resources such as tutorials, blogs, on-line courses, local courses, seminars, private groups and pro-web design courses.




Discover the web site design person in you. You can find more information and tips for how to learn web design at http://www.webmastercourse.com.




Friday, 25 May 2012

10 Steps to Hiring the Best Web Designer Or Web Design Company For Your Business Website


You have been planning forever to get a website designer to work on your site. Your plans are clear and you have prepared your content. What next? How do you go about choosing the best web designer or web design company?

Step 1. Ask around. Ask friends, or similar companies who have hired a web designer in the past. Besides getting the contact numbers of the web designers, ask how it is to work with that person. Find out what happened during the design process and what they think of the designs submitted.

Step 2. Do your research for contact information. Use the internet or your phonebook to get the names and contact information of web design companies in your area. If you use the internet, have a peek of their past work. Then contact each and ask for a quotation.

Step 3. Look through the portfolio of the web design company you are choosing from. See if the designs are professional-looking, clean and easy to use.

Step 4. Look at the experience of the web designer or Web Design Company. How long has the person or company been in business? How many companies have they designed for?

Step 5. See if the designer or web design company is up to date with the newest trends in web marketing. Useful, profitable websites attract the correct traffic with search engine optimization and usability and by employing web 2.0 strategies such as social media marketing. Effective web sites take SEO and usability into serious consideration. See if your web designer has at least a basic knowledge of both. In order for your website to be successful you need to be able to implement a successful internet marketing campaign.

Step 6. Look at the web designer or web design company proposed turnaround time. Does it match the schedule of your company's plans?

Step 7. Examine the web designer or web design company terms of service and website files ownership. See if you agree with the conditions set by the designer to work with you. See also the rights as to who owns the final output and what sizes. If this is not clear from the start, you just may be surprised to find that the work you commissioned is not yours and you may have to pay extra to get it.

Step 8. See what the web designer offers for after-design services. Will the designer help maintain your site or is the designer only expected to do the initial design?

Step 9. Talk to the designer. Is s/he easy to communicate with? You should be able to communicate with your web designer easily. You should be comfortable presenting problems that you want solved. Your web designer should be respectful and prompt. You should both be able to compromise on what will work best for the viewers, not necessarily your personal taste.

Step 10. Look for previous, happy clients. You may look through the designer's website or blog and see if there are client testimonials. Note what they have to say about the designer. You may also try to call them (you may ask the contact number from the web designer) and ask for comments regarding the design process and final output.




Nicole McCullum is the Founder of http://www.CaptivateDesigns.com, a Web Design Company that provides professional and effective website design that's affordable to businesses throughout the US and Canada. Ms McCullum has been featured on inc.com as a Web Design Expert and her web design tips and articles have been published in NY Enterprise Report and Strategy Magazine. You may reach her by emailing her at info@captivatedesigns.com. For more tips on successful web design strategies and internet marketing you may visit her blog "Turn Your Website Into a Lead Generation Machine" at http://www.captivatedesigns.com/blog.