Webs For You

As you cruise the WEB trying to get ideas for your website there are a couple of things that you might want to consider before jumping into the Internet pool.  First of all you have visited a few websites in your time and know which ones looked good, professional and appealed to you.  As you are viewing each website you might want to get a piece of paper and pen out to note down some of the things that appeal to you and those things that don’t about each of the ones you have visited.  Mostly, I look for an appealing color scheme.  The colors chosen by the web creators is an important factor because you have to appeal to the widest possible audience.  Yes, you want to choose the colors that you like the most but you also want to make sure that they are readable, appealing but not too loud or dark that they take away from your message, and have a nice contrast between your borders, pictures, columns and your words.

The second thing I notice when I visit a website is the layout.  By that I mean are there columns, is the information blocked out nicely, are the pages easily accessible and is it uniformed in appearance?  I have visited some websites that looked pretty jumbled and hard to read.  The words are not blocked or just centered on the page.  Centering can be a nice feature and allows each web browser to interpret the information as best it can.  You need to code the pages so that the information you want to convey is centered and if you have widgets or add-ons they should be grouped to the side.  In today’s world you need a website that flows as freely as possible and has the coding to allow the same look on any browser.  Everyone is familiar with the Internet Explorer offered by Microsoft but there are other browsers out there such as Mozilla’s Firefox (my personal favorite), Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome.  Each of these browsers interprets websites in slightly different ways and may crunch up your information or be unable to display some nice little feature that looked fine in Microsoft’s Explorer.  I recommend that you download each of these browsers and begin using them so that you become familiar with their layout and how different websites are displayed.  Downloading them is FREE and each sponsor regularly updates them to try and cut down on the security threats that hackers try to take advantage of to get into your computer and make your day a misery.

Finally, a good website is fast.  In our fast-paced existence and with our computers being able to display information almost instantaneously it is important that your website load quickly so that your readers do not get bored with waiting and move onto another website.  A lot of websites are beginning to be deluged with heavy graphics, videos and flash programs.  These all will slow down your website when it loads onto a person’s browser.  Yes, there are some very nifty little things out there that you would like to have on your website but in the beginning you want your readers to get onto your website and be able to access your information quickly.  Once, you have established a following then you might consider upgrading your website to include Flash Programs and host your own podcast or video blog.  A good example of a Flash website is the writer Sue Grafton at  www.suegrafton.com or J.K. Rowling’s website in which she offers both a text version and a graphic intensive website at:  www.jkrowling.com both are pretty great but they do cost quite a lot to create and host.