How to Make a Good Looking Web Site
Designing a Web site may at first glance seem daunting. Arranging text on the page in columns or tables is easy enough, but adding more advanced multimedia features such as audio, video, widgets, pictures, hyperlinks, Flash objects and social networking and sharing tools may boggle the mind. Thankfully, you no longer have to be an expert in HTML and other Web programming languages to create your own Web site. Today's WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web-design software tools such as Microsoft Expression Web and Adobe Dreamweaver make creating a great-looking Web site a breeze.
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Instructions
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Sketch out a rough visual outline of your Web site. For inspiration look at a few popular websites and how information is laid out (for example, CNN, Expedia Travel, Disney). Notice how these organizations approach the all-important navigation menu. Some place that information on the left, up top, or at the bottom of the page. Note how visual elements are placed in relation to text. Paragraphs, columns and tables are arrange around pictures, videos and other visual elements for maximum clarity and visual appeal. Web sites sometimes use Flash animation, mouse rollovers and voice and sound effects to enhance the user's experience.
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Identify and showcase your product or service. Like the website examples you have previewed, your products and/or services must be clearly identified and showcased on your new site's home page. For example, Amazon's website is dedicated to selling books, electronics and a variety of other products. The company's home page highlights new products, what other customers are searching for in real time, and hot items and sale items in a given category. Clearly, Amazon's marketing strategy is to "wow" the customer and pull them in rather than to simply display available items. This new strategy is to "push" exciting products and services to the customer, not have them search through mountains of data to find what they are looking for.
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Create a logo. A company logo defines who you are and what you do. Hire a professional graphic designer or, if you have the money, an advertising company to help you create an eye-catching logo. This logo will be part of your overall branding campaign and will be included on company letterhead, brochures, posters, pens, signs, banners and all advertising. It must visually reflect what your business is all about. Choose a short but powerful tagline that further describes your business. For example, "Empowering People" or "The Greener Choice."
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Add social networking and sharing to your Web site. The face of the Internet today is all about people sharing information with friends, family and colleagues. Enable sharing on your site by inserting social networking buttons and menus from addthis.com, addtoany.com or sharethis.com. After sharing becomes active on your site, readers can share your blogs, articles and other information within their social networks--thus spreading the word about you and your business.
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Tips & Warnings
All websites have three fundamental links in their navigation menu: Home, About Us and Contact Us. Other websites add Sign In, Feedback, Help, FAQ, Sitemap and Jobs (or Careers). Keep your website simple yet visually appealing.
Do not weigh down your web page with too much text, since readers are most comfortable reading small chunks of text of no more than 80-100 words. On the other hand, too many visual elements on the page will look amateurish and cause the browser to pause as elements load. This only annoys impatient visitors to your site.
References
Resources
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