Custom Website Design

Usability study normally precedes the interface and technical design of the website construction process, which involves establishment of complete user profiles, creation of the interface model or sample and extensive user testing.

The ideal web interface design demands for organized approach in the designing process. However, to guarantee optimal performance, web usability testing is needed. This domain testing allows inexperienced users to supply data regarding what really is working, as have been expected and then what is not working. Only as soon as the subsequent repairs are constructed and done can a website be considered to achieve optimized user interface.

This procedure, though in several cases takes a few repetitions, provide the necessary and important information and evidence for the finished web interface functionality and design, resulting in a website interface that conveys clear messages to visitors, regarding where they actually are, easily predict what is about to happen as well as where buttons will take them and what they need to do to accomplish their goals. The ease and simplicity of all these activity is what defines a usable website.

The experience of the user is the main factor to acceptance; this is where interface design comes in the designing process. Whereas product engineers give emphasis on technology, specialists in website usability concentrate on user interface.

The significance of a great interface user design is the driving force of a product’s acceptance or rejection.

If visitors have hard time learning and using, a complicated website, even an excellent product can fail. Interface design must make your product simple to use and understand, so that it results to user acceptance.

Here are guidelines for creating website usability:

System status. Your system must always update users regarding what is happening, through correct feedback within a reasonable time.

Simple words. Make sure that your website speaks the language of your visitors, having phrases or words familiar to them. Construct information that appears in a most natural tone and in consistent order.

User freedom and control. Note that internet users at times encounter mistakes in system functions and need an “emergency exit” in order to easily leave that undesirable situation. Support in your system “undo and redo”.

Consistency. Visitors must not need to question whether different situations, words or actions represent the similar things. Follow platform principles or guidelines.

Retrievable instructions. Making actions, options and objects visible and easily retrievable. Your visitors do not need to remember certain information from a particular part of a dialogue “to another”.

Efficiency and flexibility of use. Use accelerators to speed up interaction between experts and the system. Construct it in such manner you’re your system is able to cater both the experienced and inexperienced users. Permit users to customize frequent actions.

Users help. Display error messages in plain and simple language that accurately indicate what the problem is and then propose a solution.

User interface and design principles:

1. Structure. Your web design must establish user interface persistently, in useful and meaningful ways that are based on consistent and clear models easily recognizable; put all related and similar things together.

2. Simplicity. Design your website simply, making common tasks easy to do, clearly communicating in the language of the user, and providing shortcuts that meaningfully are related to those longer procedures.

3. Visibility. Design your website that it keeps all materials and options visible without disrupting your visitors with redundant or extraneous information. Never overwhelm your visitors with too much alternatives.

4. Feedback. Your design must keep your visitors well informed of certain actions, changes of condition, errors or certain exceptions which are of interest and relevant to them through concise and clear language.

5. Tolerance. Your design must be tolerant at the same time flexible, reducing misuse and mistakes by permitting “undo and redo”. Likewise prevent errors from occurring by accepting different sequences and inputs by translating all logical actions.

How your website interface is designed either makes or breaks your business. Although website functionality is a significant factor, the manner by which it imparts that functionality or user performance is likewise as important. A website that is hard to manage will not be used at all. Period.

There can be no argument about the importance of design in attracting Internet users to a particular web site. No one would bother to explore the contents of a site if it does not contain eye-catching graphics that can please the visual sense of the users. With so many kinds of web sites existing online, it is extremely challenging to attract users and keep them interested in the site.

But a web site developer does not simply apply graphics freely on a site. Graphics should be used in the correct manner, or else, users might get turned off because the graphics featured just overwhelmed or confused them.

While it is true that attractive design is important for reasons that need not be explained, the choice of design must be carefully considered against the fulfilling the needs of users. When done successfully, it could be safely said that the web site has achieved its goals.

Graphics used in the Internet is inextricably linked to multimedia. Multimedia is a combination of graphics, text, sound, and animation to express a message to users. The multimedia features that will be incorporated to a web site should be dependent on the content. In general, multimedia and graphics should serve as supports to content, and should have precise, instructional purpose.

According to research, animated images can facilitate the transfer of learning in a positive way if it is utilized to show a vital part of the concept that is being illustrated. On the other hand, animation can serve as a barrier to user recall and performance.

Here are the guidelines in incorporating graphics to web sites:

1. Justify the usage of the graphics
The most obvious problem that can be seen on web pages is the over-usage of graphics. The main downside of this is that complicated, unnecessary graphics can take a long time to download, and this, of course, will not sit well with users. The graphics to be applied should support the transfer of data and should also be in relation to the accompanying text.

2. The difference between graphics with text-redundant data and those containing information that is non-redundant is that the former facilitates and ushers in the learning process, while the latter does not either help or slow down learning.

3. Consistency should be a priority in graphic design

4. Web pages should be marked up so that text will be downloaded before the graphics. In this way, the users will know immediately if the page has the information that they are looking for, and if not, they will be able to save precious waiting time knowing that they do not need that certain page.

5. The loading of graphics should be controlled as such that loading will commence from top to bottom, and the users scrolling down the page will encounter said graphics.

6. The downloading of pages should be fast in order to save users waiting time, and in order to reduce the chances that they will get frustrated that they will abandon plans to download. Here are several ways to achieve fast download periods:

-Keep the physical size of the graphics to a minimum
-Images should be combined in order to minimize the number of server connections. Remember, the more connections that exists, the slower the download time will be
-Decrease image resolution
-Limit the colors that will be used for the images
-Limit the use of animation

Animation is very much a part of web graphic design. The primary difference between web text and graphics and contents that are print-based is the dynamics. Moving displays attract the attention of users as long as the frequency of the display is regulated. Too much animation display can irritate and distract users. An animation that is perpetually moving can destroy the readable quality of the web page.

The usage of blinking texts should be avoided. It has long been regarded as an overused feature and the latest browsers no longer support it.

In designing a web site, there always exists a conflict between the desire to have total control over the appearance of a page and the need to permit users to establish their own preferences. The general appearance of the page should be made by the designer, but there are certain elements that users should have control over, such as color and text background, and the option whether to display graphics or not.

It takes a considerable amount of effort to establish and maintain the attractiveness and efficiency of a web site. If the guidelines above will be followed, all the efforts of web designers will bear desirable results. They only have to remember that the benefit of the users will always be the basis for everything.

In this short article, you’re about to discover 3 of the most important web design secrets you can use to get the far more affiliate sales out of your current website visitors!

Let’s get started:

1. Create fast loading web pages.

The faster your site loads, the better. Often people have expensive flash sites that look good, but they’re causing a lot of your visitors to leave before they get to know you.

If you do want to use flash, DON’T have it be the page your visitors first see (an exception might be a corporate site or one for the sole purpose of putting on your business card).

A large amount of visitors will NOT be patient and wait for it to load. You’ve got to keep in mind that the web is a place where people can quickly click away.

If they don’t see what they’re looking for, they’ll leave because there are many more sites for them to look at.

You must capture your visitors’ interest quickly. Let them know you have what they’re looking for.

If you have flash because you want to show your music or work, then have it within your site. Pull people in first.

Otherwise you’re going to be throwing away your time and money spent getting people to your sites.

2. Use the power of words to grab your readers’ attention, not just images.

Creating headlines are a powerful way to pull right visitors into your site and let them know you have what they’re looking for.

For great headline ideas, go to the bookstore or Amazon.com and check-out magazines that your visitors might read. What headlines do they use to grab people’s attention and get them to buy?

You can then adapt the headlines to fit what your site has to offer.

Images then compliment the text by helping to convey a story your text tells them.

This is why you’ll notice all of our sites to sell the products are low on images and heavy on sales copy. The images alone don’t sell any of the products, but they do HELP sell it by making the sales copy more effective.

A good way to explain this is if you were hiring somebody to mix your music. If all they had was an image of the mixing engineer hard at work and you knew nothing else about him, is that enough to sell you?

It helps, but the answer is most likely no way! You still have a million questions about the engineer. Who has he worked with before? How much does he cost? Why is he or she worth that amount? Is he or she easy to work with? And the list goes on and on.

Simply put, “The more you tell, the more you sell.” Answer your visitors’ questions and concerns. Don’t be concerned about having too much text, as long as what you’re saying is of actual concern to your visitors.

3. Decide what action(s) you want your visitor to take.

Remember this and repeat it as you design your sites, “The confused mind takes no action!”

This simply means you need to spell-out and make clear exactly what you want your visitor to do.

* Do you want them to check-out a recommended product?

* Do you want them to sign-up for your newsletter?

* Do you want them to buy your product or service?

* Do you want them to read your articles on your website?

If so, make it easy for them to do so… and make it clear exactly what they should do.

Don’t hesitate to directly tell them to sign-up for your newsletter, read your articles, or take a specific action.

You may think it’s obvious. But, a reader that stumbles across your website and does not know you may not.

An example of the power of this advice is if you have a link that says “Click here to see articles” you will usually dramatically increase the amount of people clicking on that link than if it only said, “Articles.”

All you’re doing is spelling out exactly what your visitor should do.

When designing your sites, think through where your visitors are coming from (search engines, articles, press releases, etc..) and then give them what they’re looking for.

The bottom line is this… keep your site straight forward and simple (the less options, the better) and have it focus on the visitor. Give him or her exactly what he or she is looking for.

As a result, you skyrocket the amount site visitors, affiliate commissions, or customers for your primary venture!

You’ve heard the catch phrase a million times, but what is “Link Pop” exactly? It’s simple really. A website’s link popularity, often called “Link Pop”, can be determined by the quality, quantity, and relevance of the other websites that link to its page.

Link Pop can be a tricky thing. In the good old days, search engines determined a site’s page ranking by the amount of times the keywords appeared in the text. Soon webmasters learned that if they squeezed an obnoxious amount of keywords into their site’s text, the site would eventually gain a very high page ranking.

Since search engines like Google gain users by serving quality webpage matches, they had to get smarter than the web developers. Google decided that instead of keyword match-ups only, page ranking would in addition be based on pages that had the most links to them. In theory, a website that has a bunch of other pages linking to it must be good, right? Wrong.

Webmasters would create these links any way that they could. “Link Farms” began developing and cluttering up the web. A link farm is essentially a page with tons of links on it, often in no particular order. These pages were virtually useless to web users, yet web designers were using them to gain better page rankings.

The thing is, search engines aren’t designed for web developers. They are designed for web users. Thus, when the “best” sites weren’t showing up first, Google had to try yet another strategy. This time links would be categorized. The best kind of link is an “Inbound Link.” An “Inbound Link” basically means another site links to your site. This generally happens because the webmaster of the site feels that the information on your site is valuable to his or her readers. Your page ranking will improve significantly if the website has a higher page ranking than yours and if there is obvious relevance between the two sites.

An “Outbound Link” means that your site offers a link to another site. “Outbound Links” don’t hurt your popularity if they are relevant sites, but they don’t necessarily help. Then we have “Reciprocal” and “Non-Reciprocal” links. A reciprocal link means that two sites connect to each other. A non-reciprocal link is a one-way link. Search engines are able to tell the difference between reciprocal and non-reciprocal links. Obviously non-reciprocal links are more credible because there is no direct benefit to the linker, and will thus increase your link popularity.

In order to create link pop for your website, you should focus on creating as many inbound non-reciprocal links as possible. One of the best ways to do this is through locating sites that are similar to your own and that accept links on their site from other related websites.

This can be a very time consuming process if done manually but there are many software programs out there that can make the job much easier and in less time then if you were doing it manually. One of the best programs on the internet to handle this process is called Backlink Submitter and it can be found at http://www.backlinksubmitter.com

Link directories are another great way to build ones link pop. Essentially, a link directory provides users with a collection of links organized by topic. There are thousands of directories to choose from. DMOZ and Yahoo! are the most heavily weighted. Directories exist solely to provide users with valuable resources. They are edited and organized by humans, so appearing in a directory can be a measure of a site’s worth. If your website is listed, it is viewed by users as a credible source.

Get your link in many directories as you can! There are two benefits. It will generate targeted traffic to your site, and it can improve your page ranking. When choosing a directory, look for the ones that allow you to add your own title and/or keywords. Choose directories that have less than 50 listings per page, and make sure the addition can improve your page ranking.

The submission process can be frustrating and time-consuming. The upside is, once your link is posted your link pop can shoot through the roof. Fortunately, we have developed a way to make the submission process painless. To learn how to efficiently submit your website to the top directories on the web, go to http://www.directorysubmitter.com