Category: Web Design

Coloured pencils

Choosing Website Colours With Enough Contrast

Colour is often the first thing people talk about when a new website is planned. Brand colours, a mood, a feeling. But the colours you pick also decide whether people can read your pages at all. Pale grey text on a white background might look soft and modern, yet many visitors will struggle with it.

The good news is that readable colour is not guesswork. There is a published international standard with clear numbers you can check in a few minutes. This article covers what those numbers mean and how to apply them to text, buttons, forms and links.

(more…)

Single Page Website

Should I Use A Single Page Website?

If you’re a web developer or web designer then you will be familiar with one of the biggest modern web design debates: single page vs multi page websites. This debate has been raging for a few years now, and there are pros and cons for both sides of the argument.

In this article I’m going to walk through a few of the reasons why you might decide to use a single-page website. I’ll look closely at things like design features, your individual needs, and a range of other factors.

When Are Single Page Websites Useful?

Basically, single page websites are usually used by those who don’t have a lot of information to present, or who want to present a significant amount of information in a logical sequence. Some of the most popular uses for single page websites include:

  • As product landing pages, where a range of information is presented in a logical sequence, broken up by call to action buttons or sections.
  • As small business websites when you don’t have a lot of information to present. It’s more than possible to include small “about”, “services”, and “contact” sections within one single page design.
  • For portfolios, when the main purpose of your website is showcasing your work. Single page designs are great for this because they are simple and allow people to focus on your work.

As you can see, there are plenty of different uses for single page websites. However, it can still be hard to decide whether to use one or not.

(more…)

Effective Web Design

Important Elements for Effective Web Design

According to the professionals over at Web Design Perth, web design is the process of creating content that is intended to be portrayed on electronic web pages that can be accessed by the end users by means of internet browsers.

Designing, of any nature, involves the collection of ideas and implementing or arranging them in an aesthetic manner using guidelines provided.

Here are some important elements Web designers always keep in mind:

Layout:

This is the manner in which the text, ads and graphics are arranged on the Web. The main goal is to aid the viewers in locating, at first glance, the information they want.

It also includes maintaining the integrity, consistency and balance of the design.

Color:

The choice of colors is heavily dependent on the clientele and the purpose of the website. Designers can go for multi-colored or black and white designs based on the functionality and requirements of the client.

Depending on the purpose, you could be conveying the outlook of a brand, person or organization, using colors that are considered “Web-safe”.

Graphics:

Web Design can be effectively enhanced by using graphic elements such as icons, clipart, photos or logos.

Their placement is paramount when user-friendliness is in question, and should work with the content and color of the page, also making sure it is not slow to load or congested.

(more…)

Small Business Website

5 Reasons Why Your Small Business Needs A WordPress Website

If you own or manage a small business, you might have thought about building a website to help you develop an online presence. If you don’t already have a website, and haven’t thought about having getting a professional one, then you should be!

Fortunately for you, it’s never been easier to build a website than it is today. Beginner-friendly content management systems and software like WordPress mean that anyone can build their own website, regardless of their experience and skills, however it is a good idea to consult an SEO expert.

With this in mind, I’ve put together a short list of my top five reasons why your business should build a WordPress website. They include:

  1. A Website Will Help You Find Customers

Even having a small skeleton website can dramatically increase the amount of customers you have. This is true regardless of the type of business you have, and I’ve worked with plenty of small businesses who have grown by developing their online presence.

For example, if you’re a plumber in “City X”, having a website will help you get found when people search for something like “plumber in City X”. This will help drive new clients to your business.

  1. A Website Will Boost Your Credibility

If you have a website associated with your business it can dramatically boost your credibility and make you appear a lot more professional. Ultimately, building an online presence is one of the best ways to build your credibility and attract a range of new customers.

  1. A Website Will Give You A Competitive Advantage

If you operate in a competitive niche with numerous other businesses, then you should be doing everything you can to gain a competitive advantage for you and your business. Building a website can give you this advantage, especially if you can get it to the top of Google using relevant keywords within your website content to help Search Engine Optimisation.

(more…)

How to Take Your Logo From Average to Great

How to Take Your Logo From Average to Great

A logo is the ‘face’ of your business in the world. From the colours chosen to the design elements to the words you choose to use, each part has the potential to be memorable. And memorable is good. If you pair a memorable logo with good advertising then you are more likely to get an inbound inquiry or sale than a comparable business with a less eye-catching logo.

And if you pair a good logo with a great product, service or customer experience, then you are on your way to establishing a strong customer brand.

Unfortunately, for many small and medium sized businesses, their logos let them down. They are forgettable, or badly designed, or have obvious flaws (like appearing blurry or pixelated on screens). There are plenty of reasons for that – SME’s don’t have huge budgets to spend on designers and logos, and often, they don’t even know how they could improve their current branding.

This article is here to help with that with some simple, practical ways to create a better, more memorable logo.

(more…)

WordPress Categories And Tags

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress Categories And Tags

When it comes to building the perfect WordPress websites, experts like the team at SEO Perth Experts say there are a lot of things to think about. You have to try and create engaging, interesting content, draw visitors in, and make your site show up on Google. Doing one or two of these things isn’t too difficult, but trying to do all three at the same time can be almost impossible.

There are a lot of different things that you can do to help yourself achieve the perfect website. Learning how to use every part of the WordPress platform to optimise your content for search engines is essential. When it comes to doing this sort of thing, learning how to use categories and tags effectively is something that a lot of people don’t do.

What are categories and tags?

When you create new content in WordPress, you can label it in a number of ways. You can place it underneath an existing page, you can add it to a series, or you can simply label it by date and time. However, you can also add it to a category and add tags to it.

Categories:

WordPress categories provide a way for you to sort your content into different groups, according to their themes, topics, and what they are about. This makes it easier for both search crawlers to find their way around your website, and for readers to find more posts that they are interested in. You can display categories in a number of places, including above or below your posts. You can also add multiple categories to the same post.

Tags:

Tags give even more information about the content of your post. They basically connect related posts even more than categories. You should tag everything relevant about your post, while you usually only add one or two main categories. Categories are general, but tags are specific to your post or parts of your post.

(more…)

Choosing A Web Designer

Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing A Web Designer

As you begin to narrow down the shortlist of web designers and the time comes for your web design to become a reality, there are several mistakes that many business owners make as the process begins. If you don’t want to make the same errors and end up with a poorly designed website, or worse no website at all, then read on to discover three crucial mistakes you want to avoid.

#1 No Clear Idea Of Your Needs

Before choosing a web designer you must establish what function the website has and what part it is going to play in the success of your business. Websites can vary tremendously in both their size and complexity so it is vital you know which sort of website you need. Is it a fully functional e-commerce site, a small single page email capture site, a corporate portal or a blog?

Of course, there are other types of website so whichever it is, ensure that you choose a web design company that has a track record of creating the sort of site you want and make it clear exactly what it is you require them to create.

#2 Making Your Decision Based On Price Alone

Every business has budget restraints, especially new businesses, so it is likely that you will need to have an eye on the cost of your web design. However, this does not mean that you merely choose the cheapest quote. Remember that your site may be the first contact any of your potential customers have with your business, so the last thing you want is for that impression to be of a cheap company with no pride in how it appears to the online world.

If your budget won’t stretch to all the advanced functions and eye-catching graphics you’d like, at least go for a designer who can build you a great looking site at a cost which is value for money. Ensure that what they design can be upgraded as your business revenue increases and a budget you can allocate to improving your website further, becomes available

(more…)

Web Design Career

Web Design As A Career?

As the internet continues to evolve, web design as a career will remain in demand. Currently, web design is a hot career choice, for many creative high school and college graduate types. Although a degree is not necessary, it is not useless to have one, especially while being interviewed. The important thing is to do the necessary research during the planning stage, so that you can determine if web design is the right career for you. Typically, web designers have an artistic background, or experience in art of some kind. Before we get into the specifics of web design as a career, let’s first take a look at what web design entails.

Designers Make Web Pages Aesthetically Pleasing

Web designers are responsible for developing the general design details that make up a website. This includes, but is not limited to, the color schemes as well as the layouts of web pages. What is often misunderstood, is that web designers are not there only to make web pages aesthetically sound. Web designers are also responsible for, ensuring that the navigational aspects of a website are smooth. There is no use in having a gorgeous website, if your visitors are unable to navigate it. Web designers also need to have a basic understanding of SEO. Doing so, allows for their client’s websites to rank higher in the search engines. If this is done properly, websites can place ads that incur revenue and monetize content.

All web designers usually come from creative backgrounds, and many of them know a bit about coding as well. This is especially handy, when it is required of them to program in HTML and CSS.

(more…)

Early Stages Web Design

The Early Stages Of Web Design

The internet today is vastly different from what it once was. For many of us, we remember an internet landscape where watching movies, managing our finances, and buying and selling products, was simply beyond the grasp of comprehension. Those of us who were alive to remember using the internet during its early days, are comforted by how far it has come along, and the current level of convenience. It is true, that we rely on the comprehensive scope of capabilities that the internet provides today, much more than we ever have. Every day, it feels as though the internet becomes steadily more efficient. Taking the occasional glance back at the early, simplistic days of the internet before the advent of digital agencies like allows you to appreciate what we have today all the more. As technology has evolved, so has the Web Designer’s trade.

Early Uses For Webpages

While the internet was developing in the 1950s, it was also being used as something of an early academic social network. When the 60’s came around, researchers at Santa Barbara and the Stanford Research Institute, founded ARPANet. This is turn facilitated the transmission of messages, sent between researchers who were members of the network. This was an amazing feat! A new mode of communication had been discovered! A new and alternative form of communication was needed, in the event that phone systems could potentially be eradicated during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Early Web Design

Shortly after this advancement, the internet arrived. When the IPS (Internet Protocol Suite) was established, a guideline on data transmission that previously did not exist was now set in place. Essentially, this acted as an early manual of how the internet should be used. It was not until halfway through the 90’s, that WWW (The first Web Browser) was established by Tim Berners-Lee. From that point onward, we have witnessed the continual evolution of the internet.

(more…)

6 Things to Think About When Preparing a New Website

Remember the late 1990s when blinking images were thought to be the best thing for any website? Well fast forward to today and that shouldn’t even be on your want list. You and your web designer need to sit down and hash out what your website is going to look like before they start building your site. If you are wondering what you need to do to prepare to get your website off the ground, you’re at the right place. Let’s look at 6 tips & strategies you need to think about.

  • Who will be in charge? Who is going to make the development and design decisions? This can be a group of people or it can be just one person. If it’s a team one person, still needs to be handle the final approval. Otherwise, it can become quite chaotic as reworks are ordered by individuals in the group.
  • What’s your niche? What do you sell? What’s your product or service? You need to be very specific. If you sell air conditioners to residential customers, then your need to focus on that market with what you say in your content and the images you show. Don’t show a beach when you sell air conditioners – it sends a confusing message to your visitors.
  • Who is your target market? It is important that you stay on target. You need to be specific. Back to our example. If you sell air conditioners then your target market will be homeowners and let’s say they have homes that are 25 years or newer and the age of the homeowner is between 30 and 50. So when you write about your services make sure this is the market you are talking to.

(more…)

Web Design With Website Templates

Web design has become very popular as a ‘do it yourself’ kind of undertaking. Website templates are a way of creating your own web design without the need to engage a professional digital marketing agency. You will be able to create a professional looking website quickly.

Website templates usually come with some ‘dummy’ content inserted to mark placeholders so you can just replace with your own text. Templates can be found in many different themes and tons of colour schemes, so that you can find the template that’s right for you. Many times these templates come with related graphics and these can be customized with your own graphics. Remember you do not have the copyright to the template, so make sure you are aware of what you are allowed to do with the template.

There are a number of benefits to using a template. Templates:

  • Provide a basic web page layout
  • Provide a consistent look and feel throughout your site
  • Come with quality graphics
  • Let you customize your graphics
  • Allow you to easily add content

(more…)

Checklist: 10 Must-Haves For Websites

We love bucket lists for budding online entrepreneurs, so we’ll give Certified Social Media Specialist (drum roll) Joanne Burgess have a turn this time at telling you Top-10 things your website should have.

Why do we do these every now and then? Because there’s always first-time web design customers coming along, and it’s too easy to forget that our advanced chatter sounds like a babbling brook of techno-jargon to the first-timers. It’s necessary to include the new users, too.

Web Design – Hire a Pro or Do it Yourself

When it comes to web design a great debate still rages about whether you should hire a pro or do it yourself. There are a number of important factors that can help you make your decision about which is right, because both have their pros and cons.

The days of a simple HTML website being sufficient are pretty much gone. Modern websites require complex features like secure payment systems, professional designs that stand out in a competitive market, and robust security measures. At Slinky Hosting, they understand the technology behind mobile optimization, creating a quality site, and implementing effective security are essential skills for today’s web developers.

Some of you may have the necessary expertise, while others might need guidance. To help bridge this gap, we’ve compiled a list of skills that internet business consultants agree are crucial for modern web design and building a site that truly performs. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting out, this information should prove valuable in creating a website that meets current standards and expectations.

(more…)

Handy Tool Of The Day: CSS3 Generator

OK, you web design people all probably mumble hexadecimal color codes and CSS div tags in your sleep, but there’s a tool to generate CSS3 code on the fly anyway. Similar to the W3 School’s “try-it” editor, this is a visual tool to try out a trick and tweak it on the fly, then just copy ‘n’ paste the code.

Only downside is that you need a bleeding-edge browser to see it. But we’re all used to that; it’s been a fact of life since, what, 1992?

Open Source Gurus: Why Are They Such Curmudgeons?

WordPress users are ruminating over the founder’s latest opinionated decision, and this author does us all the favor of explaining just why the guru prima-donna mindset tends to be the norm in open source development.

We see it all the time with open source project founders. The fact is, it simply takes somebody with a stubborn streak to launch a successful open source project.

Neither democracy nor oligarchy will do; you need the fabled “benevolent dictator for life”. The recipe for an open source founder is a self-starter, visionary, and rebel, with a touch of stubbornness and an unswerving aim for the Right Thing… which isn’t always the popular thing.