website design resources
Browse this category for basic information about topics such as domain name registration, website designing, web hosting and search engine optimization. If you require further information on Search engine optimization Please browse our Developer resources section.
Must know website basics
Let KM Websol help you with your website design and development issues. To develop or design a website first you need to know the web basics so you can identity, itemize and group your requirements appropriately.
Website development process can be divided into four main phases
Before I start on web site basics, Let me clear one very important thing. once you start building your web site, you will come across a wide spread of fancy design and website decoration technologies available out there. Please do not berry the basic aim of your website in run to spice up your web space with those fancy technologies. Website design is to reflect your business, business culture and business identity and you should confirm this before you spend any resources on buying a new design technology .
A domain name or URL is the address that your site will be located with. For example, www.webdatadesign.com.au is the KM Websol website address. You can select any domain name that is available with the extension .com.au .com, .net, .org, etc.. and register it.
Domain name registration process: We recommend you select a .com.au extension if your business is located in Australia. a .com.au domain extension will help your website visitor confirm you are an Australian business because to register a .com.au domain name extension you need to have a valid ABN number. Initially we had a very popular .com domain name registered for us which we replaced with our http://www.webdatadesign.com.au domain name which represents the nature of our business which is to provide cost-effective website design, database and e-commerce solutions to small and medium sized business. The reason being is that we are located in Australia and most of web design queries to us were from prospective clients located in Australia. Most of them had included a question regarding our geographic location in their query. Yes, all of those details are provided in our Contact us and About us web pages but the fact is that everyone does not have time to go and visit every single page of your web site. Thus, in our opinion, it is worth getting a domain name that confirms your identity.
Once you have decided on extension and domain name for your business you are ready to register it for your business. You can visit any website providing domain name registration service and check the availability of your preferred domain name. If the website domain name is available you can register it online, that's all you need to do to register a domain name. There is nothing much you can do if your preferred web domain name is not available for sale/resale. You got to choose another URL for your web site address.
--->Domain name registration costs
We suggest you do a bit of research before you register a web site domain name with any provider. there are numerous providers out there offering website registration service, a bit of shopping around may help you find a cheaper option and save on your registration cost. Since a domain name is a domain name, there is no quality issue so if someone is offering a cheaper option, go for it. But yes, do not forget that domain name extension matters. If you are going to get your website designed by a professional firm, checkout if they are offering free domain name registration with website design because we do!
Web site design is your online visual identity, if you are going to get it done by a web design specialist, we recommend you first check out that they follow the basic rules as described below. The good web design companies like KM Websol Web design definatily consider all these issues like search engine optimization, time to load the page, technical issues. however, if your web developer does not then you are wasting your resources. The information that is viewable from your domain name is your web site. Your site generally consists of web based graphics and text.
You can select the graphics that best suit your Program and input the content yourself with simple word processing skills. Setting up your web site and deciding website design and colours has never been easier! As I said earlier, one may berry the aim of website in try to make website spicy! If you are not sure what to do, you should take an advice from a web design company that offers affordable custom web design and e-commerce solutions. They will be able to help you through this process.
If you are new to this area you may choose using template based web design which may come in handy if you are looking for the most cost-effective way to obtain professional web design services with valid XHTML and valid css! Mostly these templates are made by web design gurus with all rules in mind. They are cheaper because they are shareware templates and you may find the same design on other websites as well.
--->Web design Dos and Don't'
It is good to have high quality graphics but higher quality will always your website process slow and people with slower internet speed will have to wait longer before your website page window opens. Do you think if you were the one to wait, you will care to wait? Myself i will move on to the next website.
Content and forms - Cut any questions that are not needed. For example, do you really need a salutation (Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss/etc..)?
Do not make fields mandatory unless they truly are. Support autofill to the max by avoiding unusual field labels (just use Name, Address, etc..).
Set the keyboard focus to the first field when the form is displayed. This saves a click. Allow flexible input of phone numbers, credit card numbers, and the like. Its easy to have the computer eliminate characters like parentheses and extra spaces. This is particularly important for elderly users, who tend to suffer when sites require data entry in unfamiliar formats.
Why lose orders because a user prefers to enter a credit card number in nicely chunked, four-digit groups rather than an undifferentiated, error-prone blob of sixteen digits?
Even though phone numbers and email addresses are the most requested forms of contact info, having a physical mailing address on the site might be more important because its one of the key credibility markers. A company with no address is not one you want to give money to.
Following are the five main guidelines for links:
Make obvious what's clickable: for text links on your site, use coloured, underlined text (and don't underline non-link text).
Differentiate visited and unvisited links so visitor can know what part of your website they have already visited.
Explain what users will find at the other end of the link, and include some of the key information-carrying terms in the anchor text itself to enhance scannability and search engine optimization (SEO).
Reduce the use of "click here" or other non-descriptive link text, it will just reduce the popularity of your web site.
Avoid Java script or other fancy techniques that break standard interaction techniques for dealing with links. In particular, don't open your web site pages in new windows (except for PDF files and such).
Links are the Webs number one interaction element. Violating common expectations for how links work is a sure way to confuse and delay website users, and might prevent them from being able to use your site.
Flash is a programming environment and should be used to offer users additional power and features that are unavailable from a static page. Flash should not be used to jazz up a page.
If your web site content is boring, rewrite text to make it more compelling and hire a professional photographer to shoot better photos. Don't make your pages move. It doesn't increase users attention, it drives them away.
web friendly text they can read; content that answers their questions; web site MENU and search that help them find what they want; short and simple forms (streamlined registration, checkout, and other work flow); and no bugs, typos, or corrupted data; no link rot; no outdated content.
Any time you feel tempted to add a new feature or advanced technology to your web site, first consider whether you would get a higher ROI by spending the resources on polishing the quality of what you already have. Most companies, e-commerce sites, government agencies, and non-profit organizations would contribute more to their websites business goals with better headlines than with any new technology.
Again remember, website design must reflect your business culture and identity. (aside from a better search engine, of course).
After creating your site and registering a domain name, the website needs to be hosted on a server that accesses the entire Internet. Now when people enter your Program’s domain name into the address bar of their browser, they will access your web site. KM Websol hosts websites at extremely competitive rates, checkout our best website design packages at http://www.webdatadesign.com.au. Our web site design clients get even cheaper rates on web hosting plans.