Making Your Website your Visitors Favorite

A Favicon is a short the Favorites Icon. It is a multi-resolution image included on nearly all professional developed sites. With Internet Explorer, it is displayed on the Address line and in the Favorites menu. It allows the webmaster to further promote their website, and create a more customized appearance within a visitor's browser. Oftenly, the Favicon reflects the look and feel of the web site or the company's logo.

When visitors bookmark any website, a little icon shows up in the bookmarks and in the tab display of some Web browsers. This is called the favorites icon or favicon. The procedure for creating the favicon is :

1. Create an image 16x16 in dimensions using any graphics program like Adobe Photoshop. This
is a tiny image, so you should try out different versions until you create an image that will work
for the website.

2. Save this image in a GIF or BMP file format with 256 colors or less. The reason for choosing
the 256 colors or less is that the icon files, like Web images, have to display on the computer
monitors, so they can't reliably display millions of colors. Since an icon file is for Windows
display only, it can be 256 colors, rather than the Web standard 216.

3. Once an acceptable image is created, convert it to the icon format and save it as favicon.ico

4. To publish the icon, upload it to the same directory as the file you want
bookmarked.

5. If you want to put a different icon on every page of your site or point to one icon in
many folders, you need to add a link reference to the head of every HTML document that you
want the favorite icon associated with.

7 Website Design Tips

Seven Website Design Tips to Make Your Site More Attractive

1. Be Aware during Selection of the colours scheme

If your company has a logo or preferred colours on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colours and stick with them – don’t change colours on every page. The most common colour schemes include:

- Red, yellow and white
- Blue and white
- Red, grey and white
- Blue, orange and white
- Yellow, grey and white.
- Onion shade, Tan, white

If you’re not sure what colour scheme to choose, surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can then model your colour scheme on what already exists.

Always Select those colours which Attract the visitors, and the person revisit your site.

2. Page Backgrounds

Ensure your visitors can read the text on the background, i.e. no black writing on dark blue background or yellow on white. Means if the page background is dark always use light colour for the writhing a text or if the light colour is used for the page background the always use dark colour for writing a text, like this colour scheme for the background everything is visible to the visitor. Also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue (before being visited) and burgundy (after being visited), so if you have a dark background, ensure your links are light.

3. Page loading (site open within a minutes)

All I’ve seen for the last 10 minutes is ‘page loading’, I think something might be wrong with my browser this is probably one of the biggest gripes a site visitor has. If your page takes more than a minute to load (on dial-up) and you have anything less than the meaning of life hidden within your content - something needs to be done. The average person does not have time they just go for another site without passed his time for these type of site those take time to open. So a good website takes less time for loading a site.

4. Appropriate page Size

Web pages are measured in pixels. Pixels are the unit of measurement for the screen. A Web page can literally be any size. Standard Web pages usually fit into a few sizes:

* W × H * 600 × 800 * 640 × 480 (Dream weaver default) * 1024 × 768 * 550 × 400 (Flash default)

The default Web page sizes provided in Web friendly applications and listed earlier are a great place to start. You will probably use a smaller, custom size for pop-up windows. The Web page size you choose is up to you. Remember to use actual space for the Web page effectively so that the content is in the proper proximity to the user's navigation patterns. Web page size affects the way users move around the Web pages and the Web portfolio site. One rule: Pick a size for all main screens and stick to it.

5. Logo

Create a simple logo to identity your website. Have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website.

6. Application of graphic designs

You must be careful in choosing for the appropriate design that will best represent your projects, and tell about your business. Create a design which coveys in a stylish way what it has to.

7. Be aware about grammar and spell

Grammar is overrated [and the spill-checker too] Most web authoring and word processing software comes with a spell/grammar check utility - don’t let your hard earned money go to waste, use it. Some of the more common grammatical mistakes are misusing its, it’s, there, their, they’re, your, you’re, and noone (correct=no one). Proof reading your final product is also helpful. No one is infallible, that’s why pencils have erasers and computer programs have [ctrl+z].

Whats the Best Website Design option for your Business

PRE-DESIGNED TEMPLATE OR A CUSTOM DESIGN?

Don’t let your business get left behind. If you’re not on the web already, what are you waiting for? There are plenty of reasons for your company to get online. A website provides an instant visual presentation, is always available, is easily updated and improves customer relations, just to name a few benefits. There are a couple of options for your company, though, when planning your website design. Should you use pre-designed templates or have a professional design a custom website?

Pre-Designed Templates

A website template is pre-designed by a professional. Once the template is designed you can add or change any content you like through an easy to use Wizard. Templates are time savers. With templates you don’t have to wait to get a hold of your web design company if you want to make changes to the site. Also, the cost of a template is considerably less than hiring a firm to create and maintain your site. No HTML coding or graphic design knowledge is required to maintain your own templates. You can customize most aspects of the templates but they can look somewhat generic, not be search engine friendly, or become too time consuming to manage.

Custom Design

If your business doesn’t have the time to manage their own website, hiring a professional may be the right road to take. Building and maintaining a great looking website takes a great deal of time and effort, not to mention knowledge of different coding and design skills. What business has time for that? Yes, hiring a professional web design company does cost a little more money. This isn’t the only thing your business should consider. You should consider all the time and effort that will be saved by hiring an outside company. Another benefit from hiring a professional is service. With templates, you may be left in the dark if you get into some trouble. Or, you may have to pay for costly service calls to fix the problem. Also, you can be sure to have a fully customized site, completely unique, that looks professional and increases your business!

Both customized websites and templates have pros and cons. Basically it comes down to your company’s budget and spare time. If you’ve got the time to manage your own website a template may be the right choice for you. If time is something that your business doesn’t have a lot of and you value a professional’s expertise, a fully managed and customized website will work better for you. Whether a template or a customized website is best for your company, you can’t lose!