One of the biggest problems that web designers have is the inability to look beyond their creativity to the functionality of their site. You often see pages that will blow a persons mind but they are of little use to the visitor, the person the site is being designed for. Your goal with a site is to attract attention and drive traffic towards something, your written words or a product and service you are selling.
It is not built to express your artistic freedom as that often comes with a price in slow loading pages or a site that conflicts with most of the browsers and operating systems we use on personal devices, which have overtaken laptops and PC’s by the way. This article will offer some suggestions to make your site more functional and appealing to all who visit, in turn increasing traffic and hopefully revenue.
One of the biggest mistakes a web designer can make is by using large images. You need to remember that many people use smaller laptops, tablets and phones which may have resolution issues with graphics of a large size as well as taking forever to load. People have hectic schedules and simply do not want to wait for images to load or have to wait for their o/s to downsize the page to fit a smaller screen.
Always select appropriate graphics for your content. This means that the images or videos should pertain to the subject matter of the site. You do not want to have a large image of the New York skyline taking forever to load when your site is about baking cakes.
Videos are great but they should always be hosted elsewhere, like YouTube, with a link provided on the site. Most of the video hosting sites have apps for portable devices which means your site loads quickly and the app will pull up the video immediately without you worrying about how it affects your site.
Animated images are fun but they have become unnecessary and they lead to loading issues. If you have ever created a .gif file, it takes longer than it does to simply cut a video clip to the length you would like and auto-play it.
Another issue with animated images is that they actually consume a large amount of memory which is something that many forget. With portable devices, that can be a big issue and even lock up the device. Animated images simply do not benefit your site in any fashion and should be avoided due to the issues that occur from their use.
Avoid getting too fancy with your webpage. You simply need to use standard layouts because your content is where your sites goals are achieved, not with a pretty page.
Finally, try to stick with only using two types of standard fonts. Fonts are great and can add character to the site but the different browsers and operating systems in portable devices only recognize standard fonts. You do not want to lose customers because the fancy font you chose conflicts with their tablet or phone.
Your website will assuredly work in most devices if you follow the tips stated above. By keeping everything simple, you can expect growth in your micro niche due to the functionality of your site, allowing you more time to produce quality content to generate revenue and overall interest.
