Details To Consider

There are many things to consider when planning your web page. I would like to touch on a few of them here.

I do not recommend music on a web site. Many people are annoyed by the music while trying to read. If you do have music on a page, consider having a console so people can turn it off if they choose.

I do not recommend too much "motion" on your web site. Moving objects on a web site are distracting and makes the viewer less likely to concentrate on your main content!

I do not recommend "Flash Intros" on web sites. I personally know most people get very annoyed with them. Skip the "Movie Theater" welcome show and just take them to what they were originally looking for..... a web site giving them information!

Too many images and pictures can make your viewers leave before your page even loads. On personal sites, load time is not as important, after all, viewers go to personal sites to sit and "visit". However, it is a different story on business or company sites. Customers and clients do not want to sit and wait for a page to load that is bogged down with images. If it takes too long to load, they will just click and leave. Even worse are the image loaded pages that cause a browser to crash. I guarantee you that they won't come back if this happens.

For those who need a lot of images to promote their business, there are ways to lessen the load time. You can describe your products with text only and offer a link for the viewer to click on if they are interested in seeing a picture. Using thumbnails is a good way to both show your products and keep the load time of your page down. Thumbnails are small versions of your full size pictures with a brief description. If a person is interested in viewing a more detailed picture, they can click on the thumbnail and a larger picture will pop up. There are several types of photo galleries that work well for this situation.

At the present time I do not design E-commerce sites. However, there are many alternative ways of selling your products/services from the internet. An order form can be placed on your site that can be printed out and sent through the mail with their payment. If your business already accepts credit card orders, you can offer a phone number for customers to call and place a credit card order over the phone. Paypal is also a very useful and safe way to accept payments in several forms over the internet.

I hope you have found some of this information helpful in the many decisions you have to make before choosing a web site designer.