Mountain Creek Web Design

Design Tips:

When designing a website, there are a lot of variables that should be taken into consideration. For example, the questions I have posted on my
contact page. Here, I will list some design tips for you to keep in mind for your website, some of which you may never have even thought of.

Target Market: You need to know who your target market is, who your audience is, and design your site with them in mind.

Content: Don't over text your website with too many graphics or too much text, try to keep it simple by using bullets points and plenty of
white space, or black space as I have done here. Most visitors will skim a web page first before they decide to read it.

Navigation: Try to keep your website easy to navigate and minimize the amount of hyperlinks you have embedded within your
paragraphs. This will help keep your site more user-friendly and won't frustrate your visitors and turn them away.

Downloading: Statistics show that if a website takes more than 7 seconds to download, most visitors will turn away. If you must use a lot of
graphics, try to keep them to a minimal and as small of file size as you can. Even in today's world, there are still a lot of internet users that
have a dial-up connection.

Layout: When you first start designing your website, start with the top and work your way down, setting up the basics, such as headers,
page titles, taglines, navigation buttons, and footers. While doing this, you are creating your own website template that you can use for the
rest of your site. This will also help you be more consistent throughout your website so it will have the same look and feel to it. Drawing a
diagram of your site structure will help you decide on how many pages you'll need to setup for your entire website. This will also be the
basis for your website navigation.

Browsers: There are many different web browsers on the market today and each one displays a website in different ways. The major
browsers today are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari, just to name a few. The best way around this is to use strict and
correct HTML or XHTML coding. The graph below is from W3Schools.com.

Plug-Ins: Media files for audio and video require plug-ins in order to play them. If you're going to place this kind of content on your website,
try to use the more common types of files for the most common types of plug-ins, such as Windows Media Player or QuickTime. If possible,
place a link next to your file so your visitors can download the plug-ins if they don't already have them.

Colors: Using the right color scheme can make all the difference in the world. Your colors should blend well with the rest of your content
including text and graphics, and don't over do it using too many different colors. Be consistent throughout your whole website. It's generally
best to stick with a 2 - 3 colors for your theme throughout your website.

Resolution: Not everyone online
these days have the same monitor
size, and there are multiple screen
resolutions to consider when
designing your site. The current
trend for monitor resolution today is
larger than 1024 x 768. When I
design a website, I will normally use
960 - 1000 pixels wide. This will
cover the majority of screen
resolutions while allowing for future
increases. Also, try not to go over 2
- 3 page folds down your screen for
optimal effect. People generally do
not like to have to scroll too far
down a web page and definitely
don't like to scroll across the
browser to see the rest of the page.
The current & past trends shown
here are posted on W3Schools.com.

Fonts: Not everyone online has the same operating system or web browsers. If you use an uncommon font on your site, your visitors
browser may not be able to display it correctly. Try to use the more common fonts such as Arial, Tahoma, Times New Roman, or Verdana,
and try not to mix them up, be consistent. For this website, I used Arial throughout the entire site. Don't use a font just because you like the
way it looks on your computer,, think about how your visitors will be viewing it.

Flash intros: Depending on what your designing your website for, having a flash intro or splash screen may be good or bad. A lot of
people don't like having to wait before entering your site and it may turn them away, especially if your want to keep them coming back.
Remember what I said in the downloading section? You only have 1 chance of making a good first impression. Also, flash intros are not
search engines friendly. Your home page or index page is the first page of your website and flash intro pages do not provide the proper
content or meta-tags for indexing your website.

Website Templates: Using a template can be a very good idea for your website, depending on what it's purpose is. There are thousands
of them available to you and they are quick and easy to use. The downside to using a template is it leaves out the creativity and
uniqueness that your site should be. I personally don't like using templates. This website and all my websites are built from scratch with a
blank page.

Before you start looking for someone to design and build your website, ask yourself if you are capable of doing it yourself. It's not that hard, but it
can be tedious and time consuming. If you can do it yourself, then you will know how to perform your own site maintenance, search engine
optimization, setting up your hosting account, purchasing your domain name, pointing your site to your name servers, uploading your files to your
hosting account, and repairing glitches when they occur. This will save you some money in the long run. All the information you need is available
through the links on my resources page. Take the time to do some research before you begin your website.

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