Is Your Site Customer Ready? Read These Creative Web Design Tips for Beginners
So, you want to put up an Internet site? Some people believe they can just go to one of the many free site services and hastily put up some text, and maybe a couple of pictures.
Well, they can if they just want a personal page to send to friends and relatives. Everything comes with 
some sort of price – even web design courses. So, take time to look over these creative web design tips to make sure your site looks and performs professionally for your customers or visitors.
What’s the Real Cost?
Remember, nothing worth anything comes cheap. That could not be truer when it comes to putting up Internet pages and even more so to creative web design. What makes one website more appealing and attractive than another? For once, simplicity in website layout plays an important part.
Creative web design in not seen in a website full of colorful graphics and animations. Rather, it is one that maintains its aesthetic look and still allows its visitors to come back again and again. What else is involved?
Have a Nice Logo or Header at the Top
Take time to use your online web design skills by installing the header. This is the part of the page that will stand out to your visitors.
Generally, it should contain a logo, banner or other graphical detail that introduces your business to the visitor. Don’t make it too tall though, otherwise it might dominate the screen space defeating its purpose.
Let Your Visitors Navigate with Ease
The navigation area also matters. The challenge comes when you have a lot of content on your website.
For a fairly average website design, a horizontal bar navigation menu will allow for more content to be added to the web page. If you want to keep your visitors coming, keep the navigation part of your website easy and simple.
What is the Last View They Have of the Page?
Take time to design the bottom or footer section of your website as well. This section contains your contact details and links to important pages. Alternatively, you can decide to use this section to remind your visitors of what was contained as well as some links that were in the content section of the page.
This is an important part of creative web design.
Provide Valuable Information with the Right Content
While the header, footer and navigation are important to a website, unfortunately this is not why the visitors will come to your site.
The heart of a website is the content and this is what your visitors will especially be interested in. Take more time here, and come up with content that is relevant to your business and to the point.
Create a Visually Appealing Website
The more relevant your content is the more beautiful and appealing it will seem to your visitors and this will draw them to you every time.
Traffic Generation Naturally
Since the goal of your website is to retain your visitors as long as possible, avoid unnecessary outbound links from your content as this will only serve to detract them. The best links are those that will be opened with your own web page. Avoid using large pictures on your website unless absolutely necessary.
If you are a beginner this is just the starting point. getting a foothold on creative web design methods takes time and effort. You will not learn every technique of an experienced webmaster overnight so take one step at a time.
Plan for the Best Website Designs and Stand Out from the Crowd
The economic crisis has undoubtedly contributed to the increase of e-commerce. As companies move to cut down on costs and boost sales, it has become necessary to either take the time to learn Internet web design themselves or go online and outsource some of this work.
The latter is the most logical choice. Internet business has thus flourished and will likely continue to do so as we get deeper into recession.
If you own a website or are planning on building one, this is the best time to do so. The number of online transactions being conducted daily is unimaginable. With the onset of broadband services, diverse man power and the convenience and the low costs of shopping online is the driving force of this new Internet business web design platform.
No matter what small business you are in, you will always face some pretty stiff competition. In order to be successful, you’ve got to stand out from the crowd of competitors. Learning HTML basics and buying courses online is just the beginning. After you become more adept in language and code, a creative web design is one way to do just that.
Fancy but Usable
You know, from personal experience surfing the net, that there are web sites which are just Plain Janes, visually speaking.
Such sites don’t stimulate much excitement and for this reason alone, you may just move on to something more interesting.
So many web site owners are not aware that sheer visual appeal is a powerful tool that makes a casual visitor want to stay and browse.
While great content, a solid marketing plan and SE optimization are essential to good SE rankings, a creative web design can give you just the edge you need to gain and retain traffic.
Hiring a Webmaster
Even if you choose to engage a professional to create your website, it pays to do a little research on the style, colors, special effects and theme you want to convey to your public. It will also end up costing you less for the services of a website designer if you can present them with a mock up of your own ideas.
Take a look at your competition. If your site sells retro clothing, do a Google image search, something like ‘fashion retro clothing’.
Check out the top ranking sites and scrutinize their presentations. Each will have elements of creative web design which you’ll find appealing, as well as elements you’ll perceive as flaws. Take notes on the features and artistic character of sites you find particularly creative or visually striking.
Dig Deeper to Come Up With Creative Ideas for Your Beginner Web Site
Don’t limit your research to results on the first couple of pages in the search results. There are thousands of web sites selling retro clothing. Be willing to spend the time to go through multiple pages of results.
While there will be sites which don’t make the top rankings in the search engines, this doesn’t mean you won’t find some quite creative web designs.
These sites may lack good content, be poorly optimized, or not have developed a good marketing plan, which is why they show up on page ten. (Of course, your web site will address these points and thus gain a good ranking!)
Let the Search Engines Help You
Explore Google’s variety of tools and articles for more valuable tips on what constitutes a high ranking web site. Your research should also include a search on ‘creative web design fashion’.
There are millions of web designers. In this highly competitive field, you’ll easily find web designers with portfolios of creative web designs you can peruse, to stimulate even more creative ideas for your own site design.
These portfolios are often accompanied by case studies where you can read how a web site owner revamped his site, introducing new creative web design elements that literally turned the business around, from ho-hum to an exciting and popular site. Use this information to your advantage.
Lay Out – Then Create Your Web Pages (or have them designed for you)
When you’ve decided on your preferred page layout, theme, color scheme and features, do a mock up, using either web design software, such as Visual Page (this is easy to learn) or simply make up a sketch in your word processor’s HTML file. Include a list of special features you want, such as drop down lists or slide shows.
Take this material to your web designer and discuss the viability of your proposed design in terms of potential SE indexing problems and quick page loads. Or, if you are planning to design a beginner website then you’ll also find this material useful.
Doing your homework on your competition and developing your own creative and functional website is most likely to result in a web design that can give you the edge you need for traffic generation to draw visitors who want to stay and explore your site, increasing your chances of making a sale. After all, this is a business Internet site, isn’t it?
