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Redesign Your Site For The New Year
(By Dan Grossman) |
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It happens to most good webmasters. They get the urge to redesign their websites!
If you're not happy with your site, because it's not pulling enough sales, it's not generating enough pageviews, it takes forever to load, etc, now may be a good time to redesign it. Although this can be a major project for most site owners, doing it can be well worth it. Here are some things to consider when redesigning your website.
Designing the Site
The first thing you should do is define a basic layout for the main pages of your site (or if every page is going to have the same feel, a single layout template).
Keep in mind your goals, your reasons for designing a new layout in the first place. Make sure that your content is easy to find, that your navigation is easy to follow, and that no pages are too far from any other page on your site, so visitors can quickly find what they're looking for.
Be sure not to overdue your site with graphics or bright colors. Try to find a balanced color scheme, consisting of several main colors to use throughout the site. A few good places that can help you in choosing colors are http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/ or http://www.paletteman.com/
Keep in mind that consistency helps your visitors to navigate your site. Keep your pages consistent in design and navigation and they'll thank you for it by visiting more pages on your site.
Improving the New Design
Once you've finished the new design, take a break. Leave it for several hours, or even a few days, before returning to work on it. Then, with a fresh perspective, take a good look at your design again and try to improve it. Again, don't forget why you chose to redesign your site in the first place.
Helpful Resources for Redesigning your Site
To finish this article, here are a few helpful sites that will make your redesigning task a little bit easier. Good luck!
Split up large images into smaller ones
http://www.jbarchuk.com/gifsplit/
Create MouseOver effects for your site
www.websitegoodies.com/enhance/mouseover.shtml
Generate logos online with this free logo creator
http://www.coolarchive.com/logogen.cfm
Reduce load time by optimizing your GIFs
http://www.gifoptimizer.com/
Generate META tags for your new site
http://www.metatagbuilder.com/
Check your HTML for W3C compliance
http://validator.w3.org/
Check your spelling and links
http://www.siteowner.com/sitecheck.cfm
See how your site will look in other browsers
http://www.anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html
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