"There are two types of web sites. There are those web sites you date, like 'The Data Was Lost Collective...' ...and then...there are those web sites you marry, like Yahoo! The trick is not to confuse the two."
Many web designers get confused about what type of site they're creating. If you're creating a site that's for a media company (movie, music, etc.), fashion company, art school sites where there's no accountability for the bottom line, then it's ok to use "wild and crazy" design techniques. But remember, "It's a temporary thing." This type of design is not supposed to last forever. Have fun. But if you want your website to look reasonable & functional, devote your energies to keyword rich content, site maps, privacy policies and the other standards that seem to be missing from a lot of websites. The things that the Search Engines will reward with higher rankings. A 'crawler' can't see fancy flash gizmos or premium quality images over 100 kb each. If you're creating a website for a company, you have to choose a design something more responsible and restrained. Something dependable. it would have to be clean and simple. There is nothing worse than a cluttered looking website and that will repel visitors more quickly than a slow loading website. Take a look at a few of the 'TOP' Internet based company's websites like Adobe.com. The largest image on their Home page is 6 Kb. There is no Flash, no music. Microsoft.com has one small 'flash' component in the bottom left corner and their largest image is 18 Kb.
Thus following are thumb rules which every web designer should follow
Minimize the use of images - Images do enhance a page but don't make 80% of your web site only images. Instead break it down as much as possible to simple HTML. Very often simple designs are the best.
Optimize images for the web - Once you have decided on the images that you need on your site, make sure that it is optimized for the web. They should be in the gif or jpeg format. You can also minimize the size of the image by choosing the number of colors you need, from the color palette. The less the colors you choose, the less the size of the image.
Use Tables creatively - You can get some great looking designs by using tables creatively . Tables load very fast because it is just HTML code. Tables can be used in the homepage, menus or anywhere you like.
Cut down the use of animated gifs - Animated gifs take a long time to load . But since they catch your attention you could use small animated gifs to draw a visitor's attention to a particular section of your site. Or design simple icons icons that add a little color and draw the attention of a visitor.
Use background images instead of big images whenever possible - This is usually a very useful tip for headers and footers. Instead of using an image of width 580 which is a uniform design you can use just a part of that as a background fill. This reduces the size of the web page as the image is small.
Try out CSS Styles - Have fun with CSS styles to get some cool text effects. Again, a CSS Style is simple HTML code so it loads very fast. You can create cool rollovers using CSS Styles.
Use Flash sparingly - There seems to be a lot of hype about Flash but I recommend that you minimize the use of Flash on a site. Don't make entire sites using Flash. It may look great but it takes hours to load and can really put off visitors. If you do want to use Flash use it within an HTML site and make sure it loads fast.
Keep checking your load time - Last but not least, before you decide on the final design of your web site, check its load time on NetMechanic. This site gives you a free analysis of your web site which is extremely useful.
Thus to conclude, the web design you will use can offer the viewer an easy browsing experience all the while providing them quick access to the information they are looking for. In short, the website must we well-structured.
About the Author
Vaidehi Ghag http://www.davbindu.com/
is Web Designer in <http://www.maharashtradirectory.com/> This is unique Industrial online Business Directory.