Posted by admin | Home Page | Posted on December 1st, 2009
A home page is basically the main page of a website which is the first thing that an internet browser or surfer first sees once he/she visited your site. This is part of a web page (though in this case since it is termed as “homepage” stands for the very first page or the ‘home” of the site) that features clickable links, illustrations and graphics displayed on the computer screen via web browsers.
In building a website, it is important that you have basic knowledge of programming or html coding; although this concept has now become obsolete with the emergence of new types of website builder tools that enables the user – even if he or she does not have a single idea with regards to programming and web designing – to create visually pleasing and professional looking websites in an instant. For both the seasoned graphic artists and newbie web designer, these web building tools that can be obtained online provides added ease and efficiency in making their websites.
Key Points to Remember When Building your HomePage Elegance and over-all appearance counts. If you want to get positive feedbacks and responses from your site visitors, then keep in mind the following pointers when you build home page.
1) Use animations and graphic effects in your website (especially on the home page where this is commonly seen) as sparingly as possible and only when necessary.
This factor can be attributed to the fact that web surfers can tend to be impatient and loose interest once they discover that your website takes much too long to load. The reason for this can be found on the excessive use of graphic effects and animations on websites which, sometimes requires higher bandwidth to be downloaded fast; well what if your visitor – read: Potential Customer – has a slow connection? Definitely, you can say “adios” to possible sales and traffic for your website. Also, compatibility of your website with regards to the different web browsers must also be checked since, some websites cannot be viewed on certain web browsers.
2) Use only the needed features and applications for your home page – but this advice is also applicable for the rest of your web pages since functionality is the main keyword here.
You try browsing some websites on the internet. What do you see? Yes, basically you will encounter websites with homepage designs varying from the pure text and colored images down to interactive graphics made possible with Flash effects and other multimedia applications. But more or less, they all have one thing in common: the scroll bar found on the side or sometimes on below the screen area.
This scroll bar is one of the features necessary for operating a webpage, in this case the home page. It enables the user to discover more links as he or she continues to browse the site; while for the site owner, enables him to place more links farther below on the lower part of the page where they are available. With vertical scrolling, it is relatively easier to operate the page thus facilitating ease and fast execution of operation; while vertical scrolling on the other hand, is a big no because, instead of enabling the user to see everything that your homepage has to offer, he/ she would need to scroll to the right in order to see the rest of your content and graphics.
Besides, using both is impractical also; just try to imagine where your page will land in terms of functionality once you do this.
3) Make sure that all links are present and can be easily found by the site user when you build home page.
Some sites make it a practice to put the links on either the left or side panel so the user can easily find what he/she is looking for. While others would rather incorporate the links as part of the content (yes, that is one usefulness of content – and you thought they are nothing but mere decorations huh). They are both good choices actually; you can adopt whichever fits the way your site was built as long as you are sure that the links can be easily found and is fully functional.
Posted by admin | Home Page | Posted on October 18th, 2009
Believe it or not the home pages speak a lot about your website. A blank and dull home page, reflects a very let loose attitude of the website. Whereas a well designed and informative home page shows that the site is in serious business and aim at welcoming you to browse through them.
Realizing the fact that Websites have become a prime channel of marketing online, it is extremely essential that all marketers pay full attention to the designing of the websites. Hence, the web designing of your online marketing source- your website should be done with extreme care and vigilance. Let us now take a look at the different aspects of web designing and how your home page website designing should be carried out.
The first important thing that you must know about web designing for a home page is what exactly are the important ingredients that to be focused in the home page. There are many websites who think that each and every aspect of their site deserves place in the home page. As a result, they land up stuffing and crowding their home page. Instead, it is better to evaluate the different aspects of your home page and pick up only those features that will be beneficial and deserve a place in the first page of the site.
Some of the important features that definitely deserve a position in your home page are Products that are for sale, news and press release items, search option in the site and the latest events and announcements in any.
One important factor that must be remembered while doing the web designing of your web site’s home page is that you must leave some white space in the home page so that there is enough breathing space for your visitors. A too cluttered site becomes extremely claustrophobic for the users. More over the over emphatic information confuses users and they end up viewing none of your features properly.
This tells us that the web designing of the home pages are extremely essential and definitely most important to enable better business and greater lead generation from the site.
Posted by hanun | Home Page | Posted on July 31st, 2009
The homepage of a website is the logical point of entry into the web pages in a site. It connects as well as interconnects all other pages in the website. Basically users can enter your site from any of your web pages as they are indexed in search engines. Therefore it is important that on all your web pages there must be a link back to your home page so that users can go back to the beginning or homepage of your site in case they got lost or stuck somewhere.
Home pages being the prime location of any website is used for lot many different functions depending on the purpose of the site. Because of the high visibility of the home page it is perfect place for posting news and information. It is the ideal place for the table of contents and menu of links in the site. In the sites using home page for news and menu listings, the navigation schemes are often centered on the home page; which acts as a base for most of the navigation throughout the site. Some of the designs use the home page to steer audiences into subtopics or highlight areas of the site. There are many kinds of home pages with varying goals and target visitors. Some of them are meant for selling products and services, couple to sway public opinion and others to educate or discussion on various topics.
Primarily, there are the few common web pages design strategies:-
Menu home pages: In the early years of web; menu-like lists of links is the most common design on most home pages and is still the popular home page design format. Such pages are mostly dominated by graphic imagemaps as they are more space efficient, as it packs maximum number of links into every square inch of the page.
Splash home pages: Generally, splash pages are considered controversial presentation, reason is; to numerous visitors as they focus on particular contents, splash gives an annoying experience. If it is that necessary, then there should be a site index at the start along with the pretty graphics and animated stuff. The rule of the thumb-design according to target audience expectations as splashing on the sports site is different from that of a Casino’s site.
Path-based home pages: In large websites there is massive information for the visitors, that information is be impossible to present in a single home page. As visitors too have their specific interests and goals, this translates to general rule, “it’s always good to use home page to split the links to content” in accordance with the users interests so that they get more relevant information in the menu pages.
News-oriented home pages: Home pages of the news oriented organizations are the obvious examples of such format. Many organizations utilize the high visibility of their home pages to make to announce the latest on the happenings to the larger web audience. Such live format makes a home page more attractive and more likely to keep attracting visitors.
Complex amalgam of all the above said pages: Increasingly home pages are becoming a complex amalgam of all the above said strategies. As the goals for most web sites are to transmit information and also to communicate effectively with potential clients and general visitors. Home pages now mix images, menu lists, and special interest sections according to the flavour of the site. As most of the corporate and institutional home pages always display a graphic banner across the top of the home page, and the commercial sites are rapidly becoming mixtures of links embedded in graphic imagemaps and links in textual content But using large graphic menus takes longer time for loading pages, especially for users linking to the Internet via modems, Ethernet or slow network connections.
Alex Roderick
The Author is the owner of a web site design Company, and providing Web Design and Development Solutions to clients across USA and UK for affordable and sensible prices.