In the age of open source software, availability of programming languages free of cost, coupled with the ease of creating website designs as well as adding functionalities to the same, there are a lot of advantages of using Drupal. This is a content management system which is designed to handle voluminous data being generated by your website. Drupal is often compared with another famous CMS, Joomla. Some of the points on which the comparisons are done are the following:
1. Drupal is considered to be better than Joomla if there is a group activity involved in the site or CMS management. Most of the sites have a few hundred of pages for managing, therefore, both Drupal or Joomla can be used. The advantage with the Drupal website design lies when the number of pages gets to be a few thousand pages.
2. Drupal is also considered to be far more stable than the other open source CMS. Drupal is scalable and performs really well under a heavy load of web page management of data. When the server is overloaded, Drupal shuts off preventing its crash. So, its use for heavy work is really a beneficial aspect.
3. There is not much difference between the Drupal web design and Joomla web design when it comes to handling high traffic. With high traffic and the consequent load balancing that is to be done at the server, it is Drupal which is the best website design capable of handling over one lakh visits per month with 1 GB RAM server configuration. When there are issues related to heavy traffic loads, it is quite often the case of improper management of the CMS as well as improper hosting. Drupal is better at CMS management of heavy load of traffic to the site.
4. Drupal programmers can make use of some of the more distinguishing features like the free add on fro work flow management, free inbuilt translation manager, is XTML complaint and it also has an effective versioning control and Audit trail.
5. Drupal has more of those tools which can be used for the development of the site. These tools are the modules of the site. It is a more flexible system than Joomla in this respect.
6. The best Drupal designers find Drupal to be more useful for creating the blogs due to it structural flexibility and inviting user comments. It is considered to be good for community building as well.
While it is true that Joomla is good even for use by the non-technical people, Drupal does better in the hands of the best web designers since having a little development knowledge helps a lot. Both Joomla and Drupal have many similarities as well but which one is to be used in what all situations shall be first ascertained or determined by the best web designers. All in all it depends on the complexity of the works to be accomplished as well as the load of work.
There are many graphic designers who are capable of working on the computer software but not all of them can create a high impact site. What are the things that make some of them to stand out distinct from the others? Why are some people more successful than the others in the web design work, especially when the knowledge set is same for them? Some of the common traits which can be found in the best web designer around the world can be summed up below:
- Very creative: The ability to produce unique website design time and again based on new ideas is one of the most characteristic feature of the best web designers. They are very innovative and capable of thinking out of the box. You would not see the same template of design being repeated too many times through their portfolio of work.
- Capable of understanding client requirements: Even while they are creative, they are capable of using this creative energy in the right direction as per the requirements of the client and this is what makes them get more business than the others. If the client does not want them to work in a particular way and there are solid reasons behind this, the best web designers are capable of appreciating the requirements of the client without harping upon what he thinks or does best. The best designers put the likes of the client ahead of their creative urges. In fact, they seek to find the common synergies between the two.
- Thinks ahead of time: The web designer is also capable of thinking ahead of times and creates futuristic designs of the websites. This might be breaking away from tradition and the new concepts might not be liked by many people but he is capable of becoming a trend setter or leader in website design which many would like to emulate. However, he shall be able to achieve a balance between the creative, futuristic, best website design and its acceptability by the people. The person shall be meditatively intuitive to judge the same.
- Capable of generating high conversion rate: The best web designers are also able to generate more leads, send you more business queries and to improve the sales of your business. After all, it is the increase in business prospects which is the main objective of any business and the same needs to be adhered to. The ability of the design to invite the visitors to further explore the site and the presentation of the site elements in a way which makes the visitors to go on to order for the things or send the query achieves the purpose of the best website design. Though the number of visits is dependent on the nature of the internet marketing activity, the conversions can be achieved with the effective web design.
The best website design would be able to make the visitors stop on the website, explore it a little, generate interest in itself and then make them act on their decision to buy the product.
The online store can be started off in a small budget and this could be an effective medium of selling your offerings to a large customer base. To make you hopes come true, you need to get an effective website design that can make the visitors buy from your site. It is not as simple a task as it seems since there is a lot of competition from the other people who have been there for a long time. So, marketing will be a real challenging work and so would be the designing of the ecommerce site. Web designer shall pay attention to these considerations while designing one:
1. Search Engine Friendly design: It is quite understandable that the website will need to be promoted using the SEO methods to gain the maximum number of clicks from the customers. SEO depends on some of the elements of web development as well and therefore, website design services providers shall make design which will be SEO friendly. SEO will be a necessity for getting more visitors without which the whole purpose of Ecommerce site will be left redundant.
2. Clarity of product images: This is yet another crucial aspect. You might be providing the thumbnails on the webpage and inviting the users to click on the images to open in a new page and in a bigger size. The clarity of the design is what will make the people know what the product is.
3. Customer oriented returns policy: Every online buyer would like to know whether they can return the goods if they find these to be different from what they expected. The more favorable the returns policy, the better is the customer response. The idea is to encourage them to make the purchase.
4. Easy steps to order completion process: If your website design is able to get the visitor into the buying process, the web designers have completed half of their work. All aspects of the order completion process like the logical movement from one page to another, adding of the products to the cart, invoicing, making the payment through different means shall be over in a few steps. It shall not take very long to complete the process otherwise the visitor will leave it in between. The page loading time shall be reduced to the minimum.
5. Call to action statements: These are the various types of writing styles of the text which invite the users to take some action. These could be quite frank or formal. The placement of these statements and their number drives the attention of the users to make the purchase.
6. Professional design: The web design services also have to produce a professional design which has all the elements in the right proportions. The colour scheme, page layout, structure of the webpage, placement of the key elements or information and many other considerations shall be able to bring out the best design. There shall not be anything understated or overdone.
Cascading style sheets (CSS) are used in most of the modern websites for their designing. These have fast replaced the HTML tables which strictly defined the limits within which the content is to come. CSS can not be used to design the website as such but the same can be used for structuring the information or content that is to be exhibited there. What makes CSS better than HTML table for Best website design ? This can be understood by having a look at the following points:
- Loading time is reduced: In the tables, the content and the pictorial information both are stored in the same file. These are not separated. In CSS, however, the visual content is kept separate in the CSS file. This is one factor which affects the loading time of the webpage. There is one more factor related to coding which can significantly affect the loading time of the site. This is the factor of existence of heavy coding. This happens when the CSS is used but the style information is not included in the external ‘.CSS’ file. Inclusion in the internal CSS increase the amount of coding significantly and this hampers the loading time of the page.
- Efficiency in redesigning: With the web design using the CSS, there is a clear separation between the content and the images. This makes it easier to redesign a website. This also enables the full site editing of the website design elements without changing each page individually. This also reduces the time taken to redesign the same.
- Consistent website design: Using CSS, you get a consistent web design all through in all the parameters, wherever this is required on the site. So, this enables all the site-wide editing from a single file source without having to change the page code again and again. However, even if some page needs to be changed individually, it can also be done using the CSS.
- More flexibility in designing than tables: CSS designs are more flexible and expandable as compared to the HTML tables which are define the structure rigidly. Yet another beneficial aspect of CSS is that the elements can come one over the other and can be precisely defined. More flexibility leads to the creation of the more complex pages and layouts.
- The accessibility of the website is better when CSS is used for web designs. The style declarations using the CSS are universal, across all the browsers. Since it allows you to predefine the font size as well as line-height and other attributes in relative length units, these can be used in website design for being effective in all the different browsers.
- Bandwidth efficiency: The browser cache usually stores the style sheet. This obviates the need to download it time and again. Therefore, this reduces the loading time of the site and also of the date transfer time.
All these reasons make CSS suitable for web design as well as for SEO purposes.
There is hardly anything more convenient than doing a business sitting in front of computer and doing the sale of the products. While the business might have to do a lot of back-end activities to keep the workflow smooth and to enable ease of transaction of the business, the ease of doing the purchases by the customers is unmatched. The era of ecommerce websites is fast changing the way people shop and also the way the businesses go about doing their works. Ecommerce website design provides the crucial interface for these businesses which are dependent on internet based transactions.
The number of people taking to the internet shopping is increasing year after year. The earlier reluctance of the people due to the issues of security of the data as well as the crucial infrastructural support requirement for ensuring the infallible systems were the main hindrances in the picking up of the internet based transactions. But, over a period of time, these security and infrastructural concerns have been largely removed and there has been an increasing confidence among the people for making the internet purchases. The role of the ecommerce web designer and developer can not be underestimated as well.
The widespread use of the open source programming and scripting languages has been one of the major influences on the ecommerce website design development. Further, the relational database management systems have enabled the management of voluminous data being generated on the website. Further, there has also been a distinct improvement in the user control and management of the website on his or her own end. This has meant that the functionality of the ecommerce website design has been improved by providing the different modules to the users to use as per their wish. The modules are either inbuilt or the same can be had from the third parties. The shopping carts are the ones which make the difference between an ordinary site and an ecommerce one. And, the modern ecommerce website design can make it possible to integrate these shopping carts with the website without any hassles.
It is distinctly possible to allow for integrating the payment gateways, shipping details, correct invoicing of the purchases after duly allowing for the taxes and other special schemes and discounts, maintenance of the databases and many other functions. The ability of the ecommerce web design to be secure by having the SSL levels of security inbuilt into the shopping cart, also ensures that the site can be used without any fear of the data being lost or the transaction being insecure.
The ecommerce website designers and developers have to ensure that the site remains functional and secure all through the functioning of the online store. This requires the regular maintenance work to be carried on the site. The online security experts, developers and designers do need to be employed on regular basis. It gives your business a global reach and the people from not just your locality but also from world over will be able to make the purchases.
People often ask how can website be a brand when there are so many present online? They have a reason. It might become impossible distinguish your website from the others. How can you prevent your website from being lost into the jungle of websites out there on the World Wide Web? Does website design have a solution for this?
Interesting as it may seem, it is the web design only which has a solution for this. That your site is lost into a number of others is because the website design has not been done effectively in a professional way. The problem and its solution lie in the design itself. It is precisely the design which can create the elements of distinction so that the website leaves a lasting impression on the people’s mind. It is just the same as the product branding which bases itself on the product differentiation. Therefore, this is a key part of the overall strategy for building the online business. Unless the visitors see your business as separate from the others, there is less likelihood of your success, especially when there are many others providing the same.
Some of the activities that can be done for achieving these branding objectives are the following:
1. Study the competitor’s web design: Why not to make a beginning with the competitor who has been doing well online? Check out the different elements which he uses to make effective website design. You can benchmark your site with the one of the competitor element to element.
2. Write content as per the brand image of the company: If you are making the site for a company which has got a very good reputation offline and has a brand name for itself, you can not ignore the quality of the written content. The writing style of the content shall be in accordance with the brand image that has been developed by the company.
3. Pay attention to Prominence and placement of the different website design elements: Do you think that the company philosophy and its brand image warrant a prominent display of its logo over the others? Or, is it the products or the services which are to be highlighted more? If the company comes out with certain offers, do these need to be displayed prominently? These are the examples of some of the features of the web design which shall be looked into by the company. Relative importance of each of the element over the others needs to be clearly established.
4. Do not ignore the other pages: Do not put all the money on the landing or the Home page only. It is equally important to have the other pages designed well. Overloading of the home page with content, images or graphics shall be avoided. Space has its own relevance and it shall be given the place that it deserves on the web page. A confused look shall not come out of the website design.
Landing page is the web page where the users ‘land’ after clicking the domain name URL of the website. In most of the cases, it is the home page of the website which is made the landing page but it is not necessary to do so. The other pages can also be made the landing pages of the website. If the SEO activity has been promoting the pages other than the home page, then there are good chances that the visitors might land at some of the non-home pages. The landing web page design shall have the capability to make the visitor to stop, have look around the page, visit the other pages of the site and finally, make a purchase.
So, there are three key objectives which a landing web page design shall achieve. Let us examine what are these objectives and how to achieve these. First, it shall be able to stop the internet surfer from further surfing or hopping over to the next website. It is estimated that the searchers take split second decisions on whether to stay on with the page that they have opened or move ahead. Therefore, the web page design where the visitors would be coming shall be designed in such a way that the visitors are compelled to stay on. The second objective is to make the visitors to explore other pages of the site. To make this happen, there shall be links to all the relevant parts of the site which the visitor would logically think to visit. The third crucial objective is to lead the visitors to make a purchase. This is the most difficult part to achieve and the effective website design can help to a great extent.
Based on these objectives to achieve, the landing web page design shall focus on the following:
- What the visitors hope to find shall be displayed prominently.
- The page shall enable faster navigation to all the other parts of the site
- The text and the pictures shall be placed in a good structural arrangement on the landing web page.
- All information in which the visitors are least interested shall be pushed down on the page.
- The content shall be concise, comprehensive and written in an interesting way.
- Make the banner graphics attractive, capable of stopping the visitors.
- Do not get the webpage to have confused look. You shall avoid making the website design too colourful or filling every inch of its space with the content or graphics.
- Incorporate the credibility enhancing features. These can be achieved by mentioning about the awards being won, memberships of the associations, trust seals from independent agencies and also the client testimonials in the text format.
- Avoid putting in too much information on the landing page which will make it heavy and will take considerable time in loading. Clients may not wait till the loading is over.
A well made professional web design reduces the bounce rate and increases the conversion rate to make more customers.
For every person doing the creative works, it is important that constant inspiration is taken from a number of resources. Whether the person is a painter, sculptor, fashion designer or engaged in any other design oriented creative field, there is a good chance of developing a particular blend of mind which is used and reflected repeatedly in the works. Similar is the case with the web designer, the focus of this article.
The Need for Creativity and Out-Of-The-Box Thinking
If the web designer keeps on using the same colour schemes, gets into his own mould to limit the creativity going on making the a few old templates all the times, there is a good chance of the person ending up his career pretty fast. Website design is a highly competitive field where the out-of-the-box thinkers are valued the most since are able to innovate as well as adapt to the market likings far more quickly than the others. Therefore, the moment a website designer goes into slumber or lethargy, he will be beaten all ends up by the competitors. Continued research on different aspects of the design, regular inculcation of the new thematic ideas and the ability to sense what will be liked by the market are key part for taking up a long career in this field.
From where to get these thoughts
So, from where will you, being a web designer, be taking the design inspirations? Interestingly, the designers can take these from any source. Most of the time it is the internet or the web resources which can give the designers a compelling theme and thought of the website design. You might like some of the internet resources as the key providers of the inputs required for the latest trends in this field. The best part to receive updates from these is by way of subscribing to their RSS feeds or newsletters. Whatever is the current development on these platforms can be know to you even while they do not visit their sites.
Web designers also make use of the different design books. These may not necessarily be related to the website design only but can also be on other subjects as well. They can take the inspiration from the books related to the designs of the window or photographic frames, fashion magazines and many others. Then, there can be various real life things like places of natural beauty, man-made structures like the architectural monuments, art galleries, photography exhibits and many other sources that can be used for developing the insights into the different elements of design.
The real test of the designer lies in his ability to translate his thoughts into a good web design which is also capable of satisfying the clients. A deeply thought, good insight or intuitive capability and a positive and curious outlook about the objects, animate or inanimate, real or virtual are some of the essential qualities of the designer.
In today’s world, customers want to know about you and your business and rely on the internet for such purpose. So it is very important that your business website gives a favourable impression because your brand is your business. And for reflecting your unique brand, a great website is a must. With the help of website design services, it is easy to make your business grow into a powerful brand. And you can build your website faster, interactive, great looking and also at an affordable price. Whether it is a small start-up company looking for a basic website or a big corporate enterprise requiring complex web applications, website design services help the businesses grow and expand. These are able to do so by improving their image and web presence through web marketing, content management, maintenance and e-commerce solutions.
The website design services companies provide solutions for the following features in the web development:
• Doing every bit which is necessary for the fast loading of the site.
• Modern design reflecting the image of the company
• Content management system so that text updating is easy
• SEO to improve the ranking of your company’s website (Search engine optimization)
• Professional photography of your company’s products and services so as to develop site theme.
• Site mapping system for helping the visitors know what are they looking for.
• Search engine navigation menu
• Email request forms for visitor queries and information
• Email marketing system for helping the business grow and expand.
Apart from the above mentioned features, one most important and useful tool to promote and sell your product or services is through E-commerce. Whether you are selling one or hundred items, e-commerce solution helps you manage your store and keep a track on the inventory. Using this feature, you can also add, delete or update your store inventory on your website. Therefore the role of an e-commerce website designer is not limited to designing an e-commerce website that is not only in promoting and selling the product, it also envisages the following areas and these aspects are also an integral part of e-commerce business:
• E-commerce website useability ( means making the website more user friendly )
• E- commerce marketing ( driving customers to your website to see and buy )
• E-commerce business planning (keeping a check on the inventory and invoicing)
• E-commerce payment schemes (acceptance of payments to be made online by using credit cards, paypal etc. and making payment gateways)
• E-commerce fulfilment system (includes delivery services throughout the domestic and international level)
The e-commerce website designer services are highly customized based on the requirements of the client and the current internet marketing trends. One has to do extensive research of the market, the customer, the current trends, needs and requirements.
For running a successful online e-commerce business it is necessary to make your site highly interactive, informative and professional as this will fulfil the objective in helping the online browsers convert into online buyers. And that is the reason why good and professional website design services have made their mark in the progress of many businesses.
The evolution of ‘internet’ happened nearly 40 years ago when US military funded a research network system by the name of Apranet in1969. Since then it is being called by the name of ‘Internet’ because its network reach expanded to each and every corner of the world. The purpose of such networking system was not limited to just a military programme with a handful of computers connected but it reached every nook and corner of the globe and expanding to more than 1.5 billion consumers worldwide. It has been this widespread reach that helped almost each and every small, medium or big enterprise to promote and sell their products and services, growing by connecting with the customer. So, website design which involves the structure of the website, the information, navigation channels, page layouts and the elements of the design. The conceptual design with branding came into being with a clear strategy to promote and achieve the defined goals and this acts as a powerful marketing tool.
The purpose of web design is to make a website using elements such as text, bitmap images of different formats like GIFs, JPEGs, PNGs; using HTML/XHTML/XML tags, media (vector graphics, animations, videos,) etc. It also presents the content and interactive features to the end user in form of web pages on a web server. In other words, web design is like graphic designing done for the development of web applications, web pages and multimedia to make the website appealing and interesting for the visitors.
It is entirely upon the client for what he is looking for in a website design. It depends upon his tastes and preferences about the theme of his website. Whether he wants a static site (where pages don’t change unless manually updating) or dynamic one (where pages and their content can change from both end-user and client side). Also whether he wants to design his website by using design templates or hire a professional web designer to do it. In general, the basic aspects of web design are:
• The content or text in the website should be relevant and informative and should target the audience concerned.
• The website should be user-friendly and easy to navigate.
• The graphics and color story should be consistent. The style should look professional and appealing.
• The communication media like videos and animations should have a small file size so that they can be downloaded fast even at low bandwidth.
• The page layout should be done keeping in mind what you want to your audience to see first and how the navigation follows. It shall flow logically and shall reach the deepest links with the least number of clicks from any page of the site.
Website design is more affordable and economical now-a-days. It depends entirely on your budget and requirement whether you want a static one or a dynamic one, whether you want an e-commerce website or an informative one, you want to make your website using cascading style sheets or you want your website to be custom made using templates.
Web Design, Website Design | admin | 
April 8, 2011 5:02 am | 
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