Jazz Up Your Profile
You’ve got a great circle of friends. Each time you check your Inbox, it is inundated with MySpace updates. Clicking on your friends’ pages, you quickly find that you are compelled to browse each and every one of these attractive pages. Some belong to strangers whom you hardly even know, so why are you so obligated to check them out?
You actively update your profile and upload every single photograph that will give a clue about your lifestyle in a bid to attract more new friends, but to no avail. The solution to this is rather simple: Give your MySpace page a better layout.
The first thing that you should do is to ensure that your fonts are readable. Matrix-like background with neon green words look really cool and all but your readers might leave your page with sore eye balls, thanks to the high contrast. Next, you should try to prioritise your information and give them better titles, one that will sum up nicely what you are trying to say. Grab readers’ attention the first chance you get. A header like “Why I Eat Hamsters For Breakfast” will certainly garner more interest than a mere “My Profile” title. Finally, when optimising your MySpace layout, make sure you go easy on the graphics. Utilise HTML and create thumbnails for your huge photographs, and use .gif animations sparingly or it will turn off visitors.
If you follow the steps above, you’re well on your way to be the talk of the (MySpace) town! 
Page Loading Times
Imagine this. You’re clicking through what appears to be an interesting site. It dynamic images are laid out attractively within a great layout. There are tonnes of eye-catching animations, full motion videos and music tracks pre-loaded. In a nutshell, it looks amazingly spiffy. But here’s where frustration starts. Each time you click a link, it takes a lifetime to load. “Forget it,” you say, and you promptly hit the ‘X’ button to close the window, ending what could have been a great web browsing experience.
What would you do, had you been the website designer? The simplest way to get more unique hits and attract casual visitors as well as maintain loyal readers is to create a fast-loading site. This can be done by minimizing elements used. Large photographs are not necessary but if you simply must insert them, you should optimise your embedded images by ensuring that it is in .gif or .jpg format. Even these images are made webpage-friendly, that does not mean you can go wild with the animated .gifs. They can be an annoying eyesore. Use them sparingly and only to guide visitors to sections that you want them to see or click first.
If you follow this simple method and avoid going overboard with images used in your site, you’ll get more site visitors in no time!
Internet Advertising
Imagine a world without the Internet. A realm where websites don’t exist. A place where there are no social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster. These sites not only serve to entertain us, but to the creators of these domains, they garner a massive amount of revenue with the interest they generate via such sites.
If you are a business owner seeking to advertise your products or services via the World Wide Web, a certain degree of professionalism is required. First, you need to ensure that your website does not take 15 seconds to load. In this age of fast moving technology, hardly anyone has the patience to sit and stare at an empty page while it looks. You should also make sure that your visitors can navigate their way through your site with ease. This can easily be achieved by placing links inside each content page, and whenever they click on your logo or site name, be it placed prominently on top, side or bottom, they should be redirected back to the home page.
Fonts are also an important factor when it comes to professional-looking sites. You do not want to turn off your visitors by inserting content done in Comic Sans. It is also crucial to determine whether you want serif fonts or sans-serif fonts (serif fonts like Times New Roman have little tails attached). Ideally, font sizes 12 pt and below should be in sans-serif so that it stays readable for everyone. With all these combined rules in visual and typography, designing a professional-looking site is not as hard as you think it would be!
Organising Links
Have you ever thought about why websites exist? Each day we spend countless hours checking our emails, visiting our friends on popular networking sites, reading their thoughts on their blogs and even purchasing items (sometimes on a whim) on eBay or other e-Commerce sites.
Now imagine what would happen if you were drawn to a site with the intention of purchasing something important, only to find yourself lost in oodles and oodles of item categories without a way to navigate yourself to the check out page! See how important good navigation is for each site?
You should make it easy for visitors to find what they need by providing well-organised links in order of importance. The links should be relevant too. You can draw attention to them by inserting simple .gif animation or simply making the font slightly bigger and more attractive to the eye. Primary links should be prominently and strategically placed so that visitors need not scroll for ages just to locate that particular link. Next, when building your site, make sure you utilise frames and place crucial links in the same position for all pages. Keep your links short and sweet, as a long string of links can look hideous and turn off potential visitors. Lastly, insert the ever-important FAQ page so that clueless visitors will always have somewhere to turn to in case they get lost!
Swap Images
Whether you’re a web design newbie looking to build your own site or a business person seeking to gather more hits and draw attention to your products or services, it’s always wise to incorporate cool web design ideas and make your site more accessible and attractive to all.
First, you need to know that humans are visual driven creatures and nothing attracts them more than what pleases the eye. A simple way to catch the attention of potential visitors is to utilise swap images in your site. Imagine placing your mouse over a picture only to find that it will change into something else altogether. This is indeed a quick way to induce website interaction and generate interest in your content. All it takes are a few simple steps using the comprehensive Dreamweaver or Fireworks software.
Next, you can probably consider designing a Flash intro animation for your site. It could be relevant or intriguing, either way it’s not recommended that you create your whole site in Flash as this would take up valuable loading time and be a turn off to visitors. Some sites even feature interesting Flash games that are amusing yet informative. This in turn will ensure repeated visitors to your site. Just make sure that they are not too complicated. The last thing you need is to drive your visitors away even before the Flash intro is done playing. Good luck!