Rule 5 - Time to Load

Pay extreme attention on the time your page needs to load completely. Not only that there are some people on the internet using a modem but also the traffic you cause. Some web space providers have a limit on the traffic you can cause with your page or otherwise it’ll cause you some extra costs.

Avoid big graphics or huge flash animations. Use internet-optimized graphics (the most common extension are JPG and GIF or PNG). JPG is usually used for graphics with many colours, while gif is more useful if you have writing. PNG is a mix from both.

In our example you can abandon graphics and use plain text.

Rule 6 - Compatibility

Next to the loading time, there is another factor which is very important and can in the worst case keep the visitor away. Everywhere on the internet you here different opinions and there are many programs claiming to deliver the ultimate compatibility, but thanks to CSS the different browser come closer day by day.

Although it may sound a bit unfashionable, with the good old HTML-Tags you’re always on the right side. A normal table is always the same, in IE, Netscape and Opera, but the more complexity your page has, the more difficulties you have to master. So remember, if your site can be viewed in every browser without mistakes, you will definitely win some customers.

Use the knowledge of other designers for your site because every problem also has a solution.

Now let’s start building the page, and what do we start with? We start with the front page.