4 Easy Color Schemes You Can Use to Design Your Ads

By Carla San Gaspar

Creating your own design for color printing marketing materials is easy when you know the basics of color harmony. Whether you're designing a poster or a business card, understanding a few color schemes is a great way to create unity in your designs. Grab a color wheel and jumpstart your creativity.

1. Monochromatic
   • This color scheme uses one pure color in different tints and shades. A tint is simply a pure color added with white, while a shade is a pure color that is added with black.
   • The monochromatic color scheme is the easiest and safest color scheme to work with when you're simply starting out.
   • Using solid white, black, and gray is a great way to make your colors stand out. Gradients that recede can be used as background.
   • Although this color scheme can be used stylishly in expert hands, you can simply use this to create simple and manageable prints that focus more on content rather than style.
   • You can use this scheme for business cards that aim to establish a color your customers can associate with your business.
2. Achromatic
   • This also falls under the monochromatic color scheme but deserves special attention. It literally means no color. It is a combination of black, white, and different levels of gray.
   • It can be used to set your marketing materials apart from all the other full colored prints, and give the air of power, superiority, or purity as is often associated with black or white.
   • Be sure to have pure black and pure white incorporated into your print, as well as a wide range of gray. A relatively flat gray design may make your print look muddy and bland.
   • You can use this color scheme if your business image is simple but elegant.
3. Analogous
   • This color scheme uses the colors adjacent to your dominant color. If your base color is orange for instance, your analogous color scheme will include yellow orange, and red orange. It looks almost like a monochromatic scheme.
   • Designs that use analogous color schemes often feel harmonious and unified. Because the colors appear slightly similar, they may appear to lack impact. You can remedy this by adjusting the saturation of your colors. Make some of the colors appear duller and make your dominant more vivid to create a more striking design.
   • This color scheme is great for brochures, catalogues, and websites that take more time to read and can benefit from a relaxing color scheme.
4. Complementary
   • This uses a color that is directly the opposite of the dominant color in the color wheel and creates high contrast. It is a more dynamic combination where the dominant color naturally stands out.
   • You should avoid foreground and background combinations though as they may give your viewers an eyesore. You should also avoid discordant schemes or colors that are in between being complementary and analogous: not quite opposite, but is too far to be analogous.
   • You can use complementary color schemes in color printing your outdoor advertisements like banners, posters, and even flyers that need to catch your customers' eyes.

Full color printing can aid to help in making colorful and vibrant prints. To find more of its procedures and application please feel free to visit color printing wholesale

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carla_San_Gaspar

Website Blunders - Never Use FrontPage Themes

By Linda Goldsborough

Front Page themes consist of unified designs and color schemes that take into account the use of navigation bars, fonts, bullets and other website components. While the front page themes can give a uniform look to the site they don't give a very professional appearance to your site. Sites using themes all tend to have the same bland look.

Many people are familiar with front page designs because they are commonly used by amateurs when setting up personal websites. Using these themes will mark your site as unprofessional and make some people leery about your business.

When designing your website you should try to make it look as professional as possible yet functional and unique. The best and easiest way to accomplish this is by using templates for website design. Templates are now available in many varieties so finding one to suit your business should be easy.

Before you choose a template for your site design spend some time looking at other web sites. Note what you like and what you dislike about certain sites. Make a list of things you think look professional on a web site. Also notice things such as navigation, links and color schemes. Take note of where you like to see certain features on the page. Make a sketch of what your ideal home page would look like.

Now you have a pretty good idea of what to look for in a template. You can look through templates until you find one that incorporates most of the features and colors you want. While you can make changes to templates they are easiest to use as-is. One of the first things that visitors will notice is the color scheme used. Try to make it one that stands out yet is not garish or gaudy. Find a template that has the proper amount of link buttons pre-made for you.

When looking for a template try to find one that looks professional and fits into the philosophy and product you are selling. Learn what the different colors mean. Blue and green are generally soothing colors while red and orange are active colors. Muted colors are more mundane while brighter colors tend to be more memorable. Make sure that your company name can fit properly in the allotted spaces and that you have enough link buttons for the functions you need. Finally, think about the overall look of the site and choose a template that reflects your company best.

To discover the Top 30 Website Blunders and how you can avoid them when launching your next website, please visit http://www.7dollarguides.com/blunders

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Linda_Goldsborough

The Right Color Combination for Your Website

By Paul F Edwards

Color schemes are the hardest to pick when building your website.

Why is this?

If your favorite color is mid night blue, this may not translate into a website that is eye-appealing to potential customers. Also, you text and content may be hidden behind that color.

Your customer might leave right away after seeing a your color scheme, so having the right colors can change the appearance and initial reaction to your website.

Since there are infinite color schemes, which ones will best suit you?

When designing a website, not only are you designing functionality and accessibility, you are also designing readability or eye appeal. This is different from websites that use flash to entice the visitor. Flash sites also have the disadvantage of not having the search engines being able to view a website that is entirely made of flash.

The colors should be ones that suit you, however suit the customer more. Reds, blues and orange/salmon and black on white have dramatic impact on how you perceive. For example, red has been used to demonstrate a call to action (for example, 'buy' can be placed within a red context because you wish the customer to 'buy' your product. You can place headlines in red; however, if you place the wrong headline in red, you won't have buying customers. Red is a very powerful message marker. Use with caution.

Blue is used to have a calm experience. For example, some yoga and meditation websites will use blue to calm and red to entice their visitors to 'buy' their meditation services.

Some other sites have used orange/salmon to great effect. These colors can also entice visitors to find out more about your products and services as well as a combination of black and white text and background.

Traditional black on white background is still very useful. This is the basic color scheme that we are all used to seeing and will also convey your message. What you can do is incorporate some of the other colors and see how they best suit your website and you business goals.

Color enhances the images we see. When this is applied to website design it's important to have your customer in mind. Determine which color scheme works best for your website and continue to test. Once you've found a color scheme that works, leave it. This will ensure your website business success.

Paul Edward an award winning web design located in http://www.level10solutions.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_F_Edwards

Secrets to Using Color on Your Website and Common Pitfalls to Avoid

By Michael Turner

Colors have long been known to have psychological affects on mood and interpretation. So, when you are designing your website, you should keep in mind the influence color might have on your visitors. Do some research to find out which colors promote your product and services best as well as which colors make visitors interested in buying your products. You should take all of this into account in order to create the best atmosphere for buying that you can.

Also, keep in mind; colors have different meanings in different cultures. If you are promoting a product in an overseas market, you should also research what colors stand for in that culture.

There are many pitfalls that people fall into on a regular basis because they are unaware of the many effects color has on their visitors and ultimately on their wallets. Read the following suggestions in order to know what to avoid when incorporating color on your website.

Pitfall #1 - Colors that do not Associate

The product or service that you are selling should determine the color scheme you choose as well as the target market you are selling to. For instance, men and women prefer different colors in varying hues, luminosity, and saturation. For the most part, women prefer colors with less saturation and men prefer colors with more saturation. Keep this in mind if your product is geared to one of the sexes in particular.

Pitfall #2 - No Palette

Make sure you use varying colors on your website from the same palette. This means colors that have some degree of relation to one another. Doing this will create a better layout which is more pleasing to the eye and one that will have a better psychological effect on your visitors. If you do not know anything about palettes then choose the Microsoft color palette, click on an exterior color you like, and the follow it either horizontally or vertically to choose your palette. It really is that easy!

Pitfall #3 - Consider Your Entire Audience

Different colors indeed have different effects on different people because of gender, culture, and life experience, however there are people who also have difficulty seeing certain colors because they have mild to severe color blindness. While this only represents 8-10% of the population, you still want these individuals to be able to view your website. Try not to use only red and green which are typically the colors individuals with color blindness have the most problems seeing.

When you keep color schemes in mind and consider how they will affect your audience, you will be able to create a climate that better sells your product and inclines your visitors to become your customers.

Michael Turner reveals his foolproof way to increase website traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it free right now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Turner

Seven Website Design Tips To Make Your Site More Attractive

By Alexa Roderick

"How can I attract thousands of visitors to my site?”, many people ask me this question. Well, driving high traffic to Website is very important, but what's even more important, is designing a website in that way which makes them stays longer.

In this article, you're going to learn 7 important website design tips to make your site more attractive. So not only your website will attract many people, but it will also motivate them to stay for a long time.

1. Be Aware during Selection of the colours scheme

If your company has a logo or preferred colours on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colours and stick with them – don’t change colours on every page. The most common colour schemes include:

- Red, yellow and white

- Blue and white

- Red, grey and white

- Blue, orange and white

- Yellow, grey and white.

- Onion shade, Tan, white

If you’re not sure what colour scheme to choose, surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can then model your colour scheme on what already exists. Always Select those colours which Attract the visitors, and the person revisit your site.

2. Page Backgrounds

Ensure your visitors can read the text on the background, i.e. no black writing on dark blue background or yellow on white. Means if the page background is dark always use light colour for the writhing a text or if the light colour is used for the page background the always use dark colour for writing a text, like this colour scheme for the background everything is visible to the visitor. Also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue (before being visited) and burgundy (after being visited), so if you have a dark background, ensure your links are light.

3. (Page loading) site open within a minutes

All I’ve seen for the last 10 minutes is ‘page loading’, I think something might be wrong with my browser this is probably one of the biggest gripes a site visitor has. If your page takes more than a minute to load (on dial-up) and you have anything less than the meaning of life hidden within your content - something needs to be done. The average person does not have time they just go for another site without passed his time for these type of site those take time to open. So a good website takes less time for loading a site.

4. Appropriate page Size

Web pages are measured in pixels. Pixels are the unit of measurement for the screen. A Web page can literally be any size. Standard Web pages usually fit into a few sizes: * W × H * 600 × 800 * 640 × 480 (Dream weaver default) * 1024 × 768 * 550 × 400 (Flash default)

The default Web page sizes provided in Web friendly applications and listed earlier are a great place to start. You will probably use a smaller, custom size for pop-up windows. The Web page size you choose is up to you. Remember to use actual space for the Web page effectively so that the content is in the proper proximity to the user's navigation patterns. Web page size affects the way users move around the Web pages and the Web portfolio site. One rule: Pick a size for all main screens and stick to it.

5. Logo

Create a simple logo to identity your website. Have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website.

6. Application of graphic designs

You must be careful in choosing for the appropriate design that will best represent your projects, and tell about your business. Create a design which coveys in a stylish way what it has to

7. Be aware about grammar and spell

Grammar is overrated [and the spill-checker too] Most web authoring and word processing software comes with a spell/grammar check utility - don’t let your hard earned money go to waste, use it. Some of the more common grammatical mistakes are misusing its, it’s, there, their, they’re, your, you’re, and noone (correct=no one). Proof reading your final product is also helpful. No one is infallible, that’s why pencils have erasers and computer programs have [ctrl+z]. About the Author Alex Roderick, The author is Business Head for The Web Design Company www.webdesigningcompany.net, It’s a web designing company. It deals in web site design, website redesign, flash, 3D animation, logos, Banner Adds etc.

nick@webdesigningcompany.net Seven Website Design Tips to Make Your Site More Attractive

"How can I attract thousands of visitors to my site?”, many people ask me this question. Well, driving high traffic to Website is very important, but what's even more important, is designing a website in that way which makes them stays longer.

In this article, you're going to learn 7 important website design tips to make your site more attractive. So not only your website will attract many people, but it will also motivate them to stay for a long time.

1. Be Aware during Selection of the colours scheme

If your company has a logo or preferred colours on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colours and stick with them – don’t change colours on every page. The most common colour schemes include:

- Red, yellow and white

- Blue and white

- Red, grey and white

- Blue, orange and white

- Yellow, grey and white.

- Onion shade, Tan, white

If you’re not sure what colour scheme to choose, surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can then model your colour scheme on what already exists. Always Select those colours which Attract the visitors, and the person revisit your site.

2. Page Backgrounds

Ensure your visitors can read the text on the background, i.e. no black writing on dark blue background or yellow on white. Means if the page background is dark always use light colour for the writhing a text or if the light colour is used for the page background the always use dark colour for writing a text, like this colour scheme for the background everything is visible to the visitor. Also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue (before being visited) and burgundy (after being visited), so if you have a dark background, ensure your links are light.

3. (Page loading) site open within a minutes

All I’ve seen for the last 10 minutes is ‘page loading’, I think something might be wrong with my browser this is probably one of the biggest gripes a site visitor has. If your page takes more than a minute to load (on dial-up) and you have anything less than the meaning of life hidden within your content - something needs to be done. The average person does not have time they just go for another site without passed his time for these type of site those take time to open. So a good website takes less time for loading a site.

4. Appropriate page Size

Web pages are measured in pixels. Pixels are the unit of measurement for the screen. A Web page can literally be any size. Standard Web pages usually fit into a few sizes: * W × H * 600 × 800 * 640 × 480 (Dream weaver default) * 1024 × 768 * 550 × 400 (Flash default)

The default Web page sizes provided in Web friendly applications and listed earlier are a great place to start. You will probably use a smaller, custom size for pop-up windows. The Web page size you choose is up to you. Remember to use actual space for the Web page effectively so that the content is in the proper proximity to the user's navigation patterns. Web page size affects the way users move around the Web pages and the Web portfolio site. One rule: Pick a size for all main screens and stick to it.

5. Logo

Create a simple logo to identity your website. Have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website.

6. Application of graphic designs

You must be careful in choosing for the appropriate design that will best represent your projects, and tell about your business. Create a design which coveys in a stylish way what it has to

7. Be aware about grammar and spell

Grammar is overrated [and the spill-checker too] Most web authoring and word processing software comes with a spell/grammar check utility - don’t let your hard earned money go to waste, use it. Some of the more common grammatical mistakes are misusing its, it’s, there, their, they’re, your, you’re, and noone (correct=no one). Proof reading your final product is also helpful. No one is infallible, that’s why pencils have erasers and computer programs have [ctrl+z].

It’s a web designing company. It deals in web site design, website redesign, flash, 3D animation, logos, Banner Adds etc. About the Author Alex Roderick,

It’s a web designing company. It deals in web site design, website redesign, flash, 3D animation, logos, Banner Adds etc.

nick@webdesigningcompany.net It’s a web designing company. It deals in web site design, website redesign, flash, 3D animation, logos, Banner Adds etc.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alexa_Roderick

Choosing An Effective Website Colour Combination

By Paul Coulter

An aesthetically pleasing colour scheme can make or break your website. After all, in advertising, colour accounts for 60% of advertisement's acceptance or rejection. Therefore, colour plays a pivotal role in determining whether or not a potential customer will choose to conduct business with your firm. A web designer needs to ensure that all of your website’s colours work in harmony, while keeping the client’s identity consistent with other marketing efforts.

Quick Rules of Thumb

- Stick to 3 to 5 colours when planning a website

- When in doubt, use white for the background colour, and black for the text colour

Using Your Company’s Logo Colours

If your company already has a logo designed by a professional – great! This is the best starting point for choosing your website’s colour combination. You may choose to use the exact colours found in your logo, or even add some complimentary colours. But, it is important not to stray too far from your logo’s colour scheme in order to keep your company’s identity consistent.

Colour Defines Mood

The colours of your website are important because they can elicit different emotions from your visitors. Colours can make us happy, excited, angry or sad. Below is a list of colours along with the corresponding moods which they evoke:

Warm Colors
Red: aggressiveness, passion, strength, vitality
Pink: femininity, innocence, softness, health
Orange: fun, cheeriness, warm exuberance
Yellow: positive thinking, sunshine, cowardice

Cool Colors
Green: tranquility, health, freshness
Blue: authority, dignity, security, faithfulness
Purple: sophistication, spirituality, costliness, royalty, mystery

Neutral Colors
Brown: utility, earthiness, woodiness, subtle richness
White: purity, truthfulness, being contemporary and refined
Gray: somberness, authority, practicality, corporate mentality
Black: seriousness, distinctiveness, boldness, being classic

Choosing a Color Scheme

Once you understand the colours and their connotations, the next step is to choose a colour scheme for your website. Below is list of different types of colour combinations:

Monochromatic colour combinations use a single color. Variations in lightness of the selected colour can be used to create the sense of different colours. Monochromatic colors go well together, producing a soothing effect, and are very easy on the eyes. The drawback however, is that, it can be difficult to highlight the most important elements on your website.

Analogous color schemes use colours that are related, but not the identical, to create visually attractive combinations. Choosing this type of colour scheme is accomplished by picking colours that are close to each other on the colour wheel. For example, a selection of blues and purples, or reds and oranges would make a good analogous combination. One colour must be picked as the dominant colour while the others are used as accents.

Complementary (or contrasting) color schemes are comprised of 2 colours that are opposite each other on the color wheel. This combination is most appealing when a warm and a cool colour are used. For example, red with green or blue work well as contrasting colours. Using one colour for your background, and its complementary color to highlight key elements will give you colour dominance and colour contrast. One word of caution: it is difficult for the human eye to focus on contrasting colours at the same time. Therefore, it is best to avoid using strong contrasts for background and text colours.

Paul Coulter owns and operates a custom web design company in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. If you would like to read more web design articles or contact Paul, visit his business's website: Cost Effective Web Design, Windsor ON

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Coulter

Should You Choose Color Schemes To Complement The Accessories or Vice Versa?

By Sarah H

Choosing the right color scheme for any room is harder than you might think. It really takes a keen eye and sometimes it’s best to accept that we are not all artists or talented in this way. So why not let an expert guide help you make the right decision.

Using the right colours that either match or blend well with each other will give you balance and balance is always a good place to start. So to get started you’ll first need to choose a base colour. A base colour is just a colour in which you want everything else to revolve around and a good way to choose this is to consider the room in which you want to formulate a colour scheme for and think about your favorite colours. But keep in mind that sometimes your favorite colors may not mesh well with the type of room in question and also keep in mind that there are multitudes of ways to use color within a room so long as they complement and coordinate with each other.

Paint is tricky business and this is where a real artistic eye and hand will come in more than handy. There are a number of painting techniques that not only combine color schemes but textures as well. Many major do-it-yourself kits come with written directions as well as demonstrations that show you how to do the techniques yourself. A great practical way to learn a thing or two about technique is watching network television home improvement shows as these really have some great do it yourself practical segments that many a person has learned from!

After you have decided on the paint color and technique that you are going to use, the next thing to think about is the area involving the color scheme and the furniture that will be used in this area. It always works best to choose neutral or solid colors for your largest pieces of furniture since many of these, especially the pricey, elegant and antique pieces tend to come in metal or wooden designs. This also helps insure that they will have a long life span within your home since these materials and colours are very heavy duty and wear and tear tends not to surface on them.

For smaller pieces of furniture, like the occasional chair or less expensive pieces of furniture, nice trendy colors or patterns add a lovely luster to the area. This helps keep your area up to date and stylish without causing you to break the bank remodeling or redecorating every other year. When the style goes out you do not have to replace the larger price items.

It is recommended that more neutral color pieces of larger furniture be tied into the color schemes through the use of pillows and throws. Pillows can be purchased ready made or can be made by you, of course the benefit of making them yourself is that you can get exactly what you want and blend your colors much better than shopping to find colours close to what you are looking for. Embellishments are a great way to accent throw pillows and these embellishments can be as simple as adding accent tassels or as complicated as sewing beads onto the pillows that follow the design of the fabric. This technique is tricky and time consuming but the end product is very special.

Other accents in a room that work great to enhance colour schemes are coloured glass. Glass vases and decorative bottles are beautiful especially when placed by a source of light. These also come in a wide range of prices so the use of them fits most budgets. Colored glass bottles and vases can often be picked up at second hand stores. Just remember that less is more especially where beautiful ornate accents are concerned.

It’s wise to choose colors of similar densities for a balanced look so one doesn't overpower another and also choose colours that stem from the same primary colour so that a layered, in depth look is achieved. You’d be surprised at the harmony you’ll be able to create.

Discover more great tips and ideas at Home Remodeling Ideas a website offering resources on matters like how to grout tiles, kitchen decorating ideas and even about air conditioning sizing problems.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sarah_H

ColorImpact: Create Beautiful Color Schemes For Your Website With A Single Click

By Andrei Mikrukov

ColorImpact is an award winning software for creating harmonious color schemes. The program is based on the color wheel used by artists for centuries. The artist's use of complementary colors, or colors opposite on the color wheel, creates an exciting painting.

There are a lot of great tools in ColorImpact, such as Matching Colors Wheel, Color Variations, Color Blender and Test Patterns. The Main Menu area is like a control center for this program and lets you explore the color tools.

The color tools let you adjust colors in the palette in order to better suit your needs. For example, the Color Variations panel lets you add and modify variations to the colors in the color palette, while the Color Blender gives you the power to create intermediary colors between any two end colors.

But the most useful tool for niche website builders is the Color Composer, that allows you to experiment and see how your color schemes look when used on real web page designs.

Color Composer

The Color Composer is an advanced color scheme designer for web pages. The flexible user interface allows you to combine one of several html templates with a number of predefined and user defined color formulas or preselected colors.

Want a quick set of pleasantly looking and harmonious colors for your new website? Simply launch the Color Composer and pick a Formula Base Color. The base color window pops up. It is a flexible color picker that gives you full control when selecting the base color.

Pick the base color, and the Composer will instantly give you color suggestions for the following main elements of a webpage:

• Page Header: Background, Logo and Top Bar
• Sidebar: Background, Heading, Heading Background, Menu Item and Menu Item Background
• Content: Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Text, Background
• Links

Play with it! Pick colors from the Base Color circle and see how good the Composer is in selecting the best matches for webpage elements. When you're done, click File > Export Colors… and save you color scheme as a CSS file.

Creating a color scheme for your website has never been this easy!

Note: This review intentionally refers to an older version of the ColorImpact, known as ColorImpact Classic. Although, ColorImpact version 3 is available, in my opinion, the Color Composer in the Classic version is easier to use and more intuitive. Moreover, the ColorImpact Classic costs $20 less.

15-day trials are available for both versions of the program. The trials have no features disabled, so you can take advantage of them all while testing it. ColorImpact has a well organized and intuitive user interface and an extensive help documentation.

Andrei Mikrukov is the author of free Virtual Real Estate Toolbar for IE and Firefox. The toolbar provides over 100 tools to build and promote your niche content websites.

ColorImpact website: http://www.tigercolor.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrei_Mikrukov

An Easy Website Makeover to Boost Your Image and Increase Clickthroughs

By Karri Flatla

Karri Flatla
Level: Platinum

Karri Flatla is a business graduate of the University of Lethbridge and principal of snap! virtual assistance inc., a small business consulting firm providing on-line ...

Looks aren’t everything, even on the web. However, appearances are a liability if they are unduly neglected, no matter how solid your website’s content is or how well your pages rank with the search engines. A harsh color scheme or sloppy layout offends the senses and hinders credibility. And in an environment where prospects can literally shop multiple sites in a matter of minutes, first impressions (read: looks) count.

While usability and accessibility certainly present a designer with additional challenges in enhancing the user experience, these things need not trump appearance. In fact, a site with clean lines complimentary colors, and important graphics like nav buttons that are easy to find, is inherently more usable than its uglier counterparts. Give the following tips a try and see if you notice a difference in both traffic volumes and click through patterns. You might be pleasantly surprised.

1) Because information gathering drives user behavior on the web, easy to read navigation ensures visitors are getting the most out of your site. Resist the urge to use fancy graphics or wacky fonts for your primary navigation. And keep the number of primary nav buttons down to seven or eight—anything more is simply overwhelming and clunky, especially on a home page. If your site contains various subcategories and sub pages, use flyouts or dropdown menus where appropriate.

2) People read differently on the web than they do print. While your local newspaper is probably written in a “serif” font (e.g. Times New Roman), reading print on a monitor is much easier if it is written in a “sans serif” font (e.g. Arial). Serifs are simply the extra little bits of type that hang or dangle from the ends of printed letters. On paper, serifs lead the eye smoothly from one letter to the next. This is why most headlines in print are in sans serif as these visually jolt the eye and ask us to take notice.

3) One of the most poorly executed aspects of web design is color. A nasty color scheme is usually the result of too many colors being used at once and/or the designer did not conduct browser testing (not all colors are “web safe”). All colors are “complimented” by other colors (and often insulted by others). Go to your local craft or paint store and pick up a color wheel for about ten bucks. On the color wheel you will find countless suggestions for attractive looking color schemes, many of which you had not thought of. Or, check out http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html. The main thing is to keep your website’s color scheme simple, no more than three for sure with the third color used very sparingly as an accent.

4) Your website will automatically be more visually pleasing to its visitors if your chosen color scheme speaks to the needs and perceptions of your target market. For example, a more conservative audience will appreciate muted or traditional color themes while a trend-oriented or entrepreneurial audience might enjoy colors that are bold and crisp. While there remains debate around the true impact of color on our moods and perceptions, one cannot deny its impact when used judiciously on the web. Here is a great rundown of the alleged effects of color: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html.

5) Keep an eye on margins and text justification. Nothing screams “amateur” like a webmaster that has neglected the details. Make sure text does not appear squished up against borders and graphics and left justify large blocks of text for readability. Also be generous with white space around text and graphics, imparting a more organized, intentional feel to your pages. If you have a lot of important information to convey about a particular topic, “more info” links or printer friendly pages are a nice touch.

6) Tempting as it may be to go overboard, be judicious with your use of graphics, photos, and other multimedia. Remember, for most business sites, the overarching purpose is to provide useful information; graphics must compliment this purpose, not drown it out.

Implementing the above suggestions is relatively easy and quick to do, even if you are not a web design professional. And your hard earned traffic will no doubt appreciate the added effort and polish when they arrive at your site.

Karri Flatla is a business graduate of the University of Lethbridge and principal of snap! virtual assistance inc., a small business consulting firm providing business communications and online marketing services to solo professionals. Karri also produces Outsmart, the email newsletter for small business with big purpose. Visit http://www.snap-va.com for more information. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Karri_Flatla