In this article I will give some advises for those people who try to build web site themselves and don’t have experience in programming. Is it possible to build a user-friendly site attractive for people? Yes, it is. If you adhere usability rules. Usability means ease of use and learnability of the web site. It is one of the main requirements to the site.

So, the first thing you should do is to define: who is your visitor? Site made “for everyone” will hardly be of any use, that is why you should know your visitor’s “face”. You should choose the design, font size, images and background that will satisfy and will be convenient for the visitors – it is the first step of usability measures. Understand who your visitor is.

The second usability rule – “30 seconds rule”. Statistics tells that for the first time user stays on the site for the 30 seconds, and during these 30 seconds he decides whether to stay there or not. Build a site where user can receive main information he came for without additional page scrolling and surfing through various site sections. Remove the ads that are not yours and that occludes all page and also place everything important in the part of the page that visitor sees first when he comes to it. Respect his time.

Next rule – “User is always right”. Make an easy-to-use design for a certain category of audience. Don’t hide registration button if the site needs it, use clear and visible navigation menu and write words without slang. Talk one language with your visitors.

The fourth rule is: “User must understand what is going on when he presses the buttons”. It is very important especially for e-commerce sites. For example user presses “Order” or “Complete” button and… nothing is going on. He is confused – what has happened? That is why it is highly important to comment all user’s actions, like “Your order has been sent for processing. Our manager will connect with you within…”, or “The message wasn’t sent because you didn’t fill …” – indicate what is wrong with the message. And it is very important to place all comments on one page – where user filled the form.

Next rule: “Ask your user only necessary information”. A big number of unnecessary questions in the order form irritates people and most of them would prefer to cancel order and go to another site with simpler and shorter web form. So if you downloaded a ready form and embedded in your site, it is advisable for you to use a web form generator (phpforms or any other) and build your own customizable form that will contain only the questions that your web resource needs.

One more usability secret is “Hyperlinks adjustment”. It is better to open the link to another site in new window because in this case when user closes that window, he won’t leave your site too.

Also your should be attentive to questions and remarks of users. Read the letters which your visitors write to support managers, this way you will see what difficulties users face while surfing on your resource and know their expectations concerning your service.

Traditionally QR Codes are just scannable versions of lengthy URLs that would be impractical to try and market in the real world. As a result many marketers don’t see the need to place QR Codes on the Internet when they already have clickable URLs available for online users.

Although, this does not mean that QR Codes can’t have an impact online. In fact they’ve actually began to converge with Internet video in an exceptionally strong way. With this bond only getting stronger and more popular on the web, this article aims to find out precisely how best to use QR Codes to market Internet video.

Using QR Codes Within Internet Video
There are two key uses of QR Codes with Internet video; using QR Codes within Internet video and Using QR Codes to market Internet video.

There’s much debate over the inclusion of QR codes within Internet videos due to that fact that QR Codes can be easily swapped for URLs to achieve the exact same result. However, QR Codes are for a Smart Phone market, and Smart Phones are yet to become universal. That means that there’s still users out there getting a new Smart Phone who will excitedly want to use the features it provides, such as QR Code scanning.

Never underestimate the power of novelty value that’s surrounding the tools of Smart Phones. It’s a concept that will stay with the device until it reaches worldwide saturation, which it’s further away from doing then some might think.

By playing on this unique nature of QR Codes, marketers can ensure that users scanning their codes within Internet videos will pay close attention to the material that generates as a result of the scan.

The guys and gals at Mighty Wallet used this unique power of QR Codes in the Internet video marketing campaigns of their wallets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPjq8qdpgeI&feature=player_embedded

Now the downside to this Mighty Wallet ad is that it’s a repurposed Television ad rather than a specific online ad. The repurposed ad was made to reach a wider online audience, not just regional TV viewership. The concept to note is the clever call to action for the QR Code, which means that users will be even more inclined to scan the code than perhaps they would were it just a typical QR Code placement.

Hyundai also take this approach in a far more creative QR Code creation, whilst promoting the codes placement in the local newspaper. Unfortunately the indication of where to look out for the code is severely stunted by showing the code already in the video. Regardless of that slip up the viral potential this video has with its creation of the code, will certainly have boosted the awareness of the campaign and generated a substantial amount of QR Code scans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U53YWmleTGs&feature=player_embedded

Eventually the novelty of QR Code scanning may wear off, which will make its placement within Internet videos very rare. Unique ways of using the codes within videos will perhaps still be able to create a large amount of scans, but in time the relationship between QR Codes and Internet video will shift towards the second key use of QR Codes – marketing Internet video using QR Codes.
Using QR Codes To Market Internet Video
QR Codes are used to market just about anything, from events and special offers to websites and of course videos. The use of the QR Code differs here because the code is being used on and offline to promote certain media. Although the essence of using QR Codes because they are new, exciting and quirky ways to get users to check out online media is still the same. In time this quirkiness may fade, but for now QR Codes are marketing Internet videos in some very innovative ways:

Musician Jessica Lea Mayfield uses QR Codes on concert posters to ensure audiences come and check out her performances by linking the code to her music video. By using the popularity of Internet video and the effortless nature of the QR Code scan, the performer has helped to strengthen the power of her print-based campaign:

http://tommartin.typepad.com/positive_disruption/2011/05/how-to-use-qr-codes-in-marketing.html

It’s not just DIY performers who are utilising the powerful convergence of QR Codes and Internet video, so too are Calvin Klein Jeans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_N559yMLZc

Three similar QR Code billboards were created to get users to check out the ‘uncensored’ version of their Jeans advertisement on the web. A large placement of a QR Code like this will certainly boost brand awareness and maximise the amount of scans, which will in turn optimise the amount of views for their Internet video ad.

The majority of Smart Phones that scan a link directly for a YouTube video will instantly bring up the video on screen allowing the user to go from scan to view extremely quickly. This speed allows users to see a brand and pick up its message easily and effectively. This will make the connection between the brand and the viewer much stronger as a result of the quick, user-friendly interface.

With Internet video being one of the most popular forms of media on the web, linking QR Codes to videos is quite possibly the most powerful combination of QR Code and media out there. Websites and text based media could potentially be far too daunting to digest on a small Smart Phone screen, whereas a video is a perfect fit for the Smart Phone platform.

Summary
The powerful convergence between QR Codes and Internet video essentially comes down to the popularity of the video media, videos ability to fit perfectly onto a Smart Phone screen, the ease of use to go from QR Code scan to video content, and the curiosity both QR Codes and video play buttons provide to a viewer. Utilising this connection both inside Internet videos and in order to market Internet videos will be an exceptional marketing benefit for any blog, brand or business in any niche.

About The Author
Andy Havard is a Marketing Executive at Skeleton Productions, a UK based Internet video production company.

What’s it all about?

This is about an explosive Billion industry that is expected to surpass Billion by 2014.

Presenters: Tim Atkinson, Mark Thompson & Jeff Mills

Date: Tuesday, October 25
Time: 9:00 pm (New York Time)

==>  Sign-up for the Webinar (for Free)

On this Brand New Webinar training, Jeff Mills goes over 5 “Streams of Income” that you can easily implement immediately and start profiting by creating and marketing mobile apps to small businesses to use to connect to their customers.

You’ll be amazed at the many ways you can make money with this. There are 5.2 Billion mobile phone users out there.  Apps are quickly replacing web sites!  iPhones, iPads and Androids are replacing computers!  Advances in technology have mobilized us and now we find ourselves living in a Mobile World.  Many people all over the world are making a fortune with iPhone Apps because of it.

You’ll learn that is you can send an email, make a document in Word, or make a post in a blog – then you can make money and profit in the Mobile App Revolution!

My guest, Mobile & Marketing expert, Jeff Mills, shows show you the many different ways in which you can cash in on this remarkable new opportunity!  Nothing like this has been seen yet, and no… this is not about making or developing GAME that you sell – it’s all about helping local businesses!

Hurry, as we are only letting in the first 300 people!

About Jeff Mills

Jeff Mills is a former Youth Pastor of 9 years, who is now a full time internet marketer, information entrepreneur, book author, speaker, sales coach, and also an avid traveler.

Having Sold over $3 Million Dollars of products and services since 2003, Jeff is uniquely qualified to help you grow your business and speaks to people all over the world to help them grow their online businesses and make more money while working less.

Jeff has created his own products as well as become a successful affiliate marketer, marketing products of others as a super affiliate.

According to Stephen Pavlovich who manages the Conversion Factory, a UK- agency specializing in conversion rate optimization and conversion testing for highly competitive niches, conversion rate optimization is simple: Find out why user’s aren’t converting and fix it. Conversion optimization must also be individualized, creative and focused on ROI. In the optimization of the website Gopromotional.com we were faced with particularly difficult conversions because clients must call to order.

The first thing to determine in conversion optimization is if the conversions fall into high commitment or low commitment conversions. For example, getting someone to download a free wine application for their cell phone is a low commitment conversion whereas having them join a $1,000.00 per month wine club is a high commitment conversion. High commitment vs. low commitment can also be rated according to the amount of time a user will be required to devote to the site and how much personal information you are going to require from them. For example, Facebook requires users to constantly return and contribute making this a high commitment conversion even though the service is “free.” The higher the level of commitment the less room there is for design errors in the conversion chain. In addition, spinning the commitment into a positive for the customer is essential for high commitment conversions.

Swimming is a high commitment sport

Web designers have an instinctive sense about what is and isn’t visually appealing. This includes a feel for layouts, copy/text, images and color schemes. An experienced web designer shouldn’t discount years of experience in favor of the current fashion for generic conversion optimization techniques. Rather, conversion optimization tools can be added into the designer’s toolbox to improve the quality of your designs and increase value for your customers.

Here are 5 basic steps that can be used to consistently improve conversion rates:

1. Understand your audience and understand your client’s company and goals. It’s critical to analyze whatever data is available for both the industry and the products related to the website. This includes demographic research, industry research, competition research and product research. Simple things like using the website yourself and talking to all levels of sales and support staff can reveal flaws in the website and business structure that are often easy to fix. Some tools that will help you to do this type of research include:
http://www.census.gov/
e-Marketer
Internet Time Machine
Plunkett Research
Yahoo Insights

For social media marketing research
Netbase
Nielsen Online
eCairn
Social Mention
HowSociable

2. Make extensive use of Google Analytics, Google funnels and Google’s website optimizer. All of these tools are free and they can be used to test and track the conversion rates on the website. In addition, use visual heat mapping tools before launch and post production heat mapping tools to optimize the website. These tools alone can significantly increase conversion rates. From a designer’s perspective they are also intuitive and easy to use. Some heat map Tools inlcude:

Attention Wizard
ClickDensity
CrazyEgg
ClickTale
Definitive Heatmap (from Corunet, Free DIY Tool)
UserTesting

3. Add survey forms and solicit feedback from customers. Sometimes offering small incentives for customer feedback can pay off big for conversions. For example, something as simple as offering free shipping for items over $50.00 when a bulk of the items price point at $45.00, can kill conversion rates. As a designer you can quickly do the math in such cases and combine it with customer feedback and heat tracking to uncover a major flaw in the conversion chain. Oddly enough, sometimes just raising or lowering free shipping incentives can dramatically impact conversion rates. Tools include:

SurveyMonkeyUserVoice
GetSatisfaction
Kampyle

4. Prioritize problems and changes to get the best ROI for your client. Conversion optimization has become its own industry with the intense application of A/B multi-variant testing and advanced degrees in Digital Marketing Engineering. If your client has the money for such things and wants them by all means help them hire an outside consultant. However, unlimited budgets are usually rare and the better ROI you can give your client the more likely they will be to keep using your services and refer you to other clients. The best way to do this is to identify a few big problems and then test a limited number of variations using analytic tools like Google’s website optimizer. Remember that if you increase conversion rates by even just 5% there is an accumulated value that grows exponentially as the website grows.

5. Lastly, convince your client to adopt best practices for logging website traffic and data before, during and after optimization. This gives the client concrete numbers where they can see the positive results of conversion optimization. Tracking ROI is also not a bad idea because this shows the client exactly how much more money your designs have made for them. As long as you make sure to under promise and over deliver on future conversion optimization you should continue to have ecstatic clients. Clearly explain that you have fixed the biggest and most lucrative problems first and that they aren’t likely to see such dramatic gains in the future.

Web designers can no longer just design to compete with all the CMS and website templates available on the web. To keep your clients and add new ones you must make yourself indispensable to the growth of their business. Conversion optimization is one way that you can quickly improve your client’s ROI. In today’s competitive marketplace you need to sell yourself as on Online Marketing Specialist. These skills aren’t difficult to learn nor in most cases are they expensive. Marketing professionals have always been the Houdinis of the business world. They earn enormous fees because they sell themselves just as efficiently as they sell their client’s products. Designers get out there and make a little bit of this magic too!

User experience is essential. Why? Because even if your SEO is good and you’re bringing eyes to your business via social media, no one is going to hang around your Website very long if its structure, design, and navigation induce headaches.

Sites cluttered with ads are often guilty of this. So are sites that load slowly.

But user experience goes beyond visual clutter and load times. Even sites that load relatively quickly may include navigational elements that make visitors want to pull their hair out.

For clarity, two examples

Let’s take a look at two high-traffic sites that occasionally publish similar content: Forbes and the Huffington Post.

While neither is a business Website, per se, site administrators can still learn a thing or two about user experience from the way each site tackles the following subject: Bike-friendly cities in the United States.

We’ll consider the Forbes article first. Although its title is “America’s Best Cities for Bikers,” you’d have a hard time finding a list of them.

From Forbes.com

The title implies that there will be a list of cities somewhere, but all I see is a very short article scrunched so far over to the left that it looks like Forbes doesn’t know the difference between a content area and a sidebar.

To actually see a list of cities, you have to click on the caption beneath a photo of a bicycle in a bike lane – not exactly intuitive.

What’s more, as soon as you arrive at your list of bike-friendly cities and click “next,” it’s clear that Forbes is making you load a new page for each of ten cities it includes.

Loading new pages takes up a good chunk of time. Would it have been so hard to just publish the list of cities on a single page?

A better approach

Now we’ll look at how the Huffington Post displays America’s most bike-friendly cities. After a short article that sends readers straight to the list, it’s clear that we’re supposed to “scroll” through each city by clicking the little arrows in the title box.

From HuffingtonPost.com

Now you might think that the Huffington Post’s list will take you longer to view since it contains twenty cities to Forbes’s ten, but that’s far from the case. Since it’s so easy to move through the list, users can see all of the cities in no time.

And they don’t even have to leave the page.

Sure, neither Forbes nor the Huffington Post is a small business Website or a niche blog, but the user experience lesson in this example can apply to any site. Give your audience something with a logical flow. Something easy to digest. Something intuitive.

Then, who knows? They may even tell their friends to stop by.

Landing pages are specifically targeted at providing readers or visitors what they are actually looking for. A well designed landing page also does a great job to turn your website into a credible source of information.

To achieve success with landing pages, however, you need to follow some guidelines. You can’t create these powerful pages in a hurry. Marketers make a wide range of mistakes while designing a landing page.

If you don’t want to make such mistakes and murder the rate of conversion, given below are some useful tips you can use.

#1. Poor Organization
While designing a landing page, it is vital to pay careful attention to the aesthetics. A poorly organized landing page can easily drive visitors away. Once you have understood the anatomy of a landing page, you need to place all the essential elements in an appropriate order. Remember, shopper will never like to enter a store which looks untidy and disorganized.

#2. Hard to Scan
Studies have also proved that online users don’t read every word of content. Instead, they skim and scan it. If your landing page copy is hard to scan, you need to rectify the mistake as quickly as possible. Make the content on the page easily stand out. Short paragraphs, numbered lists and bold phrases do a good job to make content easy to scan.

#3. Too Many Choices
One of the biggest landing page mistakes is to overwhelm visitors with multiple options or choices. According to studies, it has been proved that too many choices discourage visitors to take any action at all. If you want readers to take action, it is best idea to provide them with just one option.

#4. Worthless Links
This is, in fact, the biggest mistake that immediately kills the conversion rate of a landing page. Links should always be included very carefully. Where do the links on your landing page take visitors? Always remember to use links that take visitors closer to the conversion goals. If the landing page links give visitors a way out, you will easily kill the rate of conversion.

#5. Buried Content
Burying the most important content below the fold is yet another mistake that can ruin the success of your landing page. Online users expect to see the most valuable information at the top of the page. So, you should always place the most important content (or the benefits) towards the top.

If you are planning to create highly converting landing pages, you should always avoid making the above mentioned mistakes. Making any of these mistakes will drive away visitors without taking an action. The main purpose of a landing should always be to guide visitors towards the conversion goal.

What’s important is that you identify the slips in time, so that it doesn’t ruin your chances of online success.

Let’s have a look at thirty-one potential website designing mistakes. And be ready to check out whether you blog or site has these errors. Fix them up before they start taking a toll on your business.

#1. The homepage looks cluttered (every visual element tries to attract attention).
#2. Text is not easily readable (absence of lists, subheads, short paragraphs).
#3. Navigation is inappropriate (users can’t find what they want).
#4. There are excessive advertisements (loss of trust, poor quality website).
#5. Search box is missing (it works when navigation is bad).
#6. Links open in a new window (browser already has that command).
#7. The about us page is lame (doesn’t tell who you are).
#8. Design contains too many flash-based elements (it creates technical issues).
#9. Web pages are too long (Visitors might skip them altogether).
#10. Site design is browser incompatible (visitors have technical limitations).
#11. The online form has too many fields (unnecessary questions annoy users).
#12. Contact information is missing (they won’t buy from you).
#13. Font style is not suitable (most common mistake in terms of readability).
#14. Links don’t tell where they lead (a major accessibility issue).
#15. Videos are auto-play (immediately irritates users).
#16. The URL structure is complex (bad both for people and search engines).
#17. White space is inadequate (visitors will feel uncomfortable).
#18. Meta Tags are not unique (bad for both people and search engines).
#19. Images are devoid of alt attributes (many people use text browsers).
#20. Graphics are multiple slices (each slice means an additional server call).
#21. Clicking links opens too many windows (extremely annoying, bad manners).
#22. Page titles are non-descriptive (bad both for people and search engines).
#23. Pages don’t have navigation (users won’t always hit the ‘back’ button).
#24. Website uses horizontal scrolling (visitors aren’t used to this).
#25. Links don’t change colors when visited (a major usability mistake).
#26. Visitors can’t find flagship content (they won’t search for it).
#27. Registration is required at every step (it’s a pain in the a**).
#28. The design is HTML table-based (CSS is quick and easy).
#29. Reaching a page takes multiple clicks (visitors are in a hurry).
#30. The privacy policy is missing (you won’t convert).
#31. Smartphone users can’t access the site (Lots of people use iPhone, Blackberry, Droid phone to surf the web).

Are you making these mistakes? You can immediately create a web design checklist with the help of the above mentioned tips. If you don’t want to drive customers away, you need to take action right now.

1. Your Affiliate Link in the Credits

Let’s start with some quick and easy monetization. Most premium WordPress themes such as Thesis, Squeeze, and others have their own affiliate program. So when you buy your theme, sign up for their affiliate program right away.

Since you are using the theme on your site, selling it should be a piece of cake as people who are in search of a new blog design will think, “Hey, I like so and so’s blog design.” Then they will proceed to your blog and look for the theme credits, usually found in the footer.

Depending on the theme, you may have to get into the template code or, for Thesis, find the specific hook and function statement. But find out how to change your credits link to use your affiliate link instead of the direct link to the theme, that way you can earn income straight from your blog’s design.

2. Change the “Read More” Text

A lot of premium themes out of the box will allow you to have homepage excerpts, or simply use the <!–more–> tag to show only a selection and give a link so people can get to the full post. The last thing you want is a bunch of links on your homepage that have read more, continue reading, or [...] as anchor text pointing to your full post. This is a great example of a place to use better keyword anchor text for internal linking.

Depending on your theme, the coding will be different – you will need to refer to your theme’s support forums or do some Google searches on how to change this. For example, in Thesis, after changing some theme options, you will also need the following coding in the custom_functions.php file:

Click here for a larger image.

Most themes will have either options or coding – make sure to find out what it will take to get this fixed on your theme for better internal linking and anchor text optimization.

3. The Header Image

For most premium themes, you have two options. Use your blog’s title as your header, or use a custom logo. If you’re just starting out, using the blog’s title is definitely preferable to using the theme’s default logo (sometimes their own). But it is always wise to eventually invest either your time and graphics skills or money into a custom made logo or header banner for your website.

These can go a long way in your website’s branding. Your header is also typically used if other sites list your blog in a top blogs list, and you will want your website’s brand to be very unique to stand out, like the ones above in a top 10 social media blogs post.

4. Your Feed Link

If you are using Feedburner or FeedBlitz, you will want to make sure that anywhere on your blog that shows your feed link points to that URL as opposed to the generic one created by WordPress. If the theme doesn’t have an option in their dashboard to change this, you will have to look around through the theme’s template files.

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Your RSS Feed" href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/rss" />

You will always want to look in your header.php file and find any reference to your RSS URL and change it to the custom service, as shown above, as this is what is automatically picked up by the RSS feed icon in the address bar of Firefox and other services that auto pull your feed.

5. Widgets

Chances are, your theme will come with some default widgets setup in the sidebar. For example:

• One particular one that always needs to be removed is the one that points to your admin controls. The public does not need to know your admin panel URL – period – for security reasons.
• Calendar based archives should also be changed to category based archives.
• Tag cloud widgets should be controlled by plugins (such as Configurable Tag Cloud) that will limit them to only the most popular tags and not all of them.

Other important widgets / information that you should consider including are:

• Mailing list opt-in form.
• Icons to follow your blog via RSS, email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Ad banners for sponsors for monetization.
• Search box.
• A short blurb about you and your blog.
• Blogroll.
• Important awards badges.

Usually, adding new widgets under the Appearance menu in your dashboard will make the default items in your sidebar disappear. If it does not, however, you will want to manually delete them in your sidebar.php, or check with your theme’s support to learn how to change them.

6. Contact Form

Oddly enough, only one premium theme I have ever purchased came with built in contact form support. Most of the time, you will need to download a plugin such as Fast and Secure Contact Form or any other that you choose, create a page, and include the plugin’s special coding on that page. Then be sure to include that page in your main navigation bar. This way, anytime someone needs to contact you, they will be able to easily from anywhere on the site.

7. SEO Optimization

Although themes like Thesis come with their own built in SEO optimization fields, many premium themes don’t, as they are mainly selling design and not necessarily functionality. Some important plugins to consider include:

• All in One or Platinum SEO Pack – these will allow you to enter custom titles and meta descriptions on your homepage as well as on all blog posts and pages if the theme does not provide these options.
• Google Sitemaps – this plugin will help you create and keep an automatically updated sitemap for your blog, as well as notify the search engines regularly of new updates.
• Arkayne – if you need more help with SEO, Arkayne has a low pricing structure and will help you better optimize your blog for search.

8. Social Sharing Options

Lastly, if your theme does not have any social sharing options, be sure to add some plugins or custom code to your theme to make sure your posts are as easy to share as possible.

Popular social networks such as StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit have their own badges and buttons that you can incorporate in your theme. Facebook has code for both their share and like buttons. You can use buttons from Tweetmeme, Topsy, and other external services to get retweet buttons.

Finally, if you want to have it all in one place, you can get plugins such as Sociable, Sexy Bookmarks, and many more as listed in 50 beautiful social bookmarking plugins for WordPress.

Your Premium Theme Customizations

What other customizations have you made to premium WordPress themes to enhance their design and functionality?

SEO

It is important that small business owners work on the SEO aspect of their website if they want to be successful. For instance they might want to ensure that their pages are optimized for their keywords and that they carry out some constant link building campaign. This will ensure that your site climb us the search engine ranking page and as such drive traffic to your site.

Update

Many small businesses make the mistake of just putting a website online and then forget about it. This is a big mistake and completely unproductive. You should make sure that your site is updated regularly with fresh content about your products and services to keep your customers informed. Additionally this should improve your site ranking as search engines bots crave for new content.

Navigation

The navigation aspect of your blog should also be clear and user-friendly. People hate to hunt for information on a site and will be tempted to leave in case they do not find what they are looking for easily. Make sure that the most popular pages on your site are easily accessible from your secondary navigation.

Site Speed

This is an aspect of websites that have become important following the Google Panda update. Indeed this is a factor that big G now uses in order to rank websites. At the same time this can also improve user experience on your site. A lot of people will just click the back button on their browser instead of waiting for the site to load completely.

Contact details

Do not forget to list your contact details on your blog. Indeed the purpose of a website is to inform your customers about the existence of your company and it will be stupid to miss this information. To make things easier for your visitors you might want to add a contact form where they will be able to contact you from your website rather than opening their email client.

By making these small changes to your website you should be able to improve the overall user experience and thus help make your website more helpful for your visitors.

So here are the carefully chosen 6 ways to make your website’s performance better:

1. Find the culprit by Firebug: Firebug is a great tool to inspect HTML, debug JavaScript and to analyze network usage & performance for a website. Profile your webpage with the help of Firebug to know about the components which needs to be optimized. Firebug is a free to use tool and you can integrate it with Firefox browser.

2. Save a few bytes by minifying JavaScript and CSS: Remove unwanted characters like tabs, spaces and source code comments to reduce file size of CSS and JavaScript. For Example:
A small part of CSS:
.more-class {
color: #ffffff;
line-height: 40px;
font-size: 10px;
}

Above code can be written as:
.more-class {color: #ffffff;line-height: 40px;font-size: 10px;}
And it will work as the previous one. You don’t need to be panic for manually minify JavaScript and CSS, because there are plenty of tools to do this.  Some popular tools for minify CSS and JavaScript are: CSS Optimizer, CSS Compressor, JSMIN, YUI Compressor and JavaScript Code Improver.

3. Avoid inline CSS and JavaScript: External JavaScript and CSS files are cached by visitor’s browser by default.  When user navigates your website’s inner pages his/her systems have already cached JavaScript and CSS files which help inner pages to load fast.  On the other hand if you use those CSS and JavaScript in your HTML document, you would not be able to take advantage of users caching. So always use CSS and JavaScript as separate files not inline.

4. Reduce HTTP requests by using CSS Sprites: You can combine smaller images into one big image and at the time of display adjust the CSS attribute (background-position) to display the correct image. In this way you can reduce the number of HTTP request for images.  This technique is known as CSS Sprite. You can do it manually or with the help of a web based tool called CSS Sprite Generator.
CSS Sprite technique is very effective in improving website’s performance especially in situation where many smaller images like menu icons are used. You would be surprised to know that Yahoo uses this technique for its home page.

5. Reduce image file size by saving in right format: Images can be real culprit for bad performance of a website if not used in right format. You can reduce image file size by just saving them in right format. Lighter images help a webpage to load fast. There are three common file format used in web designing: PNG, GIF and JPEG. You should use JPEG format for most images with smooth gradients and color tones. You should use GIF and PNG format for solid color images like charts and logos. In increasing order heavier formats are: JPEG, PNG and GIF. Now you are clear that GIF should be avoid wherever possible.

6. Reduce HTTP requests by combining JavaScript and CSS: When a webpage is requested by a web browser, an HTTP request is created for every component that is required to render that page. Let us assume that a webpage needed 5 CSS files to render the whole page and then 5 separate HTTP requests are needed.  By combining those 5 CSS files we can reduce HTTP requests to generate the webpage. These reduced requests will make your webpage performance better.

Although there are many other ways to reduce page load time, but above mentioned six are really good and practically proven methods to do the same. Hope these will help you to make your website perform better on web.