Here are our top five tips for web designers who are just starting out:

Keep it Simple

It can be tempting to put something in just because you can, not because it's right. This tends to lead to animated gifs, flash banners, scrolling marquee tags, loads of different fonts and basically a horrible mess that is a confusing turn off for visitors. Try to avoid including anything that doesn't have a clear purpose, and keep the design clean and simple.

Check the website on a range of browsers

Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and  Chrome all interpret code is slightly different ways and it's worth checking your design on each of them to make sure nothing breaks. These days lots of people use mobiles to view websites as well, so check its not impossible on a smaller screen.

Focus on the visitor

Your starting point should be what the visitor wants, not what you want to tell them. This means being careful about using jargon or any terms or concepts they might not understand, and thinking about their objectives and how they might move around your site.

Make sure the structure and navigation is clear and consistent

The main navigation should be identical on every page, and ideally every page should be able to be reached from the main navigation. If there are a lot of pages, then use dropdowns. The exception is if you have large resource banks or ecommerce stores with hundreds of pages, but in this case consistency and clarity is even more important.

Don't have autoplaying music

This is one of the biggest turn-offs for visitors, who might be browsing at work, or at the very least might be playing their own music, which yours will conflict with.

For more advice about good and bad web design and SEO, check out our resource bank.

If you're looking to hire a web designer - click here.

There are probably lots of different ways to get from idea to finished website, but here is a brief guide to the process we follow when building a new website. Or see a nifty infographic of the web design process here.

In this article we're thinking about a small business website, of between four to ten pages. The process would be different for an ecommerce or database driven website.

Research

We would start by researching the business and industry. That would include talking to the business owner and relevant staff and looking into the competitors and target market. The depth of research would depend on the budget and therefore time available to be dedicated to the project.

Design

Once we've got all the ideas bubbling around in our heads, we'll start on the concept design. We wouldn't start coding that this stage - but we'd start to pin down colourschemes, layouts, where the call to action buttons will be and what sort of imagery will be used.

Build 

When the concept is perfect and reflects accurately the vision of the client, then we would start coding the site. This involves making a master page and the sub pages in a development area. Using modern html, css and .NET coding techniques and master pages make the website leaner, and it's much easier to make changes.

Content

Now we have a skeleton which is ready to have some flesh put on it - i.e. content. Unless they have requested content generation services, content is usually supplied by the client. Photos are either supplied by the client or we use stock photo banks.

Finalisation

The client is able to view the website in a development area with all the content in place, and they can log in to make changes and get the hang of how everything works. Once they agree that everything is perfect and they give us the nod, we will complete the finalisation of the site. This includes adding the meta-data and on page SEO and checking all domain names, email addresses and related configuration is set up.

Launch

Usually the most exciting part for the client! The website takes its first steps in the real world. It's a busy time for us and we go through our launch procedure, including submission to search engines, hooking up to Google analytics, testing emails and web forms and much more.

Maintenance

When the website goes live we monitor it regularly, and make tweaks where we think it will improve the performance. We will also carry out basic SEO work as standard, including submission to directories.

If you want to find out more about Sentiva web design Leeds, click here.

We've got vampire teeth coming through the post, a skeleton trophy for best costume and bat wings for the dog - are you ready for halloween?

Take a break from carving pumpkins to think about getting a website for your business.

Whether you're taking your first steps onto the Internet or if you have an old website which is in need of refreshing and upgrading, now is a great time to get a new website - especially if you are a business owner in Leeds, because we're offering 20% off all website packages until the 31st of October.

Visit our website to find out more about our web design services, more about our team and see exmaples of the wesbites we've made in the past.