| |
| |
|
Web Design Information |
|
|
|
How to Make Effective Use of Web Fonts
Writing for your web site is not the same as offline writing. The fonts used for print media are different than web fonts. This is because it's harder to read text on a computer screen and visitors tend to scan your web pages rather than read them word for word. When deciding on what web font to use, take into consideration the character of your site and whether the web font type is widely available (accomodates different screens and operating systems). If you use the wrong web font, your web pages will may appear unprofessional and you may lose visitors to your competition. So how do you decide on what web site font to use? 1. Analyze the character of your web site - for most web sites you would use a large or fancy font for your header to capture your visitors attention and a smaller web font for body text. When using a fancy font make sure it is available on most computers otherwise your visitors won't be able to read it. (To get around this, read my article "Improve your web site design with a fancy font" http://www.isitebuild.com/fancyfont.htm). 2. Search engine compatibility - fonts used within images can be seen on all computers, however it can't be read by the search engines. They can only "read" text. When designing images always use the "alt" tag to convey what your image is about. Try to include appropriate keywords in your web site copy. This will help the search engines index your site. 3. Use a web safe font - there are 2 types of fonts that are widely used: Serif Fonts - these are most widely used for PRINT media ie Times Roman, Georgia, but are not good for the Web, because they are difficult to read on the screen. Serif fonts are those that have fine cross-lines at the extremities of the letter. Sans Serif Fonts - these are fonts that don't have serifs. They are the best fonts to use for the WEB (ie Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet) but are not appropriate for print media. Here's a great readability study that was done when comparing serif and sans serif fonts: http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt6/html-email-fonts.htm 4. Use the correct font size - alternative font sizes add flavor and character to your web site. If you want your text to be viewed correctly for both PC and MAC users, then it's better to use pixels rather then points. Points may look all right on a PC but will appear smaller on a MAC (although these days there are only a small percentage of folks that use MACs). Use a large font size (ie Arial H1) for your main header text, smaller font sizes (Arial H2, H3) for your subheadings and a point or pixel size of 10 or 12 for your body text. Generally I use Verdana 10pt for body text and Arial text for headings. 5. Utilize Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) - these enable you to easily create a consistent font style across your entire web site. If you want to change the font on all your web pages, you just need to change one style sheet. CSS allows you to easily use comma-separated list of fonts (ie Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif). The browser will use the first one it comes to in the list that is installed. If none of the type faces in the list are available, it reverts to the default. Writing correct web copy using fonts that are easy to read and readily available, not only adds character to your web pages, but shows you care about the experience of your visitors. Resources Web font readability study. Hundreds of free fonts Herman Drost is the author of the NEW ebook "101 Highly Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site" http://www.isitebuild.com/web-site-promotion Subscribe to his "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original articles at: subscribe@isitebuild.com. You can read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles
MORE RESOURCES:
Web-Design - Google News |
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Developing Your Winning Web Site Strategy Your web site is the key to your success on the Internet. You can use your web site to build your brand, increase sales, generate more leads, slash costs, and much more. Hexadecimal Color Notation on the Web When designing elements for your webpage, you will often be called upon to specify a color. For example, the code for a span shown below specifies that the color of the text within the span will be yellow. Other Ways to Look at Things Many people today are tired of the Microsoft software that came pre-packaged with their operating system. Some have switched over to Apple's Macintosh line, but for the most part we just put up with what we have. Speed Up Or Lose Out! How To Improve Your Websites Download Speed So your web site's online and you've got high rankings in the search engines attracting lots of visitors. But the statistics tell you most of them are leaving after viewing just one page, what's gone wrong?One possible cause could be a slow download speed of your web site's homepage or the web site as a whole. Bad Design Characteristics For A Website Making a poorly designed website is one of the easiest things you can do as a webmaster! You barely need to try! If you want to run a successful high traffic website there are many different elements of design that you need to implement, and ones you need to avoid.This article will describe some of the major design flaws in many new websites. Website Sales: Discover 10 Mesmerizing Insider's Tricks To Ignite Your Sales Marketing is not an easy skill to acquire.It requires patience and a lot of efforts in conducting many tests and improvement to get it right. 7 Benefits of HTML Validation You may not bother with html validation or writing simple and clean code when designing your web site. Later you may find your site is slow loading, appears incorrectly in the main browsers and does not rank well for the major search engines. Bad Web Design: ActiveX ActiveX uses an interesting method for enforcing security .. Web-Safe Fonts for Your Site Choosing the right typeface for your website copy is important, since it will affect the way your readers perceive your page (serious and formal, or friendly and casual). Aside from this, there are also important usability concerns. Orient Your First-time Web Site Visitor Imagine spinning someone around so profoundly and for so long that when you finally tell them to open their eyes, they ask "Where am I?" not knowing if they are even on the same continent they started from. When someone comes to your web site from a search engine or through a link from another site, it's like that for them. Creating a Basic Web Design Template A "template" is simply a design format which you can apply to all (or most) of the pages in your web site. The first advantage of using a "template" system is that it allows you to make your most important design decisions at the beginning, and then just focus on content. The Testimonial Trick One of the most popular methods of traffic generation is the link exchange. Not only can they generate fairly targeted traffic from other related web sites, the number of quality links to your site is also a major factor determining your web site's ranking in major search engines like Google. Optimized Web Page Template I want to give you a free web page template that will be search engine friendly. Why?Well, I assume you want your web page to come up as high as possible in search engines because that generates free traffic. Web Page Building for Beginners 2 A search engine robot actually reads the wording on your web pages and places a certain amount of importance on what the content says, but not quite like a human does. A human will place the words together in their head and try to decipher the relevancy to them personally and decide within a few seconds whether they will continue reading or click to another site, whereas a robot counts words and places all relevancy in the numbers it finds. Website Maintenance: What Does it Take to Manage Your Website? Every action has a beginning phase where you launch your activity, a middle period in which you must sustain and develop it and a conclusion. Many people set up a website enthusiastically but then they find that they don't have the skills or knowledge to maintain and develop it. Great E-Cover Creation in 5 Steps There are several graphic software packages available to help you create your own e-covers for your product or service. Most provide you with a set of templates to choose from, and have varying degrees to allow you to modify the templates provided. 5 Powerful Ways To Get Zero Sales From Your Website I want you to imagine a lemon. In your mind's eye, see its yellow skin. You Too Can Have an Amazing Website It is a well-known fact that a successful business depends greatly on how it is marketed. With an ever increasing dependence on the web, the use of a professional website is not only a necessity, but a priority. How To Improve The Professional Look And Feel Of Your Website Projecting a professional image is paramount to your website's success. It can make or break your online business. Website Design - Choosing Your Colors Wisely Colors convey emotions and emotions heavily influence the decision-making process. Your choice of colors for your website should mirror the message and feeling you to hope to communicate to the viewer.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2007 |
