Please read the introduction before reading part 1 - 6.
So here we are at Part 2 - Take good care of your visitors.
Your visitors are very important. They determine your popularity, your motivation to continue, anything. There are quite a few things to keep in mind about visitors so I've decided to divide this into a few sub-categories.
1) First impression.
One of the few things that determine your visitors' first impression is your layout. The layout consists of quite a lot of things to consider- the colors (e.g. is it too bright or too dark for the visitor's tastes?), the size (it ain't a very bright idea to make the layout header (main image) to stretch the screen, it also isn't a good idea to make the layout height be as long as the screen height or even more, and there might be visitors who use smaller screen resolutions as you do so please make your header at least smaller than 800x600), and much more.
Other than that, you may consider the loading time. If it takes more than 30 seconds for your site to fully load then I guess you're out of luck. There are a few minor details that might slow down the loading time, such as the images' sizes (I'm talking about bites/mb/kb/gb and not about the width and height), etc.
2) Make them stay.
There are many things that can attract your visitors. Most of them will look around to actually take a look at your content. So make their stay comfortable while it lasts. Make sure you have an introduction, and make it warm and welcoming. Don't throw off things like "yo! hi we have gud content plz stay". Give them a nice welcome, introduce yourself and you can get into showing what you have at your site. Other than that, it all depends on your site's quality/quantity/look&feel and much more that I have talked about or will look into further in this series of web design tips&tricks.
3) Make them come back.
What makes your visitors come back? Updates! Either that or they haven't look everywhere in your site already or they're just coming back because they remember about a certain thing they need to check/download/etc. But updates man! Most of the time, it's THE factor that keeps your visitors coming back. They come back for
more. Keep them updated with new things you make from time to time. If you want to maintain a good website, you gotta do the job and start designing.
Keep these things in mind, and you're ready for
Part 3 - Be aware of your popularity!
