Web Development Tips

Consider The Following Web Development Tips

We have put together some web development tips to help any company with their websites.  This can be for any WordPress website.

Some useful tips for web developers that are looking help help and additional support in their development rolls:

1. Use New Up To Date Reset Style Sheets
   Different browsers are free to set default styles for font sizes, margins, and so on. Rather than trying to eliminate these differences on a case-by-case basis, many developers make use of a reset CSS stylesheets to set all the margins to zero, remove all borders, standardize all font sizes, and so forth.
2. Go Open Source
   Most experts do advise to put in some time on open source projects. This will help you by challanging your skills, educating you and helping develop your portfolio of work. This also allows you to meet other developers and learn from them, soaking in any of their advanced skills and grow your skill base.
   Go to places where other web developers hang out. There are a few places that developers post code and help each other (Gist, Forrst, Codesnip.it) where you can get help and advice, and also showcase work.
3. Networking – Always Good
   We are not talking breakfast meetings, but there are online forums that are good to go to as developers. These are also good places to meet other developers that can help and support you. Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter are also good places to see and be seen.
4. Show Off Your Coding
   Why not send your coding into the wild?
   GitHub is a good place to do this, also SourceForge is a useful alternative to showcase your coding.
5. Browser Development Plug-Ins
   There are a number of develpment plug-in’s for your web browsers that can help to view the ‘unviewable’ parts of your website (such as backgrounds, margins, padding etc.).
   IE’s Development Tool – this is a plugin for internet explorer, quite a basic plugin that you would think was put together by a student after a night out, but there is not other alternative really.
   Firebug – a plug-in for firefox which is invaluable.
   Yslow (Yahoo) – this is a Firebug plugin and helps show why pages are slow.
6. Learn Javascript
   Most web applications now use Javascript, and it is becoming more important as new products are launched onto the development market.
7. Learn Photoshop
   Photoshop may be expensive, but it is still a valuable paint application.
8. Avoid Hectic Colour Schemes
   The colour of your pages speaks to the subconscious.
   Google chose white, and for a good reason.  Strong colours appeal to certain characters, but weak colours to others.
   Certain colours promote certain products and services.
9. Be Wise With The Images You Choose
   A picture speaks a thousand words as we all know.
   There are lots of sources on the internet for pictures, be wise in choosing good quality images or photos you can take yourself.
   Think about coping and editing images to suit your web page; making the images as relevant to what each web page is promoting.
10. Consider Search Engine Optimisation
    An essential part of every website is SEO and being high up on the search engines.  Being found on the internet with billions of websites needs to be at the core of every web developer.
    Using header tags correctly such as <h1>, <h2>, and <h3>.  How the part that identifies a page (also known as a slug) is correctly set up.
    How to optimise images so that the load speed of the page is and decrease the bounce rate.
11. Use Responsive Design
    Mobile use of the internet is now the norm; search engines now rank websites based on the mobile platform over desktop.
    There are many mobile devices on the market all with different screen sizes.  As new software updates for each devices are released your website will need to be tweaked to appear correctly on each device.
    Following the tenets of responsive design means your website will be user-friendly and offer an optimised experience across desktop and mobile devices.
12. Keep Typography Consistent
    As with reading a book, the style and consistency of order should follow throughout.  Making sure text is the same size, spacing is even and the style of each web page is the same throughout.
13. Consider Ethnic Diversity
    We live in a multi cultural country and Britain has people from all over the world, different genders and ages.
    As we have seen on TV since the 1980’s, having images of people from different walks of life is part of our society is translated onto our websites.
14. Consider User Experience (UX)
    As well as producing web pages with SEO in mind, having a website designed and developed to the user experience is important.
15. Ask For Feedback
    It is always good to get praise on a job well done, but constructive criticism is always helpful for any web designer or developer.
    Can content be written better?  Can usability be improved?  Are any page elements missing?
16. Be Inspired And Keep Learning
    Technology marches on as quickly as we have seen since the internet first became the go to over Yellow Pages and Encyclopaedia Britannica.
    Keep learning new web development skills and be inspired by mentors and those that are around you.
    Stay up to date with the latest trends, technology moves quickly and web development is constantly evolving.

Choosing a marketing company is always going to be a challenge, as there are so many web developers in the UK to choose from.