New web designers need to know web design basics in order to create handsome, functional websites. This article is among the many resources available to new designers, providing a great starting point. These valuable hints and tips can help any web designer build a better website. Always mark files that must be opened in an external program with an icon. Many sites host PDF files, and less commonly, DOC files, that must be opened in Foxit Reader and Microsoft Word/OpenOffice, respectively. These files should be marked with an icon representing the file type, and a link to download the appropriate viewer if the user does not have it. To help your web pages load quickly, you should compress all the images on the website page. If you have images that are compressed then pages will load much faster. Nothing is more frustrating to viewers than waiting for a 250k graphic to load when it should really only be 20k. Make your links obvious. Customers do not like spending time wading through your site searching for something they are interested in. Having a site map, as well as providing big, prominent links will help your viewer find what they are looking for without wasting time in a hunt. Lead them to your information. A newsletter can help you to get more repeat visitors to you website. Giving your customers a reminder that you’re still online and have some great deals or new content that will bring them back to your site for more. Put the form in a convenient sidebar, and track the users who subscribe. Send your newsletter only to those who have signed up; doing otherwise is considered spam. To help your visitors be able to easily read your site, you should design it using contrasting colors. If you use colors that contrast, it makes the text stand out. If you have black text with a black background you will not be able to see the information, but if you have black text with a white background it becomes simple to read. Choose your web host carefully. Some hosts require you to link to them, while others may force you to install their pop-ups. You should also test their performance using one of the many tools available for free online, as you do not want to host with someone who is consistently slow or crashing. The best web sites communicate a lot of information in a small amount of words. If you are long-winded, people will easily get bored and find another site that is more concise. Make sure any content is relevant and easy to understand – newspapers use an eighth grade reading level, which is the most common literacy level. In conclusion, it is important to become educated on the basics of web design in order to make a functional website. With so much information available, it’s hard to understand how to get started. The article listed above is a great start to the basics of proper web design.