Web Graphics
Web graphics are an important part of your site but it shouldn’t be an overriding concern above your content. Yes, it needs to look pleasing to the eye or no one will want to come back to your website. But, search engines don’t really care what your site looks like as long as it’s search engine friendly.
By that I mean it needs to be easy for search engine spiders to crawl your page and index it. There are some graphics that will stop a spider in it’s tracks. You might have the prettiest website in all creation but if the search engines can't crawl it, you won't get indexed, your page rank won't get any higher and you won't have a profitable online business.
Even though web site graphics are not my strong suit, there is software on the market that can do the heavy lifting for you. Adobe Fireworks can create excellent graphics specifically for the web and it can easily be exported to Dreamweaver if that's what you're using.
So even if you aren't a graphics queen or king, here are a few pointers for the graphics beginner.
Keeping It Simple on Your Website
Simple graphics often result in the most professional looking website. Search engines like it and so do the visitors. After all, you want them to read your content and click through to your income-producing ventures, right? If they are dazzled by your graphics, they’ll forget what they came for and just stare at the computer screen all day.
Stay away from flashy graphics and animations. You can always add these to your site later, if it adds to the visitor’s experience. But to have "in your face" graphics front and center on your home page has the potential to frighten people away unless it’s really, really good stuff.
Stay away from too much text color. Again, it can be hard to read and distracting if you have yellow and red type on a blue background. Your visitor’s eyes will begin to hurt and they will be gone…in a flash! A little text color on a page that is mostly black and white will be much more compelling.
Hire an expert if you can afford it. This will save you lots of headaches in the long run and lets you focus on the task at hand which is to write high quality content that will bring visitors to your site.
Photos. If you use Microsoft Office, you can find a wide variety of free stock photos for your use. You can also join a stock photo service that will charge you a small fee for the use of their photos or you can just buy what you need at a per unit price, usually a dollar a photo.