These tips are used by web design professionals to bring out the best in photos when adding them to a website. You will need a photo editing tool (such as Adobe Photoshop, Jasc PaintShop Pro, or, depending on your computer, you might have sufficient software already installed.)

• First, check the photo has accurate colour. If the camera did not have an appropriate white balance for the type of lighting, the colours will be off, and you will need to manually adjust the hue of each colour to correct the photo.
• Next, determine the composition of the photo, and what your subject matter is supposed to be. As you will be reducing the dimensions of the photo from its original, you might need to crop the image in order to retain focus on the subject or simplify the composition to suit the smaller size.
• If the camera did not over-saturate the photo (as many digital cameras do by default these days,) consider slightly saturing the image. On the screen, due to it being back-lit, photos appear to come to life with a little more saturation. (On paper, a neutral colour tone looks better.)
• Consider what you are trying to portray with the photo, and adjust the red/yellow tones to make the image warmer, if desired, or the green/blue tones to make the image cooler or fresher, if that is what the message is intended to be.
• When you resize a photo, it will be blurred slightly to compensate for the missing pixels. If the photo is small, you will obtain more definition by sharpening the photo slightly after you have resized it.

A “splash page”, also called an intro page, is a web page that displays some form of introduction or Flash animation that a visitor must click (or wait) in order to proceed to your actual website.

If you expect people to do business with you, don’t waste their time — and there exists not a more flagrant demonstration of pointlessness than demanding your visitors click a button before they can enter your website.

If you want proof, check the abandonment rate in your website statistics package of your beautiful splash page. If it is any number higher than 0%, you’ve needlessly lost potential customers.

You want your website to reach the widest audience, so be careful you are not alienating large segments by having a website that does not work properly in different computers, browsers and screen resolutions.

Endeavour to test your website on both Windows and Macintosh platforms, and install both Internet Explorer and Firefox on the Windows platform. Change your screen resolution and look at the website in 1024×768, 1280×1024 and 1400×800. You can go further, but this set of combinations will ensure you’re set for the vast majority of your visitors.

Many folks prefer to print out web pages to organise, read later, or, frankly, because it’s just more enjoyable to relax in a comfy chair with a glass of red and piece of real paper in your hand.

You can make your website print out more elegantly by having your web developer alter the layout of the website when printed. You can also do the same for mobile phones if you feel this type of visitor represents a relevant proportion of your target market.

This type of attention to detail can set your website apart from others.

If you’re about to design or redesign your website, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and consider what design choices would be appreciated by your potential customers.

Just because you love the thought of a cute animal walking across the bottom of your website… does not necessarily mean your customers will concur.