Running a website with actionable positive results takes serious work. At a first glance, the site must be responsive and well-designed to enhance overall user experience. According to Torque Magazine, a good web design is crucial because first impressions matter and the quality of a website can help built trust. The first impression needs to be positive to prevent high bounce rate effect and poor ranking on the search engines. It is also important to recognize that a good web design automatically enhances the usability and aesthetics of your website. The experience people get when they visit your website is greatly influenced by how they interact with the website. For this reason, you need to pay close attention to defining elements like search engine optimization and loading speeds.

The latter can negatively impact the bounce rate, especially if you have very large, poorly organized images and custom fonts that need to load before rendering. Instead of using large, uninterrupted blocks of text, choose different font sizes and colors. Also remember to add headlines, paragraphs and images where necessary. With regards to graphics, you can avoid inconsistent web design and clutter by subdividing your content, allowing some spacing and keeping the overall design simple. Common mistakes associated with content, navigation, performance and legal issues should also be avoided. When it comes to legal mistakes, Neil Patel, a renowned SEO blogger reveals that as many as 50% of Americans are unaware of what the privacy policy is about while another 20% often read about it, but don’t know its importance.

Privacy policy is a statement of intent designed to protect website visitors. Most website owners and administrators also make the mistake of excluding return policy or warranty information. The statement is important since it allows website visitors to know whether your business will take care of them in case the unexpected happens. A comprehensive return policy should cover items like claims, returned goods and cash. Research has shown that return policy can also help increase sales by making the visitors feel more at ease doing business with you. Whatever statement is written in the policy, it must be followed to the latter. During web design, there are certain legal issues that can land you in trouble with copyright and trademark regulating authorities as well as other website owners.

According to Graphics Artist Guide, you can invite an expensive litigation or cause personal embarrassment to yourself if you choose the wrong materials that infringes on the rights of others, use wrong domain name or link your site to pirated materials. When selecting a domain name, both second level and top level domain choose a name that is distinctive and non-infringing. Once you have selected a possible name, perform a quick search to establish if the name exists, or is registered and warehoused somewhere by a different party. You can also breach the law by choosing a domain name that is confusing or similar to a famous one. Once your site is registered, the attention quickly shifts to the materials you want to post or link to your website. During this stage you need to avoid the following:

• Using another person’s trademark on your meta-tags
• Posting protected images without prior consent of the copyright owner
• Adding links to infringing materials such as a hacker software that decrypts or copies information from a copy righted sources

Mark Alvarado; Graphics Designer and Marketing Expert
Businesses everywhere are revamping their sales and marketing campaigns in order to beat the competition, grow market share and improve the brand image. This has led to an increased in demand for professional graphic designers with marketing skills. Mark Alvarado is a graphic designer proficient in creating promotional and marketing and advertising campaign materials targeted at enhancing brand awareness. The University of California, LA alumnus and long time resident of Palo Alto, California developed an interest in graphic design at a tender age and followed his dream through school and into a successful career.

As a proponent of responsive and good quality web design, Mark knows potential customers often use the visual appeal as a yardstick to judge a business. Outside the West Coast, Mark owns a property in the small desert city of Marfa, Texas. The city is famous for its cultural festivals, music concerts and design exhibitions. Besides graphic design, Mark Alvarado is an outdoor’s sporting aficionado and a frequent traveler. He spends a lot of time doing archery at non competition level. Mark’s travel itinerary has already taken him to several countries in Europe, including Germany and Australia. He hopes to travel to Greece next.