Web Design FAQs
What Is Responsive Web Design?
Responsive design is a way in which a website can be created so that it can be viewed and looks good on all types of devices such as laptops, tablets and phones. There are a number of ways in which this can be done, at Pinnacle we use the Bootstrap framework which gives us a responsive website to an extent. We then use further media queries which allows us to make some design changes based on the width of the device which is being used.
There are multiple advantages of having a responsive website, with the main one being that your website’s user should have a good experience no matter how they are viewing the website. It also has some SEO benefits (especially compared to a separate mobile site) which can give you a slight boost on search results pages.
How Much Does Web Design Cost?
The cost of web design can vary based upon a number of factors. The main factor to consider will be the functionality of the website, if you require more features (some of which may be unique) you will expect to pay more. You should also consider the quality of the website you are expecting.
At Pinnacle we can work with a range of budgets. We offer an initial consultation to understand your requirements and advise on what functionality you require. We then work with in order to prioritise these based on your budget, whilst keeping any future adjustments in mind. This is especially useful for businesses who are trying to scale but might not have the correct budget at the moment.
What Is A Wireframe In Web Design?
A wireframe is a simple layout design which takes into consideration the user experience and requirements of a web page. This allows for quick changes in the page layout in order to try and make changes to a web page before it’s taken to the next stage. These are usually completed as it’s quicker and easier to make changes to the layout at this stage.
What Does SEO Mean In Web Design?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a marketing method which can be used in order to increase rankings on search engines. There are many aspects of this SEO, however when referred to by a web design agency they actually mean making sure the website is search engine friendly. This means that they make sure that the website can be viewed, understood and indexed by search engines such as Google. The issue with this is that the different pages often don’t take into consideration what people are searching for.
At Pinnacle we go one step further than this as we aim to create a website which can actually be found by people. We do this by looking at how your website can be marketed and what people are searching for before the website is actually built.
How Does Browser Caching Affect Web Design?
Browser caching is a method which is used in order to improve the speed of websites loading. It does this by recognising elements which are likely to stay the same and saving them in the browsers cache instead of loading them every time. The downside to this is that if one of those elements changes it might not be viewable if you’ve already been on the website. This is why you may sometimes hear web developers telling you to press Ctrl + F5 in order to clear your browsers cache.
What Is UX In Web Design?
User Experience (UX) is very important to consider when designing a website. It looks at how users will actually use and interact with your website. After all it doesn’t matter how good your website looks if people don’t take the action required of them.
What Does CSS Stand For In Web Design?
CSS is a file type which is used in order to change the design of a website. It stands for Cascading Style Sheet. It works by telling the browser how different elements of a website should look, where that’s font size, colour or other more complex design changes.
Where Can I Learn Web Design?
There are many different ways in which you can learn web design, often the easiest way to get started is just by creating your own website on a local host. If you’re looking for a more structured course you may want to look at online courses such as Codecademy which can take you through the basics.
What Does FTP Stand For?
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, it is a way in which you can access files on your website’s server in order to update them. If you’re working on a live website we recommend looking at staging environments, uploading files without testing them on a server via FTP can cause a website to break.
What Does CMS Stand For?
CMS stands for Content Management System. It’s essentially a platform which enables content (such as text and images) to be changed on a website with no technical knowledge. WordPress is one of the most popular Content Management Systems. At Pinnacle we also use Umbraco where a more robust system is required.
What Is A Sitemap?
A sitemap may refer to a number of different things, but it’s usually a list of pages which will be on a website. When designing a website the designer may create a sitemap in order to gain further understanding of the requirements of the website and to understand the hierarchy of different pages.
There are also HTML and XML sitemaps which are a list of pages. A HTML sitemap may be used to help people navigate a website (although search functionality would be more useful), whereas an XML sitemap is used in order to help Search Engines find all the different pages on your website.
What Are Breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs are usually found towards the top of the page and show how you navigated to the current page. This can help users navigate the website, an example of this would be if someone was looking at a product page and wanted to go back to the category page for that product. The term comes from the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel where they left breadcrumbs as trial so that they could follow them back home.
What Is A Domain Name?
The domain name is the part of the url which is specific to your website. Our domain name is pinnacledigital.co.uk. When you type in a domain name your internet service provider looks up the DNS (Domain Name System) record in order to know what server to load resources from.