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Why you should know the web design basics?

Are you planning to launch a website for your business? Or, are you an aspiring website designer? Do you want to become an SEO expert? Then the starting point is that you should understand the web design basics. The depth of understanding required will vary from case to case in the above three instances. However, without having this basic understanding, you cannot go too far. It is therefore imperative that you take a dive into web design basics and one important area that we are going to focus here is PSD conversions. By saying that you should know the basics, we do not expect you to learn these concepts and design the websites yourself. The purpose here is that by learning the basics you get to make well-informed web design choices.

What is PSD conversion and why is it needed?
When you set out to learn the basics of web designing and web design process, a vital area that deserves your attention will be PSD conversion. Depending on your requirement, it could PSD to XHTML, PSD to HTML, PSD to WordPress, PSD to Joomla or other formats. Website designers make use of PhotoShop, a design software widely to create the basic design and the layout of the website. PhotoShop is used because it is a very friendly graphic design tool and it is packed with amazing design features, which help the designer to bring to life even the most design concepts. The output file format will be PSD. If required, you can get the output in the common image formats such as JPG, TIFF or PNG. These formats cannot be used directly in the websites for the simple reason search engines today are still limited that they cannot read the contents of the image. To make the web pages more meaningful to the search engines we are required to convert this PSD or image files to HTML coded files. PSD conversion is done not only for search engine friendliness but also to make the website user friendly.

PSD conversions where to get started?
In the normal circumstances, it is very unlikely that you look for a PSD conversion services yourself as a website owner. In most cases, the web design company will take care of it, they will either do the conversions in-house or get it done from a third party service providers. However, if you happened to have your design in PSD format or image format and want to get it coded then where do you get started?Finding the best PSD to XHTML or PSD to HTML conversion services is the starting point. This however may sound easy but it is not going to be all that easy. You cannot entrust your PSD conversion needs to any random service provider. You will need to work with an experienced and reputed company that is capable of delivering pixel perfect PSD conversions. What are the factors that will help you decide here?

PSD Slicing – Key Considerations
Manual coding – There are software tools to convert PSD files to the required formats such as HTML or XHTML. However, the industry’s best practices are that it has to be handled manually. Software aided coding will not give the perfect output that we want. In other words, we cannot expect pixel perfect output. Moreover, other functionality oriented constraints toomay be faced with software based or automated conversions. When you are looking for a PSD conversions company, one of the selection criteria that you should be using is manual coding.
Search engine friendly markup – Another key factor to be taken into account is whether the markup is search engine friendly. Today, it is not enough that your web pages are beautiful, more than that, the web pages have to be very search engine friendly. If at all you are going to reap any benefits out of your website, it will be achieved only when visitors come to your website. Your website will be able to attract targeted visitors only when it is listed on top of the search results.
Cross-browser compatibility – This is one big concern today because we have way too many browsers through which people try to access the web. Previously most of the traffic came through Internet Explorer and things were lot simpler. Today that is not the case, there are diverse browser types and no single browser is monopolizing the industry like before. If the PSD to XHTML or HTML conversions that you are doing are not compatible with all the latest and the most popular browser types then you will be losing a lot of visitors. It is therefore one of the key considerations when you are trying to get your PSD files coded to HTML or XHTML. If you are hiring a PSD to HTML conversions company, make certain that they guarantee you cross browser compatible PSD markup services. Before you accept the coded files, you need to run your own tests with different browsers. This is not an area that you could be taking light. If you do not test the website in all the leading browsers, then your visitors will have problems in accessing your web pages and you will be losing traffic. Attracting traffic to websites in itself a very challenging part and losing them just because your pages are not compatible with the latest browser types will be a grave mistake.

Page loading speed – How fast the codes that you have generated for your HTML page or WordPress page helping the pages load fast? Page loading speed is a major, modern day search engine ranking criteria. The faster the pages load the better the user experience. Search engines like Google consider page score as an important ranking factor. You cannot therefore put your website in a disadvantaged position. Unless you are dealing with an experienced PSD to HTML markup company, you will not be able to get a markup that pays attention to all these factors. You just need to be very cautious in picking your PSD to HTML markup company.
Responsive pages – Day by day, designing a website becomes increasingly complex. It is not enough that the website is just visually appealing but your website users should be able to access your website from any device of their choice. Gone were the days whereby the internet users accessed the internet from their desktop computers. Today, with the mobile, high-speed internet technology, people access the web from wide range of devices not limiting to just desktops and laptops. You’re your markup should be able to display correctly in gadgets of all display sizes such as smartphones, tablet pcs, desktops and laptops without any problem. Smart watches are also becoming increasingly popular. It is high time that the markups also paid attention to smart watches when trying to make the pages responsive.

Guarding your privacy when using PSD To XHTML conversion services

As a business owner, you need to be on your guards all the time to protect your intellectual property. When you are sending out your PSD designs of the final web pages to a third party PSD conversions company, the chances are that your business model could leak out and before you launch your product or service, your competitors could try to steal the show. Intellectual property rights is a very complex area. Getting an NDA signed with your service providers is the bear minimum that you could do to protect yourself. Before you sign up with any service provider for your PSD to XHTML or PSD to HTML conversion services, make certain that your NDA is signed and that your service provider gives you written assurance to comply with the NDA.
It becomes an even more important factor, if you are a web design company and if you are using a third party PSD to XHTML conversion services to handle the PSD conversion needs of your customers. When your XHTML markup company fails to comply with the NDA then it will affect your brand’s reputation very badly. Do not take any chances!

Why reputation of the PSD conversion service provider play a key role?

When you are selecting your PSD conversions company, you are likely to compare number of service providers. You are also likely to get quotes from multiple service providers. The normal tendency is to settle with a company that offers the best prices. However, you might want to look at the entire process in a little different light. When you are selecting your PSD to HTML conversions company instead of using just the price as the criterion for the selection process, you need to pay attention to the reputation of the service provider as well into account.
Reputation accounts for number of other qualities of the service provider. For example, if the service provider does not honor the NDA then it will have an immediate impact on the reputation of the service provider. If your service provider should have questionable reputation in terms of NDA compliance then it may not be the best idea to work with such a service provider.
Similarly, reputation of the service providers have a lot to convey about the quality of the services, timely delivery of the work and so on. If the customers are not satisfied with the overall quality of the services then they are sure to air their views online. Even if not all customers do that, at least a few customers will go online with their ranting and raving. When you do come across such negative feedback or reviews then it is important that you do not ignore such feedback.

Taking control of the quality of your web design

Quality of your website decides many things especially when you are trying to survive in a highly competitive industry. Shabby PSD marking service could ruin your business. It is not enough that you have a brilliant design for your website in the PSD formation or in image format. It has to be accurately transferred to HTML, XHTML or other appropriate formats. You need to pay attention to details when it comes to ensuring quality. Every pixel counts here and that is why it becomes crucial that you work only with top-notch PSD conversions company. If your service provider could not assure you exceptional PSD conversion services then you might as well use a stripping software to automatically strip the design. If you are investing your money on hiring a PSD to HTML conversions service provider, then there should be no compromise on the quality.

How about the PSD conversion charges?
Hiring a PSD conversions company is of course going to cost you money. Every company that you come across in the industry will have a different price as their quote. How do you decide which one is offering the best services at reasonable prices? Yes, it is going to be a tough job trying to find the right match here. To start with, screen for the best service providers online, get quotes from at least three top service providers. Review the reputation of the service provider. Get a clear picture on the deliverables that are promised by your service provider.

Customer service

When you deal with certain service providers on the web, you will get frustrated with the entire process because the service provider does not care about customer satisfaction. Whether you have just one time requirement or ongoing requirement, you will need to work with companies that give importance to customer satisfaction. Does your PSD slicing company assign a dedicated account manager with whom you could interact throughout the process? When you have a single point of contact with your PSD markup company, the entire process will flow lot smoother. Companies that are highly professional in their approach will certainly have a project manager assigned to every customer. If you do not want to face troubles when you are getting your PSD files converted to HTML, XHTML or other required format, you need to pay attention to all these factors and that is why it is part of our discussion on this general overview article on PSD conversion services.

How can web design companies benefit from PSD conversion services?

If you want to run a profitable web design company, you need to churn out as many websites as possible every month. You need to have a large team of web designers to support your operations. One of the most challenging parts of the web design process as you would already know in the conversion of the design from the PSD format to the other search engine friendly formats such as HTML, XHTML, WordPress, etc. PSD slicing is not only the most complex part, but it is also one of the most time consuming parts. Therefore, if that is going to be the case then the number of websites that you launch will drop drastically.

This is where outsourcing PSD slicing services will prove to be a prudent approach. Firstly, with this approach, you will save a lot of money. You need not have to retain expensive programmers for the coding job. You also need not have to provide the infrastructure required for that team. This will significantly reduce your overhead costs. However, the conversion job has to be done any way, and you could do that by sending your PSD conversion tasks to a third party service provider that focuses only on the markup jobs. When compared to having an in-house team sending out your PSD conversion jobs will cost you lot lesser. Moreover, if you could establish long-term association with a reputed service provider, you could get the job done at a very affordable price. This does not only ensure cost savings but it will also increase your profit levels as you will be able to design more websites than before.

More to that, when you get the PSD markup done by the specialists who make their living on this profession, the overall quality of your web designs will be enhanced greatly. This will of course make your customers happy and they will return to you with more business and promote your services through word of mouth advertising. As you could see as a web design company, the benefits of outsourcing your PSD conversion services are many. Try to make the best out of this option.

To conclude…
PSD to HTML or XHTML conversions ultimately decide the quality of your website. Let us say, you have a brilliant design in the PSD format but if that is not coded accurately to the web format then your brilliant design and the investment that you have made on creating that design will only go wasted. We cannot emphasize here the importance of ensuring high quality PSD slicing jobs in creating stunning websites. Look for service providers that take pride in their work so that you will be assured of the best PSD to HTML coding services.