10 Ways to Save Time While Building a Website

For a website developer time is money, but they should not rush to complete a website because money is time. The more you work, the better will be your income, but the question is how to increase your productivity without hampering the quality of your work. Here, we are making an attempt to provide you some tips that will not only reduce the time you spend on developing an attractive website but also yield fruitful financial outcomes.

• Drop Down Menus - Adding a drop down menu in a website is a complicated task as it takes lot of time in typing a text. For designing a detailed menus in less time you can directly search the internet for various programs and websites that designs complex multi level drop down menus in a rather less time. This not only saves time but also gives you an idea about new styles of drop down menus.
• Firebug - Add-on offered by Fbrowser.irefox containing various improved functions, Firebug. This utility comes with an inspect element function that allows you to remind the names of particular CSS class or IDs. You can also test changes made in CSS/HTML
• Templating Engines - It's better to start working on a website with a standard base that already has preconfigured header and footer. A lot of time can be saved if you add links, meta data, robots.txt etc to your CSS file. A good templating engine can be easily searched on net for reference.
• MeasureIt - MeasureIt is another Firefox add-on that helps in measuring pixels on the screen, especially when you want to develop an image at a specific point. The task is as simple as dragging and clicking but make sure that the size of the web page, padding and margins are correct.
• Reusing your CSS - Create a base CSS document with margins, body tags; IE6/7 hacks etc. because the basic content remains the same for every website. Having some preconfigured CSS base documents as a sample saves time of rewriting the basic things while you design a website.
• Color Scheme Tools - A number of color scheme tools are available on the Internet, which can be used for creating a color scheme or picking colors for your website. Getting a HEX or RGB value for any color on the web page is just a click away with the help of color scheme tools.
• PHP Include - Use of PHP includes for header and footer will automatically show the changes while designing a site. The time saved by following this tip can be huge, but it largely depends on the size of the website you are designing.
• Make Optimum Use of Open Source - While working on a rather complicated form or function, it is always better to sample some pre-developed forms. Many web developers make their work available on internet as a sample, which can be referred for help. There are various secure PHP forms available on the internet that will help you in designing a secure contact form, supported with image attachments.
• Work on SEO from the Beginning - Working for SEO on your completed website is actually more tedious then doing it while designing. It is better to follow basic SEO strategy right from the beginning. Basic SEO guidelines or factors can be searched on internet as they didn't take much of your valuable time.
• Multiple Browser Testing - There are certain websites that allow you to see how your website will look on different browsers. What you need to do is to just find your preferred choice and paste the URL of your website and choose the browser on which you want to test your web page. You can also take a screen shot of your website on different web browsers and show them to your clients.

Even though, there is no alternative to good web designing skills but these tips can make your work easy and will also save a lot of time. If you want to prove your caliber and stand as a successful website developer follow these simple steps and make your life smooth as a professional web developer.