The difference between a good web designer and a great one is the ability to know how to take short cuts and save time without compromising the quality of work. Pixelsurgeon’s Jason Arber has put together 20 top tips and tricks you should be using to give your work that all-important professional edge.

Here are some design guidelines and tips to help you build a user friendly websites..

Have you heard it? There's a buzz like never before on the Internet. Everyone is talking about Web 2.0. If you're like many people, you may think it's a marketing gimmick and quite an overused statement. If so, you would be at least partially right.

Fortunately, there's another side to the story. Underneath all of the chatter is a concept that is even more powerful than the hype that surrounds it.

The concept of Web 2.0 started as a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. During their discussion, they analyzed the companies that had survived the dot-com collapse. Interestingly enough, many of these companies had quite a few things in common. Was there a connection? Was the dot-com crash a turning point for the web? O'Reilly and MediaLive believed so. And therefore, Web 2.0 was born..

For the last 10 years the question of whether to use fixed or liquid layouts when designing a website has raged on in the web design world, with major design players on both sides of the proverbial fence. Recently though, as screen resolutions have increased dramatically, fixed layouts have all but replaces liquid, but there are still come major advantages to a liquid layout if designed properly..

A favicon (pronounced fav-eye-con) - short for 'Favorites Icon' - is a multi-resolution image included on nearly all professionally developed sites. Within Internet Explorer the favicon is displayed on the address line and in the favorites menu. Tabbed browsers like Firefox and Opera extend the functionality of favicons. Firefox can even display animated favicons. Each web browser has a unique user interface, and as a result uses the favicon in different ways. The favicon allows a company to further promote a site by displaying a logo, a mascot, etc. Often, the favicon reflects the look and feel of the web site or the organization's logo.

Professional web design has become vital during recent years. A few years ago, it was estimated that a visitor to a web site took about 8 seconds to decide to stay on that web site or click the "Back" button. That was then, this is now: Your web site has only about 4 seconds to make an impression on the visitor. That is not much time at all! Today, people want instant results. Few people even wait to see the entire web design before making their decision. If your web design does not grab their attention immediately, they won't stick around. And if your web site does not offer something of benefit, they won't bookmark it and they won't come back...

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year, your Web site is presenting your company’s image and message to prospective clients all over the world. With this phenomenal reach, you want to make sure your best image and best message is coming across.

Perhaps your Web site is not generating the interest you’d like it to and you’d like to find out why...

Color is often overlooked in the business of optimizing websites for better returns on investments. Website sales can be greatly affected by simply changing its colors. Ever come across a website that uses some funky combination of print and background colors? If you ever want to experience an eye-twisting headache, try reading yellow print on a blue background. The reason you see black type on a white background so much is that it is the best color combination for reading, both on and offline.

And since it is even harder to read text on a monitor than it is on paper, we must all be especially careful with the colors we choose for our websites, or suffer less-than-optimal site traffic and repeat visitors...

Crucial to the ethos of the web is providing information in a way which is easy to read. It sounds simple, but there are many design considerations which factor into this, one of the most obvious being: "Which font do I choose?"