There comes a time in every webmaster’s life where he or she realizes that the site they designed is now either out of date or lacking in aesthetics and functionality. It’s a careful balancing act to make sure that the site in question is fully featured without crossing the line and making it seem like a cluttered mess. Particularly the case if you are coding your site from the ground up, you are 100% responsible for having everything in the right place. When considering a revamped site design for your new, existing or upcoming website, please keep these ideas in mind as ways to add a little something extra without going over the top.

Social Buttons

While most content management systems now have social networking functionality built in, you will need to add these manually if you are in charge of the maintenance of the site and have built it through your own hard work. There are examples of social buttons all over the web and they are used for everything from Facebook to Google+ and LinkedIn. For sites that have been built from the ground up, these buttons will help add an extra layer of functionality and sharing options that may otherwise be lacking from your online presence.

Web Widgets

Web widgets are great for adding specific content to your site that may be relevant to what your site already offers. For example, if your site is a major relay of news and opinion, you may find widgets released by CBS News and CNN to be of value. Likewise, sites dealing with sports may wish to use a widget available from ESPN or USA Today Sports. There also are tools such as Widgetbox and WordPress plug-ins that allow you to make your own widget boxes; making your own widget gives you total customization control and you can mix and match any and all topics of your choosing.

Date/Time Feature

While such a simple feature, having the time and date on your site can come in handy for your visitors for a number of reasons. One example of this utility is if your customers are logging on to respond to a last-minute sale and want to make sure that they haven’t missed the cutoff, they can refer to the site time to verify whether or not they can still take part in your sale. Using UNIX for this is ideal, and Pingler offers a Date to Timestamp tool that allows you to input the date and time on your website using a constant, standard method.

JavaScript

Last but not least, JavaScript is an important tool and should already be incorporated into your site’s design.  While some forms of JavaScript can cause issues for your site with search engine ranking systems, the versatility of JavaScript by and large can be used without worry. Some of the key functions of JavaScript include navigation assistance, user prompts and other client side selections. This is great for running stores and other dynamic, interactive pages as you can relay your customers/visitors through various portals on your site as needed.