Web Design Steps

Top 3 Business Website Design Mistakes

2009-09-23T03:40:00.000-07:00

Web Design Tips That Help Increase Qualified Leads

Below are the top 3 most common usability mistakes we see on business websites. They are usually the result of businesses thinking about their websites from an internal viewpoint, rather than stepping back and looking at the site as would a potential customer who has never heard of the company or been to the site before.

Mistake #1: Irrelevant Images/ Photos

Use of stock images that are not relevant to the business do not help a user understand what the website and/or company does/sells/provides.

The use of images is necessary and useful on sites but, as with every word on the site, they should be there to serve a purpose. A user should be able to scan the picture and form an idea about your business that is supported by the content on the page. Images help tell your story by helping a user understand the content on the website.

Generic stock photos of random business people doing what business people do - shake hands, sit around a conference table, talk on the phone, sign a contract - are rarely if ever useful or necessary.

Bottom line - Images should help users understand the content on the website. If a picture is worth a thousand words, make sure yours is saying something that will help a visitor along his/her path to becoming a conversion.

Mistake #2: Incorrect "Contact Us" Page Format

A common mistake can cause damage and is easily avoidable.

Most businesses fall into one of two categories here:

Some businesses display their corporate contact information as names and/or titles with corresponding email addresses. This results in a page that can create spam because the bots can click on the email addresses the same way the users can. Contact pages set up in this manner are often unwieldy with too many rows of names, titles and email addresses for a user to choose from which, in turn, makes it more difficult for a user to gather information.

Other businesses use the correct format which allows users to fill out a form. Frequently, however, they will create far too many fields for users to fill out in an attempt to fully qualify each user. These business may have 8,10, or more fields for a user to fill out, requiring everything from phone numbers (a usability no-no), to the company's size, address, the user's job title and role, what department they wish to speak to... they toss in everything but the kitchen sink.

When creating a contact us page, have the user fill out a form, and start with as few questions as possible, and make only the absolute necessary ones requirements. This usually means making only two or three fields requirements. As leads start to come in, if you notice trends that are time-wasters, then you can address those by adding a field as a requirement that will filter those out those problem leads or route them to the correct department.

Bottom line - Less is more on a "Contact Us" page. Wait to find out what problem areas you have before creating additional required fields on your contact us page.

Mistake #3: Lengthy Flash Introductions on the Home Page

Use of a long flash introduction on the home page is distracting to your user's primary mission.

Users who are searching for a product or service are on a mission. You cannot provide all of the detail about your company to someone the second they arrive at your site, and you should not try. Most users will not sit there and watch for 30 seconds, and there is the additional, very real, risk of annoying potential customers.

Flash is a program, and it should be used to provide features that are unavailable in a static page, which is rarely needed the second a visitor arrives at your site. If you are going to use flash, it has to be quick and to the point, and provide just enough information to make the user want to spend a little more time on your site. And it should work without audio.

Bottom Line - Avoid using Flash introductions. While they may look cool to company insiders' they could be driving potential customers away if they're too long, loud, or aren't serving a true informational purpose.

The underlying reason companies make these usability mistakes is that they are looking at their corporate website as an insider would:

Images that look nice but do not help explain what the company is about is no problem for someone inside the company who already knows what the company does.
Contact Us pages that ask "what information do we - the company - want from outsiders," rather than understanding what information users want to provide and making it as easy as possible for them to do so.
Flash intros that make the company feel like they are on the cutting edge, but simply annoy users who are looking for useful information.

So take a step back and look at your website with fresh eyes. You might be surprised at the changes you would make to help users get a better understanding of what you do, and why they might want to contact you.

Roxanne Lott has successfully brought her deep understanding of media and marketing to her clients at Imerex (http://www.imerex.com). With over a decade of experience in New York City at the prestigious J. Walter Thompson Advertising (a division of WPP), and ABC Television Network (a division of the Disney Corporation), Roxanne has been involved in the online world on behalf of her clients since the late 1990's. She helps her clients understand the critical concepts of website usability, and that their websites can and should be a tool to increase sales.

Imerex, Inc. is an online marketing firm located in Sarasota, Florida.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Roxanne_Lott

Build My Own Site - 2 Steps to a Pro Website

2009-09-23T03:23:00.000-07:00

You don't have to be a tech guru to build your own site. You don't need to know html or have any other tech skills. If you are wondering "How can I build my own site" in just over an hour, this article will show you how in two easy steps.

1. Get a web host

The host is your web space and they give you all the tools you need to create your website. This includes your domain name, so don't buy that first. It comes with your hosting plan along with all the tools you need, unlimited space, emails, autoresponder and the best programs to create your website. All this for less than $.4.00 a month! It also includes support and video tutorials to help you create the site.

2. Build Your Own Website

I suggest you start with WordPress to build your website. WordPress comes free with your host plan. Start by choosing a theme from hundreds of beautiful themes, and then input your information. You can start by making "posts". In WordPress, a post is a block of text with or without graphics. Its very easy to enter this text into a small "notepad" like app. WordPress arranges your posts and inputs them to the theme you've chosen. The end result is a professional looking website that can be live in about an hour. This way you can create your website a little at a time instead of trying to have the whole site completed right at the beginning. Just add content as you go along. This is the same method many of the best websites use.

If you have been wondering "How can I build my own site", just follow the two steps above and I'm sure you will have a great website in no time.

My #1 answer to "How can I build my own site" Build My Own Site.

Its never been easier or cheaper to build a quality website. You can enjoy unlimited possibilities with your own site including the possibility of making money online. The first step is getting a quality web host, and its always a good idea to get a great plan at a great price.

Build My Own Site.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alan_J_Orr

Basics of a Great Website Design

2009-09-23T02:53:00.000-07:00

Building a good looking website can involve a lot of time and energy. There are quite a few website design and website development articles that can make it easy to design a creative and functional website.

There are quite a few techniques we use to create a good looking websites. A great looking web design (or website design) required attention to details, careful consideration of your business and also what your competitors have been doing.

Some of the techniques we use while creating a website design are:

1. Website Development and Branding: Every website design requires new logo and branding. When a visitor comes to your website they first thing they look at is your branding. You have to ensure that the logo you choose highlights your company branding, essence and ethics. A website design without the right logo is like a body without a soul. If you look at some of the most successful websites, you will notice that their logo has become their brand and everyone recognise their logo.

2. Select the right images for your Website Design: We all know that a photo is worth a thousand words. A good photography can make an ordinary website design into a creative looking web design. You can easily use a photo to highlight your business, services and other sections of your website.

3. Learn about website design: It is worthwhile to do some research about website design and web development across the web. Try and learn about web development from experts and successful organisations. Visit some websites you like and try and analyze the concepts in their website design that attracts you to those websites. The next thing to consider is how you can use those concepts to suits your business and implement them in website design and web development for your website.

4. Website Development and Cool colours: Make sure that the colours you use in your website design are nice and attractive. Use colours that are easy on eyes and colours that are nice and attractive. Also make sure that the colours you use don’t repel your customers. For example, a website that targets visitors from South Asia should not have red colours as red colour might offend visitors from some South Asian countries. Thus you will avoid using colours in your website design or website development that might offend your users.

The above mentioned ideas just a few of many that you have to consider when working on a website. Make sure that the website designer you use understands these issues and implement them in your web design and website development.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Grace_Alexa

7 Basics of Good Web Design

2009-09-08T02:56:00.000-07:00

Whether you are just starting a web design project, looking at revamping an existing site, or just wanting to double check the usability of your current web site you should consider these 7 Basics of Good Web Design.

These Basics are aimed at new visitors/customers, your repeat customers will be judging your web site on different values. Just like wearing the appropriate clothes for a job interview, these basics will help you pick out the "look" of your web site so that you make a good first impression.

1. Fast Loading Web Site - Any way you look at it, a fast loading page should be your number 1 concern. The web is all about speed, fast searches, fast purchases, fast information. You can't have any of that with a slow loading page. Ask yourself this question, have you ever been on Google doing a search for something important and a link you clicked on didn't open up immediately? What did you do? Patiently wait for the page to open or move onto the next link on the list? My favorite sites open almost immediately.

So, a few suggestions: Make sure that your images are properly optimized. Don't use very many large images, save those for a different page. Keep any auto-running multimedia to a minimum, offer links to run media instead. Check your code for anything else that could affect your page loading times. Since text loads almost instantly go ahead and use all the text you want, just keep everything else under control.

2. No Meaningless Splash Page - Do you appreciate a fancy animation page that doesn't tell you anything and you have to wait for before the web site will open? Neither do I. The last thing I want once I find an interesting site is to wait through some animation before getting to the first page. This doesn't mean that I don't want multimedia on a site, I do. I just don't want an animation before the first page that forces me to wait for it to finish before getting onto the site. Its like having to wait for a salesperson to finish their memorized speech before you can ask them a question. No thanks! I like animation, just in the right place and at the right time. Plus if I am a returning customer I will have already seen that animation and don't need to see it again.

My recommendation is to use a smaller animation contained in your main landing page which also includes your main message and links to the rest of your site. It will make for a faster loading page (smaller file) and your visitors can go ahead with accessing your site without having to wait for the animation to finish.

One final note, never, ever put your logo as the only content on your landing page with a link that says "Enter Site". This just screams Unprofessional and will drive away potential visitors in droves. The last thing I want to do is to click on another link just to get into the site. This is a total waste of my time. I usually will skip a site if I see this.

3. No Annoying Web Gimmicks - Now that you have your visitor on your site quickly the one thing you don't want to do is to drive them away just as quickly. So, don't put anything annoying on that first page. No loud background music that makes them quickly hit the volume control or the back button on their browser. No flashing animations while they are trying to read your content. No popup, flyout, expanding ads that cover your home page. Basically leave the gimmicks alone until you are sure that your visitor will stay on your site. Most casual visitors will leave your site in just a few seconds, no sense on driving them away more quickly.

Multimedia is great on a web site, just don't bombard your visitor with it first thing. If you want audio then put in a nice picture with a link, like a picture of yourself with text saying something like "Let me tell you how to make $50,000 this month!" If they are interested they will click on the link and listen to your message, if they are not interested in audio then you should be using a different pitch anyway.

Also, monitor what advertisers are putting on your site if you sell ad space. I am sure you have seen those ads with the animated dancing figure, cute the first time you see it. But after seeing it 10,000 times with every imaginable character I have added the company to a list I keep of companies I will never do business with. So their animation has gone from "look at me" to "you annoy me" in my mind. Ads like these will impact your visitor's experience. So even if your site is perfectly designed, one misplaced ad can ruin all of your hard work.

4. Have a Clear Message - Too many web sites are a mish-mash of content. This is especially true of blog pages. Certain types of sites lend themselves to stream of consciousness content, but most don't. Make it easy for your viewer to understand what your web site is about, don't make them guess. Have a clear topic headline, followed by clear and concise text. This is also where a picture is worth a thousand words, but only if the picture directly pertains to your message.

You want your visitor to be able to quickly understand what your message is. If they like your message they will take the time to read the rest of your page and look around your web site. If they don't like your page, then it won't do you any good having them stay on your site anyway. So, don't make your visitors guess, let them know what you are about quickly and cleanly and you will have happy visitors. And when thinking about a sales page, a happy customer is a buying customer.

5. Coordinated Design - This one should be self evident, but it is surprising how many sites change their design for every page. You want your visitor to be comfortable in your site and one way to achieve that is by having a coordinated web design. Having a consistent logo, using a consistent color scheme, keeping your navigation in the same place. All of these help to create a coordinated design. This does not mean that you can't change colors or the "Look" on different segments of your site, but if you do, the changes should not be so drastic that it feels like you have moved on to a different site.

If you select one place for your logo, one place for your navigation, one look for your buttons or other common graphic elements and stick with those then you will be well on your way to a coordinated design. If you change colors for a different section, but keep the same logo location, the same navigation location, the same button shape then your visitors will not become lost as they move from page to page.

6. Easy Navigation - Once you have grabbed your visitors attention you want them to be able to easily move around the different areas of your web site. This is done with easy to use navigation. There are three standard, accepted locations for navigation elements on a web page: along the top, on the left side, and at the bottom. I will usually put my main navigation either along the top or along the left side. I will then put text based navigation at the bottom of the page, this text based navigation is more for the search engines than anything else, but it also makes it easy for your visitors to move to the next page when they have reached the bottom of the current page.

Most people start reading a page from the top left and then read towards the bottom right. So navigation at the left or top will be seen as soon as someone enters your page. Also navigation at the left or top will not move or change position if the browser window is adjusted in size. The worst thing you can do is to put your main navigation on the right side of the page and have your page set for a large screen size. Let's say that your page is set for 1024 across with the navigation on the right, and someone views your page at 800 across, they will not see your navigation at all. The left side of your page will show perfectly, but the right side will be hidden outside of their viewing area. Of course by using floating or popup menus you can overcome some of these design limitations and keep your navigation visible at all times.

Unless you know that your audience will enjoy it, don't use Mystery Navigation. This is where your navigation is hidden within images, or spaced around the web page in some mysterious random order. This can be fun on gaming sites, or social networking sites, but in most cases the navigation should be easy to see and easy to use. If you do want to use Mystery Navigation I would recommend keeping the text based navigation at the bottom of the page, just in case.

7. Have a "Complete" web site - And finally, no one wants to go to a web site only to find that the site is "Under Construction" and the content they are looking for is not there. These are words that you should never use. If a section of your web site is not ready for prime time yet, then simply don't show it yet. It is better to have your site look complete and professional, then to have it look like a work in progress that should not be up on the web yet.

You can easily tell your visitors that you will be having more content in the future without looking like your site is unfinished. Just use phrases like "Content Updated Weekly" or "New Products Added Monthly". Both of these will tell your visitors that it would be worth their time to come back and visit at later, but neither one will make your site look unfinished. So no matter how small your web site is, give the impression that you have taken the time to complete the site before putting it up on the internet, this makes for a more professional presentation and a better visitor experience.

In Closing - By following these simple 7 Basics of Good Web Design you will be well on your way to having an easy to use and successful web presence. Just keep in mind what you look for when you first land on a web page after doing a web search in Google or Yahoo, or other search engine. If you want fast loading pages, make sure your pages load fast. If you want to be able to find what you are looking for quickly and easily then make sure you have easy navigation. Just keep your first time visitor in mind, put yourself in their web shoes and make your web site an enjoyable place to visit and success should follow.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=George_Peirson

Web Design Software

2009-09-08T02:45:00.000-07:00

You may have heard of web design software and wonder what it is and how it can help you. Let’s quickly discuss what a web page is. A web page is a collection of text, pictures, audio, and/or video that is viewed on a Web browser. If you’ve ever used Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Avant Browser, Opera, Safari, Maxthon, or some other browser, you’ve seen web pages. So how does a web page know where to display the images and where the text goes? The web site creator writes instructions for the web page to follow in a computer language known as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). HTML tells the browser what color to make the text, what background image to use, table properties, text color, shape, and size—the whole nine yards. (Note that there are other languages used, but HTML is the predominant one.)

Web design software is used to assist the web developer in writing HTML. Many web design software programs color code your HTML so you can tell the difference between the code and the content to appear on your site. For example, let’s say you want to create a web site that says “I Love New York” in red letters. The HTML coding would look like this:

&lt;TITLE&gt;New York&lt;/TITLE&gt;&lt;BODY&gt;&lt;FONT&gt;I Love New York&lt;/FONT&gt;&lt;/BODY&gt;

The text that appears in red is the code, while the text in black is the content. This makes it easier to read. You may say, “But what if I don’t know any HTML?” Well, you have several options. Some web design software has help files that offer lessons on learning HTML. You can also use a WYSIWYG application. WYSIWYG, an anagram for “what you see is what you get”, is a type of web design software allowing you to see a near exact replica of what the finished product looks like as you’re creating it. With WYSIWYG, you don’t have to know HTML. You simply click menu drop-downs and icons and select options for formatting and design. The code is automatically written by the software.

There are many web design products available. Some of them are free (CoffeeCup, EasyHTML). Some are somewhat expensive (Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver). Some let you create very powerful, professional features (such as Flash animation, JavaScript, PHP tools, creating animated GIFs, forms and database-driven pages, and more). Other applications are simple, and intended to simply assist you in reading HTML code more clearly. And actually, you can write code with a simple Notepad application and save it as an HTML file.

Is there a “best” program out there? The most “popular” programs are Dreamweaver and FrontPage. However, my suggestion is to go out and check out the demos for several programs. (The ones who don’t offer a demo probably aren’t worth your time or consideration.) Weigh the pros and cons of each and draw your own conclusion as to which web design software beats out the competition.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matt_Murren

Web Design With Simplicity

2009-09-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

If we see many of the global business website, we will find Most of them have a standard, classic design, with simple white background with plain text. In simple web design there is nothing like misleading and mismatching, it is about the graphics are in perfect match with the beautifully written content.

Simplicity principle in web design really works. And there is a very strong reason for web design with simplicity i.e. building websites that are simple, logical and user friendly So that people can interact with it easily which will increase clients as well as business.

Simple web design is very much beneficial for client as well as the owner of the website. A simple web design site takes less time to load and it runs faster than complicated sites. It is more interactive and gives quick response. Even commercially its good to have a website with simple web design. A website with simple web design takes very less time to build & in case of redesign it will not take much time. It will consume less server disk space and bandwidth. This will results in saving time and money. Moreover a simple web design site is easier to maintain, again profitable. If we work on different platform and with different browsers it becomes easier.

Every web designer can't design simple web pages with quality. It is not as easy as it looks. Only a real web designer can develop a website with simple web pages that are appealing, informative, and simple. Only real web designers know how to build a website with simple web design that will cost less and bring more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tisha_Verma

Constructing Your Website

2009-09-07T04:21:00.000-07:00

Website planing is an essential part of the building process. Building a successful website is like constructing a strong house, that's right a house? Just like a house needs a good foundation so does the constructing of your website. I don't mean build a website with concrete, but you do need concrete techniques for a good foundation on which to build upon such as:

1. Keywords & keyword phrases, keyword rich URLs, a good title, meta description targeted at your goods, service or service's.

2. Solid website design:using HTML/CSS, flash, images ( jpeg, gif, png etc. ) video, or audio, back grounds, buttons, headers & footers these are just some of the ingredients to building a solid website design.

3. Links: There are 4 types of links you should focus on? They consist of outbound links, inbound links, back links & reciprocal links. It has been a great debate about reciprocal links not having the weight they used too. I would concentrate on the other 3 but a few reciprocal links couldn't hurt. Just keep that in mind when planing your web pages.

4. Solid & Original Content: This is where you tell everyone about your great new service or idea. When building content for your website focus on what would make the customer who visits your website want to buy from you or use your service? In other words step out of your own mind & be the customer. What is it you want as a customer? Why should I buy from them? What can they do that others can't? Whats in it for me? These are just some of the things people think about as a consumer. As the owner of a website you need to make your company unique. There are billions of companies out their doing the same thing you do. So you need to be different and find away to express that to the customer.

5. Share your knowledge: Are you a professional or expert in your field? Good because that's what they want! They may say they don't care if your a professional or expert but don't believe it. Would you hire or buy from someone who doesn't know what they're doing? Of course not. Neither will they. People want too do business with the best, who they believe & who they trust. You need to be all that and more.

These are just some of the basics you need for a good foundation. It's a good start and you need too start somewhere, get all your ducks in row before you head for the water. Planing is essential for every aspect of life including your website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dennis_Harlow

Web Design With Simplicity

2009-09-07T04:13:00.000-07:00

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tisha_Verma

Discover How To Make Your Web Design Easier

2009-09-02T03:17:00.000-07:00

Whenever I thought of web design my face would frown, I just hated the fact that I had to do any kind of web design. I just couldn't see why web design was simple for others and not for me.

Well, that all changed when I discovered this simple program, a web design machine made for those who just don't understand that you can do it yourself if, you would only keep your web design as simple as possible.

Since using this program I have been able to launch two websites with my own web design style within two months, these websites aren't perfect, but they do look very professional.

And, they carry my touch, yes, at last I can boost to my friends how easy web design is for me, because they have no clue that I am using my little secret weapon for my web design.

What does it take to design your own website?

Now, for those who don't understand what it takes to design your own website from scratch, I will give you five important steps you need to master, before you can get your website to the next level.

Five steps for perfected web design:

1) You Need Some Type Of Web Design Software

No one and I repeat no one, is doing web design the expensive way (The truth: Some are still wasting money paying for web design). Those who has enough money, pay for their web design, and those who can't will have to get their hands on a easy to use web design software that gets the job done.

2) You Need To Know Some HTML

No matter what type of web design software your using, you must educate yourself with a little HTML. There is no way around that. Once you get the feel for simple little HTML code snippets, you will notice that you never ever need to know more than that, because you already have my little secret weapon ( My secret web design software program, that I will lead you to very soon).

3) You Need To Know How To Layout Your Website

Wow, another killer, I had no clue how or what to do, much less layout a web site. That all changed when I bought my little secret weapon, it came with a manual loaded with tips on not only how to use the software, but also how to layout your website template.

4) You Need To Master Internal Linking

If you going to design your own website, you must know how to internally link you website together. Ah, well, not really if you have my secret web design software you won't need to know how. This is taken of by the program, it creates all your internal linking,
without you even understand how it's done, isn't that cool.

5) You Need To Keep Your Web Design Simple

This one should have been number one, because it is so important and yet so overlooked. Look around the web and notice the top sites online, they are all use very simple web design with lots of white space. Don't get flashy if your building a website for profit.
Look at Google and Yahoo, they are very simple and that's what you need to do when you design your website.

Anyway, I have given you some tips that should set your web design on fire, if you follow and study successful web sites online, you will see the trend, simplicity wins the web design war.

And now, for the long awaited secret weapon, just browse over to this simple web designed site and watch the video, you will understand why this is a secret weapon that only the guru's use, once you try it.

Be advised, your web design doesn't get return visitors, it is well written and informative content, so why spend thousands on web design, while searchers are only looking for information.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alexander_Marlin

Online Web Design

2009-08-31T07:34:00.000-07:00

Instead of heading over to the UK to find a good web designer to handle your design projects go online now and find an online web design Manchester, UK service. UK designers are equipped to create ecommerce web sites with shopping carts. The services can design your web pages and create simple or complex solutions to give you the best options in design. Designers in the online web design Manchester companies' focus on security when they are building your ecommerce web sites to ensure that when customers use your web sites that their information is safe. The secure sites are designed also to give you ways to accept credit cards.

When you have an ecommerce web site built by one of the online web design Manchester services, you are giving the option to choose your method of accepting payments from your web site. The designers will consider CCNOW, PayPal, Yahoo Direct Pay, Clickbank, and other options and work hard to ensure that you get the payment method you choose for your ecommerce web site. Payment systems are great tools that designers focus on in the online web design Manchester, UK services. The designers know the importance of giving your customers ways to place orders, and to pay for products online. In addition, the designers know how valuable it is for you to be able to sell your products on the Internet, thus the designers will look for options to help you out.

When the designers start building your ecommerce web site they will also focus on form pages. They know that customers need means to fill out forms to enquiry product information and so forth. While this is only the half of building ecommerce web sites, it is one of the most important parts of designing that the expert designers consider at the online web design Manchester services. Most people feel threatened by building their own web site because the codes and scripts in the programming aspects of design scare them away. Most of these people though do not have lots of money to spend on a single web site so they wait, wait, and wait until that day comes that they do have the money to hire someone to build their web site for them. You don't have to wait any longer, since the online web design Manchester services are making it easier for people to get their web site design the most cost effective way.

The online web design Manchester services are also designing with style in mind. Now you can get the web design you desire for half the cost. There is no better solution in design than having affordable and expert services combined to get you what you want. If you are ready to start building a web site now is the time to find an online web design Manchester service on the Internet. Even if you don't want an ecommerce web site, you have the choice of basic designs open to you with the UK web design services.

For further information, please visit Online Web Design Manchester UK

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hayi_Mansoor

Web Development Versus Web Design - Is There Really a Difference?

2009-08-31T07:32:00.000-07:00

Technology pundits have constantly argued that the terms web development and web design are interchangeable with one another. I respectfully disagree and argue that though the terms may have been interchangeable in the past; they have long since become two terms completely separate from one another with different goals, standards, and philosophies behind them. Web development can be quickly defined as "a broad term for any activity related to developing a web site for the World Wide Web or an intranet. This can include e-commerce business development, web design, web content development, client-side/server-side scripting, and web server configuration"; whereas a definition of web design can be summed up as "a process of conceptualization, planning, modeling, and execution of electronic media content delivery via Internet in the form of technologies" (definitions courtesy of Wikipedia).

We can take note of a couple of things simply from these simplified definitions. The first is that web design falls under the wing of web development and it is easy to see why many think the two are intertwined much like the concept that a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square. Web design is a part of web development, but not actually an essential part of developing the web.

Web design, more specifically website design, is a process of creatively visualizing and utilizing the tools and applications created by the web development process. Web design takes the development process one step further and often finds itself using these tools for ideas and applications vastly different than what they were intended for. A quick analogy would be that of how the plane engine made for war combat was used as the basis for the car engine we use in our every day lives. Web design has brought us things like the web 2.0 concept of user generated content; some thing that web development tools are capable of, though not intended for it specifically. Content management systems such as the ones talked about earlier provide the framework for social networking websites and blogs. Dynamic web pages which appeal to our aesthetic eye use frameworks set forth by web development tools yet take it one step further by using the tool to create a masterpiece of web design.

With all of America's advances in web development it became easy to separate the two terms from their synonymous relationship; it has become a process of developing technologies and applications for the advancement of the World Wide Web. These technologies of course, can be adapted and used by anything related to the internet (such as websites) but is not merely limited to it. Content management systems (CMS) are one of the many examples of positive strides made in web development. CMS systems allow for easy management of content and data while online and can be used for simple server networking within an office, or as the backbone of an ecommerce website (voting systems in various states use CMS systems to tally and record votes via software). Web development also houses things such as the creation, modification, and innovation of scripting and coding languages. The advent of Actionscript 3.0 and PHP 5.2 can be marked as some of the great achievements of the web; Actionscript 3.0 is part of Adobe Flash CS3; however Adobe created AS 3.0 to make it much more logical for creative web applications. More specifically, web development in NY has been known to constantly utilize the most up to date tools and research to create some of the most innovative web applications.
If web development is the paintbrush, web design is the Mona Lisa.

Fred McCoy is a NY Web Development critic who works for Blue Fountain Media; his articles are on point, descriptive, and insightful.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Fred_McCoy

What a Good Website Designer and a Web Developer Should Know About Web Design

2009-08-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

So, what it is really that distinguishes a good website from a poorly designed web site? The topic is as broadly debatable as Windows over Linux is but it all boils down to the two important keywords: development and design! A good web designer offering web site design services must know the difference between the two words. Web development in itself is a broad term for any activities related to website, web application, web solution, e-commerce development, web content development, client-side / server-side coding, web solutions and web database system.

Web development usually refers only to the technical aspects of building a website. Web design on the other hand is perceived as the artistic side of creating a website that involves the visual styles, layout coherence, color theme considerations and all other factors that has something to do with the general appearance of the site, vis-à-vis its functions.

Therefore, we may conclude that web development equates to a programmer's logic craftsmanship while website design is a product of an artist's imaginative and creative ideas. If this is true which I'm sure most website design firms and individual web designers in the Philippines would agree that a good website must be a combination of digital landscape and well planned programming logic.

The dilemma however is that majority of web designers falls short of these two important aspects. Worst, most website developers do not realized these qualifications. I don't have anything against talented and enterprising individual with knowledge on web design and development but there is more than simply knowing the basic of html and image editing to come up with a commercial grade website.

We must put in mind that a website is our business or personal identity online. It is the sum total of our being and our business that is accessible to clients and prospective clients. It means therefore that a website is our front line to the information age and that should be well planned and designed in order for it to serve its purpose. There are however rampant offering on "create your own website in minutes" application and other template-based website. I'm baffled by these ideas simply because it directly contradicts to what I have just discussed above. Choosing to publish a website from a template equates to buying a white cardboard box in the department store and stamping it with your product's name, no branding, no image building, no identity! It's like the usual "Special Patis (Fish Sauce) label you see all over the wet market. All of them claim to be special but the sad truth is that non of them are.

As I have mentioned already, there are two important keywords in the subject, they are Website development and Web site design. Development is of course straight forward and can be learned in school. However, design is a rather different zone in the battlefield of web design. As the word design implies, it has something to do with creative ideas carefully woven by an artist - a full fledge designer who is there to collate the meaning of symbols, colors, sizes and positioning of every element in a website.

It is ironic though that most web design firms out there offers template based website that are available in many template stores, worst many of them are available for free. So to say, if you have your prestigious business website made from templates, chances are that you have a twin website somewhere in the internet with only its mole and hair different from yours - the logo and text content, but they are visual replica of each other.

So if you happened to be reading this in search of a good website design firm, check out if the firm has a certified graphic artist and not just a programmer who read a crash course in image editing offering templates and who promised to create your website in minutes. Web site design and development involves careful planning, collaborating of design ideas, and putting together appropriate contents to capture the visitor's attention and to properly reflect your business' image or professional reputation.. for more visit: iConcept

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=PJ_Bernardino

How is Your Website Design Affecting Your Website Traffic?

2009-08-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

You know enough to have created a website for your business. You researched quality content and provide a quality service for your website visitors. But do you know how your website design is affecting your traffic? Ask yourself these questions to determine the effectiveness of your website design in generating traffic and converting that traffic into sales:

1. Do you examine your web traffic reports regularly? Every website is stored on a server with your hosting company. On that server is a log that keeps track of all the visits to your website. You can find your log by looking on your server. If you're not this savvy with your website, you can install a website tracking program like Google's Analytics that keeps clear reports of the traffic to your site.

2. What does your traffic tell you about your website design? Do you have a high "bounce rate?" This is the rate at which visitors hit your site and then instantly leave. How many pages of your website to visitors see? How long are they on your site?

3. What pages of your website are visitors focusing on? Many website visitor tracking programs show you the path visitors take through your website, from entry page to exit page. Does this information tell you anything about your website design?

4. Why are visitors leaving your website? Programs are available online that create a small exit pop-up asking a visitor why they left your website. You could offer a free report or a discount on a product if they answer your question. You'd be surprised at how candid and helpful this information can be to helping you create more effective website design.

5. Where is your site ranking in the search engines? How are you getting your traffic? Do you have to pay for all your traffic, or are people asking for your products by name? Does your website get ranked on the first three pages of the search engines when someone searches for your products or services? If you don't know the answers to these questions, your website design isn't as effective as it could be.

Regardless of if you design your own website or hire a professional to design your website for you, you need have clear answers to these questions. The clearer you are, the more effective you will be when designing your next website or redesigning your existing website.

Lisa Munoz of LM Designing provides leading website development and affordable website design for individuals, organizations, and businesses. Utilizing the latest in flash animations and php design elements, Lisa works with each individual client to create their ideal website and ecommerce solutions.

In addition to her beautiful and dynamic websites, LM Designing also provides graphic designing, logo development, printing services, and website marketing. Contact her to begin crafting your online presence in the way you've always wanted.

You can see examples of the websites her company has created at her website. Visit http://www.lmdesigning.com and request your free website design quote today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_Munoz

Website Design Software

2009-08-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

Much consideration has to be given to your website design if you want to do business on the Internet through the use of an e-commerce website. This is because it is the overall design of your website that can either provide a pleasing or disappointing experience to your visitors.

The Design of Your Website

Website design refers to the graphic makeup of the site itself including your web pages, usability, interactive applications, and level of user interface as perceived by your visitors. For this, you can either hire a web development firm to build you a website complete with hosting and maintaining services, opt for the services of a fee-only web designer, or download website design software from the Internet.

The website design software is a tool used for creating web pages tailored according to your preferences. The features that the software comes equipped with can vary, although the fundamental features include drag-and-drop image selection, web templates, layouts, graphic effects and animations, incorporate colors, customizable fonts, and even free website designs among others - indeed, the software is designed for building professional-looking websites in an instant.

But before you can go all out in building your website with your web design software, it would be best to know the basics of a website first.

Nuts and Bolts of a Website Design

Homepage

This is referred to as the main page or window of your website, and reflects the site's entire content at best. You can design your homepage depending on the tools available in your website design software: animations, speakers and essential Flash effects, links directing to the lower pages, colored graphics, logos, and more.

Inner Pages and Landing Pages

Linked directly from the homepage, it is on the inner pages and landing pages that you will find the products and services offered on the site. While others use their lower pages to put their contact info, references, and site resources among others.

Navigation

Website navigation can vary depending on the structure of the site. You can find embedded links, breadcrumb trails, drop-down buttons, pop-up navigation bars, and other web buttons available on the site. Here, it has to be well constructed and user-friendly because the tools are your visitors main avenue to navigating and discovering the rest of your website.

Web Site Software provides detailed information on Website Software, Free Website Software, Website Content Management Software, Website Design Software and more. Web Site Software is affiliated with Free Shopping Cart Software.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kristy_Annely

Website Navigation - 3 Important Tips to Remember to Improve Your Website Navigation

2009-08-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Your website navigation can have a large affect on your overall search engine result. Improper structure or clarity of links can cause significant problems with the search engines which will keep you from ranking highly on their pages.

By following these 3 tips you will ensure that the navigation on your webpage is correct and ready for the search engines to boost your online business's page rankings:.

1. Page importance: By creating a clear hierarchy of your site with your website navigation you can reveal to the search engines which pages are most important on your website. These pages will then receive a higher Page Rank which gets distributed to the less important pages of your site, and your search engine success will improve.

2. Clarity and openness: With effective website navigation your page should have a great deal of clarity and openness. When you do this, your page gains added credibility and you'll build a reputation for yourself that affects how people feel about you but also how you fare in the search engines.

3. Relevancy: When you create a proper website navigation structure you can help each and everyone of your web pages appear as relevant to what you're targeting. For example, if you have ten different information pages on your site none of them will have relevancy. But through proper navigation, if you place the information pages under their respective sections and incorporate the use of keywords into each one, they will all have separate value.

Do you want to learn more about website navigation as well as creating and developing an online business, especially if you're a newbie? We have just completed our brand new guide on the basics of website design.

Download it free here: Basics of Website Creation

Want to learn how to create and develop you website for your online business, especially if you are a newbie? Find out more here: http://www.newwebsiteteacher.com/index3.html

Sharon and Larry Zolna are dynamic coaches and online mentors. We have over 150 articles in print and offer 1-on-1 as well as group coaching classes.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sharon_Zolna

4 Things That Make A Web Site Great

2009-08-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

First you need original content. Content is the heart beat of any exceptional Web site. The ability to take a common subject and give it some interest and originality is a rare talent,but necessary to keep visitors coming back. Add a dash of humor, be sure to update once or twice a month and look out, you're on your way.

Second you need, great graphics. If your graphics are properly used they can greatly enhance a web site and it's content. However, if you overuse or they take forever to load, you will drive visitors away before they even see the content. The irony here is that just about anyone can make decent graphics and expensive programs are not required.

Third, you need a good presentation. Good Web sites do not keep the user guessing. They make their purpose immediately evident and present an easy to follow navigation system. The content and graphics blend in perfectly with the presentation and following it is a simple matter. You will never find hyperbole or confusion caused by overuse of animated graphics,Java or anything else that will serve to mask the intent and content of the site. Most importantly, a great Web site is run by a competent and knowledgeable Webmaster. One who knows how to seamlessly move the visitors to each level of the site. A great Web site is not a side show, it's a simple (no-need-to-be flashy) library of content. It just does what it is supposed to do and leaves the hoopla behind.

Last, but not least your site needs to be both interactive and proactive. Good web sites are ones that are people conscience.While, yes, the Internet is the cutting edge of technology and
all that, remember it's just regular people, like you and I that are using it and will make it what it is in the future. The great web sites are the ones with the developers who not only
have all the techno skills, but the people skills to boot. Think about the sites you visit over and over. What keeps you coming back. Useful content. Yes. How about that feeling of
belonging. Like someone is actually having a one on one conversation with you. The ability to provide the opportunity to express and contribute is the mark of a superior web developer
and what makes a web site one of the great ones.

Interested in having your own successful, home based creative real estate investing business? Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start successful home based businesses for over 19 years, and we can help you too! To see how, visit http://www.homebusinesssolutions.com for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational products and coaching in creative real estate investing and home based businesses. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to our "how to" Home Business Solutions Digest, it's like having your own personal coach: subscribeHBS@homebusinesssolutions.com

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Five Steps to a Web Site That Sells

2009-08-12T06:59:00.000-07:00

I’m always amazed that people would spend months to develop their web site, pay thousands of dollars to have it put together and then... they just let it sit in the cyber space without generating any new leads.

Listen, if you hired a sales person for your business and they didn’t perform what would you do? You would fire them faster then they could say “but, I tried”, wouldn’t you? So why do you put up with a web site that doesn’t sell?

Right now I can hear you scream “but I don’t know what to do!” Let me share with you five simple tweaks you can do today to make your web site give your more bang for your buck.

1. COLLECT CONTACT INFORMATION

Typically, when I meet potential new clients within the first 30 seconds they spontaneously whip out their wallets, hold up their check books and yell out “I want to buy your stuff right now!” Then I usually wake up! In real life it takes multiple contacts to entice someone to give me some of their hard earned dough! But how can you contact them if you don’t know who they are?

Use your prime “cyber real estate” (the top part of your web site people see before they even scroll down) to convince your visitors to willingly give you their name and email address. Call your web person right now and tell them to place a “sign-up” form of some sort on your home page. (OK, wait till you finish reading this article – so you can take care of all the changes with one call.)

2. MAKE YOUR SITE LOAD FASTER

Do you have a lot of flashing buttons, rotating graphics, or worse – do you still have that “cool” flash intro guarding access to your web site? Hey there is a place for all this stuff on the internet – but it’s not on your web site. Most people will only wait a few seconds for your web site to display on their screen. If it doesn’t - they will move on and never come back!

Unless the graphics communicate an important point about your product or service – get rid of them. And listen – the nineties are gone – step into the 21st century and kill your “cool” flash intro.

3. USE EFFECTIVE PAGE TITLES

Are you speaking in riddles? Unless you’re trying to compete with Harry Potter open each web page with headlines that entice visitors to take the time to read more.

Here are a couple of examples. Would you rather read “about our services” or how “an ex-baker turned millionaire reveals his marketing secrets”? How about this – which headline would pick your interest more – “collateral design” or “does your marketing material communicate your message”?

Don’t make people guess what they are about to read – believe me, they won’t take the time. Say it in simple language. Take a look at your web site – does each page have an effective headline? If not – fix it.

4. DON'T HIDE THE GOODIES!

The famous WIIFM (what’s in it for me) has become such a cliché but it’s so true! Recently a Japanese publisher of a man’s magazine produced an entire issue using only photographs of attractive women and “blah, blah, blah” as a text for all the titles and articles.

What’s the point? Come on, do you think guys buy those magazines for the deep, thought provoking articles? Conversely, do you think your potential clients come to your web site to read your dissertation about “what is coaching” or “our consulting philosophy”?

Your web visitors want to know how they can solve their problems and if you can help them do it. Don’t hide this stuff where no one can find it. Highlight the benefits your product or service offers. Make it easy to find your informative articles. Present case studies. Allow them to download simple guides, forms or assessments. Provide links to more resources. Make yourself useful and they will reward you with their business.

5. BUILD CREDIBILITY

We all like to do business with people we know, like and trust. So how do you do make people feel like they know you and can trust you just by visiting your web site? Here are a few things that will give your credibility a boost:

- Use testimonials. When you tout your own horn people question your information. But a positive comment from a past client can instantly build your credibility.

- Display your contact information on every page. Don’t hide behind an email address. Tell people where and how to find you. List your address and phone number. People are more likely to do business with you if they know how to find you if something goes wrong.

- Display case studies and articles. They provide useful information and build you up as an authority on the subject.

- Post pictures of you and your key team members. You can post your bio but looking at your picture makes people feel like they actually know you. I can’t tell you how many times I run into people whom I’ve never met before and they feel like they’ve known me for years – because they’ve seen me on my web site.

There is a lot more tweaking that could turn your web site into a marketing magnet. But these five will give you a good start.
OK, now you can call your web person!

The Author, Adam Urbanski, a Marketing Mentor, helps Service Professionals and Small Business Owners attract more clients. For more free tutorial articles, hot how-to tips and a FREE 32-page marketing guide go to http://www.themarketingmentors.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adam_Urbanski

3 Ways to Design a Beautiful Web Site

2009-07-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

Websites are the primary mode in which the data is presented in the cyberworld. Going by the amount of websites which are launched every day, it is an established truth that the internet needs websites to work. Hence, in order to make a successful website, you need much more than a few pages of content uploaded on the net. If you visit some of the latest websites, you will see that they all look classy and beautiful and have updated and informative content. Following are some ways to design a great looking website.

i. The first way to make a good looking website, you must have enough knowledge of web designing scripts and languages like JAVA, HTML, ASP etc. You should choose a script and language, you have expertise in. make a website that not only works properly but also has all the features and looks of a new age website. In this way, you will be able to monitor the back end scripts of your website and will able to change or rectify things according to your need, but making a website on these scripts requires extensive knowledge about them.

ii. The second way to design a website is by working on various website tools like Dream Weaver, Front Page, etc. which are easily available, but you must have knowledge of working on such tools. These tools and many others like these are available in the market and they all are very easy to use. There interfaces are also extremely easy to understand. You can also learn to operate them through free tutorials which are easily available on the net.

iii. Last but not the least, you can use templates to design your websites. These pre-configured templates can be easily downloaded from the internet. Most of them are free but you may have to pay a nominal price for some of the more advanced templates. Just find a template that goes with the feel of your website and download it. You are ready to build your website.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Aakash_Shah

10 Minutes a Day to Make Your Website Better!

2009-07-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this, your website is not working for you. This is an especially bad thing if your website is getting a fair amount of visitors and still are not accomplishing your goals. Perhaps you have a great website and nobody can find it. Whatever the case, there are three important steps you must take in order to make your website work for you:

1) Define what you want your website to accomplish.
2) Define several obvious reasons that your website is not accomplishing this already
3) Take action and make noise.

Spend 10 minutes a day one of these three steps and your website will be much better in no time. Defining what you want your website to accomplish may seem like an obvious thing to do and yet is often overlooked. The design of a website that simply feeds users articles should be very different than a website that is a search engine, for example. You need to build your website from the ground up with its main function in mind. Do not think about what your website looks like before thinking about how it accomplishes your goals. Do not design your website to look good, design it to attract the people who you are after. Figure out your website's obvious shortcomings. There are usually pretty obvious reasons why a website is not accomplishing what it is intended to accomplish. If your website is focused enough on its purpose then you must reconsider its functional design. But if your website has no traffic, then you cannot expect any amount of design to help. Knowing where to focus your efforts will save you time and money. Plus, if you intend to hire web designers, you will be confident when they ask you to identify the purpose of your site - something that will in turn save you time and money.

These three basic steps are seemingly common-sense but yet many designers often make things far more complicated than they have to be. By spending time on each step there is no doubt that you will see great improvements with your websites overall performance. And by focusing your efforts on the fundamentals of web design you will find that you are making much better decisions with your time and that your 10 minutes a day are more productive than ever before.

Kayarc is a Phoenix web design company. Kayarc also offers professional graphic design, Internet marketing, and SEO services.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_Cumberworth

Web Design Basics

2009-07-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

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 (more on that later).

So, with that in mind, let's discuss some practical ways to grab the attention of web site visitors. Then, in a future article, we will talk a little about keeping their attention with good web site content. Remember, people spend most of their time on the Internet reading. They read search results, news items, how-to articles and forums. A professional web design company will take this into account. But that is for later. First, we have to keep visitors attention (remember the 4 second rule).

Get to the Point.
We live in a fast-paced society and we are used to instant results: Microwave meals in 5 minutes, lose 5 pounds in 5 days, 30 minute oil changes, see results from fitness equipment in 20 minutes a day, and on and on.

The Internet is no different and it actually may be less forgiving of web sites that don't deliver results quickly.

The 4 second rule that we spoke of earlier does not mean that your entire web page must load in 4 seconds. Rather, it means that a visitor to your web site has to at least see something interesting within that 4 second window. So, to test your site, while it is loading, ask yourself:

How much time passes before I see anything?
What is the first thing I see on the web page?
How much time passes before I can read some text?
How long would it take a visitor to determine what the web site is about?

Try this suggestion yourself and then try to enlist the help of some of your friends. The more people you have to test your web site, the more thorough your results will be.

Ideally, the site should load top to bottom and left to right. However, your design should adhere to the reading habits of your target audience. Some countries read from right to left so, make sure you know your audience. Also, the most eye-catching elements should load first. Once these load, they will grab the visitor's attention. Then, the rest of the page can finish loading.

What Graphics Format Should I Use?
This is probably one of the most overlooked aspects of web design. How many times have you visited a web site and cringed at the slow loading pictures. I'll bet you did not stick around to see everything load.

In most cases, web sites that have this problem were created by someone who bought a Web Design How-To book, created a web page that says "Hello World" and now think they are an expert. Or, possibly they are learning web design and created this slow loading site as a favor for a friend or family member. At any rate, hiring a professional web design company will prevent bad design from happening to you. In the meantime, here are some very basic guidelines regarding those very important web site graphics:

More about the .JPG file format:
.JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format allows images to contain up to 16 million colors. It also supports Variable Compression, which allows you to reduce the size of the image at the cost of some of the detail. In order to take full advantage of this feature, you will need a graphics program which will allow you to preview the image after you have compressed it. Some of the more popular graphics programs are Photoshop, Fireworks and Corel Draw.

JPG is not a good format for images with only a few colors or for text created as an image. The finished image will be of poor quality.

More about the .GIF file format:
.GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) support up to 256 colors. It also supports "transparency" which allows you to specify the background of the image to be invisible, thereby letting the web page colors show through.

Graphics in this format are also "looseless", meaning the final quality is not adversly affected by compressing.

Boiling it Down.
For the most part, here is a good way to determine what format you should use for the graphics on your web site:

If your graphic has many colors (such as a photo) use .JPG as the format, However, make sure that the file size is not so large that it prevents the web page from loading quickly. Find a good balance between image quality and file size.
If your graphic has only a few colors (such as a chart) use .GIF as the format.

Of course, this is somewhat oversimplifying the very important role of graphics in your web site design. If you hire a professional web design company to create your web presence, he or she should follow these guidelines during the design process. You should make sure that the rough drafts you receive from the designer adhere to good design standards.

Make Them Want More.
Of course, no matter how well organized your web site is and how effective it is at grabbing the visitor's attention, they have to view your web site as important. You have to give them reasons to stay and browse your site, to bookmark your site so they can refer to it again and to tell others about your site so you can build new visitors.

We will consider how to tackle this aspect of quality web site design in an upcoming article. That article will focus on three main ways to keep visitors coming back:

Offer something of value

Newsletter
Free tips
Monthly coupons

Good, quality marketing copy

Put effort into the words of your web site.
Remember, the Internet is made up of web pages and for the most part, pages are meant to be read.

Easy to use web site navigation.

If visitors can't get around easily on your web site, they won't stay very long.

Crystal Coast Technologies is a web design team headquartered in Swansboro North Carolina. We specialize in Flash web design and database driven e-commerce. Our blog contains more tips and the latest tech news, including security alerts.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anthony_Muhaluk

Missing Or Poor Quality Website Content

2009-07-23T04:33:00.000-07:00

Strategies for avoiding the debilitating effects of missing or low quality content.

We've all heard the horror stories of websites lingering for months whilst a client attempts to cobble together some semblance of worthy content for their ill-fated website. This problem doesn't just affect freelance web contractors. It's as much a concern for a project manager at a web agency. Why? Because a project can't be considered complete until all its tasks are closed.

Content issues can come in a number of forms, but generally it's a customer taking a long time to prepare text or pictures for use on their website. Also connected to this is the problem of poor quality content, that is; amateurish text riddled with spelling or grammar errors, or low quality photographs. If this problem was one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, it would be famine since nothing makes a website appear malnourished like missing content.

So far I can't say I have figured out a fool-proof method for dealing with this issue, although I have developed a few helpful strategies over the years. One approach I use is to take some liberties with the client's content. For example, if a client has a page called 'Our Team', I may paste in some generic content I find on another website. What does this do? For starters, it often gets the client saying "hey, that's not my content", to which you reply "no problem - it's just a place-holder until you put in your correct text."

As strange as this may sound, putting in the wrong content often encourages a client to put in the right content. Perhaps this is appealing to the 'if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself' part of the customer's brain. This solution isn't appropriate for all customers; it works best with people who will understand you are just trying to be proactive.

One approach I have used in the past to deal with missing content is to automatically turn-off pages which are empty. For instance, if there is no text for the website's 'Press Releases' page, it simply doesn't appear in the navigation. It will only be a matter of time before the client says "where is my press releases page?", to which you reply "you have to enter some text for the page, otherwise it automatically hides itself". True, you will get people putting in "Page under construction" or "Coming Soon", but if you give a person a CMS to manage their website, they can write whatever they like (it is their website after all).

Another great solution is to use a content questionnaire. This is a simple list of questions designed to illicit responses which serve as the basis for producing rudimentary website content. Here are a few example questions: "what does your company do?" "Who are your customers?" "What products or services do you sell?" "Have you been mentioned in any media publications?". As you can see, you are effectively acting as a basic copy writer, so some degree of writing skill is required.

A common strategy you will see suggested is to have the client engage a content publisher or copy writer early on. The beauty of this is that a copy writer will hound a customer 'til the end of days for material to work off - it's their job. Web developers often focus too much on the technology-side of things, neglecting the most important aspect of the website; the content. The downside of this solution is many clients will flag a copy writer as prohibitively expensive. When budget is an issue, things which appear to have the least value are culled. Some clients may even look at it this way: "why should I pay for someone to do something I can do myself? I know my products better than anyone".

Understandably, if a client has never had any interaction with a copy writer, they may not be aware of how much they can help. It isn't just a matter of 'good writing', a copy writer can create compelling text targeted at a particular audience. For instance, a business owner may write something like this on their website "Welcome to my dieting website. Please browse our extensive range of products", a copy writer would instead produce "Discover the secrets to fast and permanent weight loss with our revolutionary nutritional supplements". And if the copy writer is well versed in SEO, even better.

Before this article wraps-up, let's go over a few tips which may help you avoid content headaches: 1) bring up the topic of content early on in the project, 2) instill a sense of urgency, the client needs to know the website is nothing without content, 3) use generic, place-holder content when appropriate, 4) switch off pages which are blank (manually or via code), 5) recommend a copy writer get involved in the project early on (if budget allows).

When all is said and done, if a client wont supply their content or photos, or blocks your attempts at proactive assistance (e.g. putting in place-holder content), there isn't a great deal you can do. Your best bet is to move onto your next project and check back periodically to see if they are ready to continue on with their work. This could be in the form of a phone call once every few weeks. You never know, a client may have some major disaster they are dealing with in their business which means they can't spend time preparing content.

Louis Marshall, Project Manager

My tech blog: pm4web.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Louis_Marshall

How to Create a Website For Your Home-Based Business

2009-07-23T04:20:00.000-07:00

If you already have a home-based business or are thinking about starting one, you'll need to have a website for it. If you're thinking that you don't have the time or you don't know where to start, read on as this article will explain in simple language how to get started.

First off you'll have to have a domain name registered. This will cost less than $10 per year and it is best to go with a. .com domain. And a good tip is to use the keyword of your business in the domain. For example if your business is about quilting supplies and lessons, check and see if quiltinglessonsforbeginners.com is available. If not think about some other ideas and try to choose one that is easy to remember and pronounce.

Next you'll need to have web hosting, I highly recommend going with Host Gator as they have been very reliable and offer great 24/7 phone tech support. This will only cost you five dollars a month.

The next step is to create the actual website. Do a Google search for "free website templates" and have a look at what you find. Using the quilting example, if you add the word quilting you may find a nice template that already has a related banner or images on your topic. Once you find a template you like download it to your computer and unzip the file and open the folder and find the index file.

Finally you will need to edit the template and put our own images and content in it. This is actually quite easy once you've done it a few times. Do a Google search for "Kompozer HTML editor" and download this and install it on your PC. Then right-click on the index file and choose open with Kompozer, then you'll be ready to start editing your website. This HTML editor works very similar to a word processor, if you have some trouble there is a very good free book that you can download and learn more on how to do this in a step-by-step manner.

Get your FREE downloadable book, written especially for beginners and easily explains how to make your first website. Visit http://www.yourownproduct.com/ for a FREE book to get you started in making your first new website now.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tony_McGarry

5 Things Without Which Your Website is Incomplete

2009-07-23T04:17:00.000-07:00

Designing or setting up a business website has never been easier. No matter how much experience you have in convincing the potential customers through verbal communication, but when it comes to design an effective website it can be the bigger challenge. The most crucial element in any website is its design and structure. It is just like having a 200 horsepower engine but without the proper chassis, it will end up nowhere. Thus, in order to ensure you have a good return from your website, make sure you take the following factors into account like:

Cross browser compatibility - Website usability is an important consideration in any website design. Websites are designed to be viewed by many different people and it is important that designers allow for different needs. In recent times, web standards have grown more important. Besides this, with each passing day as more browsers like IE 6+, FF 2+, Opera 9+, Safari 2+ have begun to get a strong foothold in the market. Definitely there is a need to make sure your website works on every one of them. These days, any browser worth its salt is now standard's compliant.

It is important to understand that any website which is cross browser compatible can work better and may even show up clearer to search engines. They are more likely to have a longer shelf life. Thus, it is always a good idea to have a program on your computer that checks your website's browser and version compatibility.

Fast Loading - Have you ever noticed that a lot of visitor come to your website but very few of them spend time on it leading to high Bounce rate. Low loading speed of your website could be a reason. Today the life has become faster. Nobody likes to wait for service, whether it's shopping at their favorite store or even browsing a website. You need to take the site loading factor very seriously because the time it takes to download a webpage has huge concern on usability of website.

The online visitor will surely get distracted if website takes too long to load or may even sometimes get irritated. Giving your website a fast load time is vital to your website and your online business as well. There are even some studies that has also proved that users may click away from your website if it does not load in ten seconds. Few factors like - maximizing content area, avoiding excessive use of graphics, flash and sticking to simple designs can reduce your website loading time

Avoid Pop-ups - If you are looking to make money through ads from your websites then believe it is going to be your major blunder. Your website is not an advertising portal so why to make use of pop-up ads. One of the prime reasons on why pop ups are a bad idea is that many visitor often find them to be intrusive.

Almost every online visitor prefers to be happily browsing on the Internet. Sudden pops up advertisement may obscure his or her view or attention. Besides this, many of them also feel these pop-ups very annoying. Moreover with the advancement of latest technology in coming days one may not be able to see pop-ups. Many people and browsers now block pop-ups. Thus you should be very careful in using pop-ups in your website design.

User-friendliness - It is very important to understand once again that ultimately you are making website for visitors only. You must be very clear about what the person might look or search at your site, rather than what you think looks good and attractive. Your potential customers are more likely to give more time in scrolling different web-pages of your website depending upon the prime factor that is - your web site is useful, fast, reliable and user-friendly.

There are so many things that you can do to make your website as user friendly as possible like:

Wherever possible always try to keep it simple and easily navigable.
Try to have just one or two central messages that you want to 'push'.
Always create a site map. Sitemap is very essential for any business website design. It helps user to navigate your site more easily and get information easily in single click without surfing entire site.
Keep a 'Search' Feature on every page of the website.
In addition, today FAQ page is one of the best user friendly things you can add to your website. This is because most visitors have a few questions and answering the most frequently asked questions on your website make your job easier. Having a FAQ page is a win & win situation.
Place your contact details and contact form to give credibility to your website and confidence to your visitors.

Search Engine Friendliness - Looking at the present scenario, having a website for your business is the vital step in broadening your sales opportunities. Your sales may get affected depending upon how easily your site can be found on the search engines. Ultimately you need to make your website search engine friendly. Designing a search engine friendly website ensure that the website can be easily found by clients and prospects using internet search engines. Moreover, a search engine friendly website also gets more visitors-more traffic. More traffic means more eyeballs looking at your services and this in turn enable you make more money.

Ensuring that your website is search engine friendly generally consists of two key steps - the first is to get your site included in the search engine results and the second is to get the best possible rankings. Thus in order to ensure that your site get high search engine ranking or more traffic, it's vital that you build a site structure that is easily accessible, both by search engine spiders and by real visitors to your site. Add good and fresh content to your website and make sure that your site gets regularly refreshed i.e. you add new content on regular basis.

These are few important points that you must take care while you plan to design your business website design and most importantly while converting it into an HTML page. Your website should interact to customers and must create a feeling that you can cater to their needs.

These features can be included in your website while you are converting your design PSD into XHTML/HTML/CSS. Always trust experts for the conversion process who can provide you all these features in your web page.

Get PSD to XHTML conversion services for your web design that offers cross browser cross browser compatible, SEO semantic, fast loading, user friendly web pages for best web presence at TIS India.

TIS India is a leading Web Design Company specialized in innovative and usable web designing, graphic designs, PSD to XHTML conversion and other corporate identity solutions.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Manoj_Tiwari

What Makes a Website Design Great? - How to Make Your Good Web Design Into a Great One!

2009-07-23T04:12:00.000-07:00

A lot of people can recognize good design when they see it on the web. But most people don't really know what makes that design good. How do you define "good design?" Is it subjective, like your favorite flavor of ice cream? Although there is some subjectivity within good design, there are artistic principles that good design is built from. Here are a few that form the foundation of good design.

1. Proximity - Because items that are in close proximity to one another become one visual unit, items that are related to one another should be grouped together. Laying out related items on a website page this way helps the eye associate the information and enables the viewer to mentally categorize the information easily. The flip side of this principle is that items that are not related should not be placed in close proximity to one another.

The purpose of the principle of proximity is to organize information in a way that enables viewers to quickly and easily comprehend. When information is organized, people are more likely to read it and respond. People are also more likely to remember information that is organized.

How can you determine if items form a visual unit? Squint your eyes and look at the page on a website. Now count the number of times your eye stops as it views the page. On a page that is using the principle of proximity well, your eye will stop three to five times. In other words, there will be three to five groups of information for the eye to comprehend separately.

2. Alignment - You've seen website page layouts where the text and graphics are placed wherever there happens to be space. The effect is messy, with no impact. Nothing should be placed on a page arbitrarily. There should be a visual connection between each item and something other item on the page. When items are aligned, it creates a cohesiveness that the eye appreciates.

The purpose of alignment is to unify the website page. Imagine a well-organized kitchen. All the pots and pans are stored in the organizer, the fruit is nicely displayed in a basket on the counter, the spices are all on the rack-everything is in its place. A page layout needs the same thing.

Look at a website page that you feel is good design. Now focus on the main visual element. Where does your eye go from there? Do you see how other elements are aligned with that one main element both vertically and horizontally?

3. Repetition - Good design repeats some aspect of the website design throughout the site. It's this repetition that makes all the pages in a site look like belong together. Color scheme, graphic elements, typefaces-all of these elements should be repeated-used consistently-throughout.

The purpose of repetition is to create consistency and to add visual interest. Repetition creates a professional, polished look that the eye is drawn to. When a website design uses repetition and is consistent, it is more likely to be viewed and read.

Here are some was you can create repetition beyond simple consistency in typefaces and colors: Use some element in your logo as a major graphic element in the design. If you are using a ruled line, make the line more interesting visually by perhaps making it with tiny dots or dashes, then repeating the line element throughout the design. Create patterns that are repeated throughout the design. Take a small element and place it somewhere on each page for a whimsical look. Just be careful not to overdo the repetition, or viewers will be annoyed rather than pleased.

4. Contrast - The principle of contrast states that if two items are not the same, then they should be different-very different. Contrast creates an organizational hierarchy of the information and graphics on a webpage. When using contrast, you can't be a wimp! The contrast must be strong to be effective.

The purpose of contrast is two-fold: to create interest on the page, and to organize information. A page that is interesting to look at is more likely to be read. And contrasting elements will help a reader understand the way the information is organized.

Contrast can be created in many ways. You can contrast large type with small type, a serif font with a sans-serif font, bold with light, smooth texture with rough texture, a small graphic with a large one, a dark color with a light one.

A design that integrates these principles will automatically gain a professionalism and polish that it would otherwise lack. Next time you stumble across a website design that makes you say "wow," cheek for these principles-you'll find them quietly working to make that design a good one!

About The Author

Laura MacPherson (laura@northstarcreative.net) is the creative director at Northstar Creative, a website design studio located in Greenville, SC. She has an educational background in writing and psychology as well as experience in graphic and web design.

Her professional passion is design. At Northstar Creative, she's most happy when working with and collaborating on design projects. Whether its print or web, its always a challenge to be able to perceive the essence of a client's business and craft a website or print piece to mirror that. This work fuels her creativity and makes her work at Northstar rewarding.

Out of the office, Laura loves the arts, from painting to acoustic guitar. She is a huge fan of Northern California, particularly the coast and Yosemite. When not fortunate enough to be in California, she can frequently be found on the hiking trails of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Her company, Northstar Creative | Web Design, approaches website development differently than many web companies. Northstar Creative combines the use of marketing psychology with top-notch web development to create truly exceptional custom sites for its clients.

Publishing Guidelines

Permission is granted to publish this article electronically in free-only publications, like a website or ezine (print requires individual permission) as long as the resources box is included without any modifications. All links must be active. A courtesy copy is requested on publication (email laura@northstarcreative.net)

To view this article in its original context or to access more web resources at Northstar Creative's Web Resource Center, click on the article's link here Designing Great Websites

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Laura_MacPherson

The Seven Deadly Sins Made by Church Websites By Ali Kent

2009-07-23T03:47:00.000-07:00

Having seen thousands of church websites from many denominations and throughout many countries, I've seen the good, the bad and the downright ugly! As a result I thought I'd draw up a list of the most common church website mistakes.

It's obviously been done by an amateur. Most churches will try and find a member of the congregation to produce a website for them. Normally to cut costs. No problem with that, but if you are serious about attracting visitors and communicating effectively with your members then you might have to pay someone to do a professional job. If your design looks shabby and amateur, then that is what people are going to perceive about your church if they haven't experienced it in person.
It doesn't relate to the unchurched. Your church website should first and foremost be written with the unchurched person in mind. Now that may shake the foundations of most church websites, but we must understand that although we obviously want to relate to church members, the church is not an exclusive community. So many church websites are full of Christian jargon resulting in unbelievers being confused and alienated. And whilst we're talking about wording, make sure that your content is well written, with no spelling mistakes or bad grammar. Write your copy in conversational terms and use lots of words like 'you', 'your', 'I' and 'our' to make it personable and engaging.
It's not easy to navigate. If your page links are hard to find, not grouped together carefully or not consistent on every page, people will quickly become frustrated and it won't take them long to browse away from your site. So often church web designers pay more attention to graphics, animations and other 'eye-candy' that the site becomes overloaded with various elements competing for attention. Your church website may look fantastic with lots of eye-candy, but it can easily become like a merry-go-round - brief excitement, appeal and attractiveness, but actually doesn't get you anywhere and leaves you in a spin! People will browse your site for a purpose, so you need clear signposts for them as they navigate your church website.
The type size is too small. This is one of the greatest mistakes across all types of website, and unsurprisingly makes our list of church website mistakes as well. Anything between 12 - 14 pixels should be about right, depending on the typeface you use. You might want to try adding a little line spacing also, to make it easier on the eye. Rather than cramming in loads of words and reducing the font size, make your text shorter.
The information is out of date. Latest church news from last month (or dare I even say last year) is old news and portrays your church as being 'behind the times' and 'irrelevant' (two main objections that unbelievers already have with church without us making a further rod for our backs). You simply have to put the time in to keep your church website up to date. Designate someone to supply and update the news section or discipline yourself to write short blogs every few days which will keep the site constantly fresh and alive.
The church building is more prominent than the people. The church isn't your building, the people are. Yes, pictures of your facilities are a good reference point and are relevant for people to get a 'feel' of your facilities, but don't plaster them all over the home page. Rather, have pictures of people - ideally your own people. Get someone handy with a camera to take loads of shots of different people in different situations (natural, not posed) and select the best ones to go on your site. (Remember to get permission from everyone before you upload them.)
Religious music starts playing or stereotypical images appear. Don't impose your taste of Christian music on your website visitors - even if you think it is 'anointed'. Research shows that most people find music played automatically as annoying. Have it available by all means (if it's relevant, of good quality and legal!), but not set to play when the page loads. On the graphics front, if your church website has a 'rotating cross', a 'dove flapping its wings' or any other similar images/effects, then your site is very out of date. What may have worked 10 or 15 years ago certainly doesn't work now.

For more information on how you can create a great church website that avoids all the seven deadly sins listed above, then visit http://www.yourchurchontheweb.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ali_Kent

A Website is a Must Today

2009-07-23T03:01:00.000-07:00

Many years ago when I started designing web pages and learning HTML, a website was a really something for those computer hobbyists who liked to tinker and the odd visionary who saw the benefits of the www. Those with a geeky side (of which I have) and the technical savvy (pretty good at that too) would build these fun pages on the internet with all kinds of flashy, tacky letters and graphics, that led to family photographs, lists of favorite rock bands and why a particular movie was just not worth seeing.

I was working in the media at the time and was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work for a company who saw the advantage of website advertising and let me explore the possibilities. Since then those possibilities have increased more rapidly than any technological development in the past. Publisher revenue from online advertising in Canada has more than quadrupled over the past five years - from 237 Million in 2003 to the 1.2 billion mark in 2007. As it quickly closes in on more established mediums and due to the fact that the industry is growing at such a fast pace it will be necessary to move forward in a creative and untried way.

Considering the growth of the internet over the past fifteen years the fact that businesses are still in denial about the necessity of a website is baffling. A website today is as important as your business card. You will rarely see an advertisement in print or on television that does not include a website, or one of the more than 50 extensions available today.

A website is not only an effective marketing tool, but it has become essential to keep your business flourishing and reach new client bases. A web presence is no longer a frivolity. Eager buyers and potential client's, expect you to have a web presence! The internet is an incredibly powerful tool and resource.

With so many websites in our evolving digital age, building a web site that stands out and sells is only part of the equation. Chances are if you're going to buy almost anything, (service or product) you check it out on-line first by doing a simple search. Think about your own search habits. You read the results quickly and don't go far past the first couple of result pages. Neither does anyone else! Attaining and keeping a high rank is an ongoing process, but a very important step to maintain the success of your site.

Be open minded and think outside the box, the possibilities are endless when designing a website, find a designer you are comfortable with and communicate your needs as clearly as possible.

Pinksky Productions is a leading Web Design Company Toronto offers services like web design toronto, Professional Web Design and Development services across the world.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joan_Culbert

Web Design Usability - 10 Important Factors

2009-07-23T02:47:00.000-07:00

Very often web designers forget one thing, web design is not just about innovative concepts and beautiful images with eye candies.

A web site will be visited and utilised by users. The following are 10 important points you want to note before you begin your web site

1. Set goals and know understand the objective of your web design

What is it trying to achieve?

Wow the audiences?

Design a simple web user interface?

2. Design Consistency

Many web pages has more than 10 types of fonts with 20 types of sizes. Ever seen this type of web design?

Use CSS to help maintain a consistency through out your web design.

3. Font Type

Use readable font for your audiences. After all, you are trying to let your audiences understand about this web site that you have designed.

4. Important information at the top of the page

While if important words are positioned at the top of web pages, it helps in SEO, this is not the main factor. You want to convey your message immediately when the page loads.

5. Links

Make sure your links is clearly visible. Do not use the same text and font and color for links.

6. Usage of images wisely

You want to limit the download time of your users. Do not load too much graphical images on one page. It turns user away. Remember, web page design involves users, usability is a important factor.

7. User Resolution

Consider the resolution of user's screen. While a designer usually work on huge screen 1200 x 1024, not all internet users enjoy that luxury.

8. Headings

Use proper heading to let user know which section they are reading now. Just like a book, you wouldn't read an entire book without knowing which chapter you are in.

9. Navigation

Ensure your navigation is clear cut and precise. Do not design a navigation that users will not understand.

10. Design for your targeted audiences, ask for feedback before you finalise your web design with your users.

Good looking or bad looking design can be subjective however, a user friendly web design can never be disputed. It can be tested if a web site is user friendly or not.

Adrian Lee is CEO of a VibrantStyle Pte Ltd. A Singapore Web Design, Development & Internet Marketing company that focus on search engine marketing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adrian_Lee_W.J

How to Create a Website For Your Home-Based Business

2009-07-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

Next you'll need to have web hosting, I highly recommend going with Host Gator as they have been very reliable and offer great 24/7 phone tech support. This will only cost you five dollars a month.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tony_McGarry

Gradient Background Designs For Web Pages

2009-07-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Backgrounds with gradient property have always been eye catching whether it is a simple website or a dazzling one. Its use gives you eye-catching and colorful backgrounds for any web page. It is nothing but an arrangement of different colors arranged from the darkest to the lightest shade or vice versa. This property is used to create dazzling background, even in div cells or div boxes. Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks Program have gradient feature in it and these two programs are used by majority of the designer's population. So, most of you must be well aware of this feature.

These kinds of backgrounds i.e. gradient backgrounds have shown their importance in corporate design field, while designing professional graphic designs for the corporate houses. Gradient backgrounds are very important in corporate graphic design field. As professional graphic design companies have the best knowledge of gradient schemes for different corporate websites. These firms employ Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks to get the best results.

When creating an attractive gradient background for the web pages of a corporate graphic design expert ensures the height of the background image. While creating resolution page, the experts make the image pixels wide.

The next challenge for the graphic designer is to decide the color. Designers do not use darkest shades on the background in case of black colored text or lightest shaded backgrounds in case of light colored texts. In short, a good designer always tries to make a well-balanced gradient effect. Then whether it is light-colored or dark color, which ever is visible.

A designer must ensure that the gradient background must match with the borders of the web page. To accomplish this, horizontal and vertical gradient bars are created to frame the borders of the web page.

Though the background image comprises of only few kilo bytes, make sure that it does not takes up memory because it is not good for a website which holds up so many pictures.

Pixelcrayon, a web design company delivers services like custom web design, web maintenance, PSD to XHTML conversion ,template customization, e-commerce solutions and offshore outsourcing...

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Manish_Rawat

3 Ways to Design a Beautiful Web Site

2009-07-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Aakash_Shah

Art of Web Site Design and the Pillars of Professional Web Design

2009-07-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

Because of the growing internet market it is imperative that all serious businesses who want to expand in their online avatar need to have a professionally designed website for their business. It is a fact that a simple web design which outlines your business effectively can improve the incoming traffic rate at your website. In a general survey maximum numbers of professional web designers are now inclined to have simple but creative web design because they feel web design is an utmost art which depends on some important pillars. Simple makes it easier for the visitors to grasp your site and creative to make it different and attractive from your competition.

From the web designer perspective the creativity of your website design can boost you ahead from other competitors very easily. But for that you need to put your years of expertise while designing a theme based unique website. All professional web designers are always striving to produce unique creative web site design templates for their clients.

The art of creative web design depends on mostly 5 pillars which are designing capability, simplicity, creativity, user friendly approach and at last the accessibility. I am elaborating more on these individual points below.

While you designing a website or a web template the first thing comes into our mind is your capability, I mean to say designer's capability in web designing capability. How much capable you are to produce a unique website for your client. If you have years of expertise then it is quite natural that you may have created hundreds of several theme based websites. Thus it is easily assumable that you have the basic ideas, you know the specific market demands where the website will fight for existence, you can recognize the primary requirements etc.

Now, the term simplicity comes ahead. Yes, we all are normal human beings and we all like simplicity in our life. Thus while we need to search something into the internet we are choosing some simple websites for our required information. As much as your designed website looks simple, the visitors will show their interest into that website. The inner poise of the design must be simple and try to outline the websites message as clearly as possible.

Creativity at your web site design must be the backbone of your website. The creativity in your designing, the creativity while producing the mild appeal, the creativity in story telling, the creativity in layout decorating, the creativity while announcing special offers etc. can not be expressed into words. These creativity factors boost you much ahead from your competitors into the search engine rankings as well as into the visitor recognition.

User friendliness (or search engine friendliness) of any website increases the traffic circulation rate at your website while they are entering at your website. If your web traffic can travel each of your web pages without any hassle then it is easily assumable that the growth of your business will increase rapid manner.

Last but not the least factor is accessibility of your professional web design. Every business is open for all kind of visitors like for normal human beings as well as for the physically challenged. Thus while designing make your web design completely accessible for all. The client needs to sell his ideas through his website, thus it is the duty of web designers to design a website properly.

Joanna Gadel having years of expertise in web site design. Her article on web graphic design spreads knowledge information regarding creative web site design for new web designers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joanna_Gadel

Website Creation Software - Why You Should Give This One a Spin

2009-07-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

There is no other question I see more on any given forum as: "What do you use to build your websites?" question. And of course you'll have everyone jump to it and suggest their favorite website builder in response. The problem is, in the recent years the market got so flooded with those - it gets confusing as to which one will work best based on your needs.

If web design is something you want to learn from the ground up and you don't mind spending countless hours every day for the next year learning HTML and other alien sounding codes - you should probably get the latest version of Adobe Dreamweaver. Though if you happen to value your time (and sanity) and prefer your sites to be built fairly quickly - I would strongly recommend giving the SiteRubix a spin.

This software is really the shortcut to building clean and professional-looking sites.

What usually takes hundreds of hours on Dreamweaver - is doable in minutes with SiteRubix. Of course as with anything there is a huge trade off between the flexibility of a custom website builder like DW versus WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) platform like SR. If you're willing to sacrifice custom graphics for the speed of working with pre-built templates without having to know any type of code - this one is definitely the one to consider.

Here is a quick breakdown of its main features:

• Draggable modules. Your headline space and body is broken down into several modules of different sizes. All interchangeable depending on what kind of a layout you're after

• An array of clean-looking templates

• An included FTP client

• Various media support such as image, video and screenshot.

• Simple page layout insertion ability

• Unlimited site and domain support

• Easy export to your desktop feature

The guys who created SiteRubix are seasoned Internet professionals. They have over 10 years of experience in the field and have built over a thousand websites to date. Aside from web design they're also successful Internet marketers - who started a one of a kind online university and community. Since SiteRubix was mainly built with Internet marketer's demands in mind - it quickly became a standard website creation software in their toolbox.

If you're planning on making any money with your website, you're going to have to learn how to get some people to see it. After all, what good is a website if it's invisible to anybody. With SiteRubix not only can you build a professional website quickly - you will also know exactly what you need to do to make that website be in the first few pages of Google results, thus bringing you qualified people based on your website's theme - and hopefully the sales you're looking for.

To learn how you can take advantage of this type of training visit my website for more information.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alex_Kaliostro

How Do I Make My Own Website?

2009-07-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

Making your own website to promote your affiliate programs can be both interesting and rewarding and if you are someone who may be entirely new to an online business, seeing your very first website taking shape is an awesome experience.

1. Get a Domain Name

Before you start to make your own website, the first thing you will need is your domain name. A domain name is the name you want to give to your website or a blog that you have in mind to start. You will need to pay a registrar an annual fee to register this name that you have selected.

2. Select a Web Host

This is like finding a home for your affiliate programs marketing website that you are going to own. A web host is just a company that houses many servers to manage many customers' websites. Once your website is placed on their computer servers, it allows anyone who wishes to view your website and its web pages using the internet. You now need to open an account with a web host that you have selected.

3. Design Your Website

After you have chosen your domain name and web host, you now need to design your website. Assuming you like to do this yourself, the easiest way to do simple website designing is through the use of a low cost or free WYSIWYG web editor. This works very much like a wordprocessor.

4. Make Your Own Website Search Engine Friendly

One of the first things you should do is to make your own website search engine friendly. Do some research on some simple ways you can do it yourself. This will help in how Google and other search engines view it as well as affect how regularly they crawl your website. Google likes a website which has been updated frequently with fresh unique content on your website.

5. Get Your Website Indexed By Google

Once your affiliate programs marketing website is created and you have uploaded come content on it, the next step is very important. Get your website quickly indexed by Google and other search engines. If it is not indexed, your contents you have written will never be made known to the millions of people surfing the search engines for information related to your content.

Do you want to know how EXACTLY How to Make As Much As $2658,73 Per Month From The Comfort Of your Own Home? Visit Affiliate Programs

To learn more, visit the Affiliate Profit Mentor and grab my SECRET step by step formula today at: http://www.mynetmarketingland.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_HC_Lee

Design Your Own Website - Some Things Are Free

2009-07-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of businesses that based in the web. There are even different personal services that you can access in the web. For most people who have their businesses online, it is very important to be able to advertise the products and services that they offer. However, marketing strategies and advertisements have certain monetary equivalence. This is not the scenario however in some websites that host free websites for different businesses and even for personal people.

There are actually a lot of free websites in the internet. For most of these sites, you can even design your own website free of any charges. Some of the most popular free websites are Yola and Googlesites. These websites offer web hosting and other services as well. Moreover, you can choose from different templates and design your own website for free. There are absolutely a lot of templates that may be appropriate for your personal and business needs.

Creating your website is quiet easy with the user-friendly tools that are available at these free sites. There are even designs that can be customized and can be added with specific preferences and information. Some of these sites offer and exciting list of options that you can choose from as you design your own website. Free hosting is a big help for the businesses and services who are just starting out. Therefore for all those who are looking for the opportunity to have their businesses known in the worldwide web, you don't actually have to look very far as all of these are just a click away.

For more great information on Free Web Design visit our new website http://www.myecommercecenter.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Elija_James

One Picture You Must Have in Your Website Or it May Kill Your Business!

2009-07-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

If you fall in the category of people who have just started out with their online business or are contemplating to do something like that, then you must learn a few things that would separate you from the herd. Yes, uniqueness is what appeals to people and it is the only thing that attracts customers into buying your products.

One of these tricks is using attractive or even seductive photos. An elegant and enticing photo is extremely important. There is proof of that. If you surf through the auctions and even Web sites that sell a specific item, the highest bids and prices are carried by those whom have mastered the art of displaying those products in an appealing and visually pleasing way.

Whether trying to win bidders on eBay or catch eyeballs attention on an internet store or online marketing site, the best way to stand out is with an attractive, detail-showing picture. One of the most common mistakes when taking digital pictures is clutter. This is due to the fact that most people do not even make an effort before they shoot. They are only thinking "let's take a snap and load it in the PC." So they just zoom and take a snap not realizing that a shadow, or the wrong background or the lighting or even worse, unrelated items, like their chair or table or even their bed show in the picture.

You need to take time to look before shooting, and that will radically improve the appearance and the impact of your product images. Removing the clutter is only just one step we will talk about, however there are a lot more secrets to know about the images of your products that can make a difference between making awesome profits and quitting this business for ever.

What is your most important product? If you are in the services business, if you provide mentoring, teaching any form of tuition online then you are the most important product. You need to have a picture of You in your website and right at the top! Leave your picture out and you leave most of your profits still on the table.

You can find everything you need to know about Internet Marketing and how to decide what to sell on the Internet and create multiple automated cash generating online businesses at http://www.alexpapa.com
Alex Papa is an accomplished Internet Entrepreneur known for taking online businesses from zero to over $100,000 in a few months. He is a speaker, a coach and an author of "How to find your Niche Market and decide what to sell Online."

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alex_Papa

Cheap Websites to Help Struggling Small Business Owners

2009-07-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

In today's times, everyone has to adjust to the ever changing economic situation.

The small business owner needs a break during these economic times. Those who in the past could not afford a website for their business are now able to afford one.

Purchasing a website is ne of the least expensive ways of advertising a business because you only have to pay once for the website to be built. It is not a ongoing annual payment like most advertising venues.

Companies now use website templates instead of starting from scratch and therefore can pass on their savings over to the business owner.

Some companies will allow their customers to use and choose their own website template, providing that the customer will supply the designer with the content of their new site and then can expect to receive their completed website in 1 - 2 weeks.

What we have done, as web designers, is change our normal way of conducting business by NOT building a website from scratch and then charging the customer at the very least $1000.

We have taken our current financial downfall that so many of us are being affected by and in turn offering low-cost website design using website templates saving hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars to the business owner.

We are able to do this because by using a website template the business owner gets the same quality for a lot less money and it allows the designer to spend less time in the development stage.

When we save time designing, we can pass those savings over to the business owner.

Although we still do customized websites, we encourage all customers to take advantage of the lower cost website templates.

We also have links on our site to secure a free domain name with very low cost hosting. Actually, the lowest I have found on the internet.

We can ALL make a difference with a little thought process and drive.
Good luck to you all.

All of our websites try to help our customers to obtain/maintain a website. We also offer SEO step-by-step instructions. Then we teach web marketing.

(1). Website offering low cost web design for small business owner can be found at http://www.carolseay.com
(2). Website offering instruction on how you can get indexed in Google quickly can be found at http://www.indexees.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carol_Lee_Seay

How to Create Good Web Design

2009-07-16T05:23:00.000-07:00

There are many different types of web design, from those built using website templates and 'build your own' site building applications to complex content managed and e-commerce web designs such as those used by big brand names like Amazon, eBay and Tesco. Some companies, even some big name companies, have unprofessional looking and badly designed websites. Some have amazing looking websites but because of their high graphical content and minimal text content can take an age to load, are not user friendly and do not provide what the visitor wants.

Good Website Design

Though many aspects of website design differ from site to site, many things remain the same throughout the majority of websites on the internet. Most notably is the navigation or menu. The way in which a website's menu works and looks is very important, as ultimately, visitors to a website are looking for certain criteria that will make them either stay and interact or leave. This ability for a website to keep visitors interested is sometimes referred to as stickiness. Visitors want an attractive visually exciting experience, but perhaps more importantly, they want 'ease of use'. Website usability is a key factor for websites that want their visitors to stick around, make an enquiry and ultimately complete a transaction and order a product or service.

Easy to Use Web Design

Internet users tend to prefer easy to use websites, because they do not want to have to learn how to use a website every time they find a new one. They should be able to use a website after only a few seconds of looking around a homepage, any more and they will leave and browse elsewhere. The need for fast user interaction is vital and therefore having a fast loading website is also important for a website to succeed. Even with faster internet connections such as broadband, internet users don't want to wait around.

Just imagine, if you go to a shop on the high street and are totally ignored by shop assistants at the counter for 5 minutes, even after you have made it clear you want help. There is a correlation here to how an internet user may feel, when they arrive at a website that has been poorly designed, is difficult to use, unfriendly and slow to load. Making sure that a website has been well thought out and designed with the user in mind, displays a company's unique selling points within easily recognizable eye catching calls for action and has a clear, easy to use menu is key to its success.

Flash Web Design

With recent web design advancements, such as the introduction of Flash animation and high definition video content, impressive websites have been produced to take advantage of much higher levels of visual effects and interaction. However with this 'high end' web design, comes a price, more often than not, web designs which rely heavily upon Flash content are often ridiculously slow to load. They often have a progress bar, which slowly goes across the web browser to signify when the website will finish loading.

This is much like the progress bars that you may be familiar with if you use video editing or 3D rendering software, or if you use games consoles where they are displayed whilst you wait for games to load. Internet users on the whole do not want to wait 3 - 5 minutes for a web page to load even if it does feature high resolution images, animation or video. They want fast informative content rich websites. If they wanted to watch an animation or video they would watch TV.

Good Flash Web Design

This is not to say that Flash animation is all bad news and shouldn't be used in web design. If used subtly and in small amounts it can make a website more visually appealing without slowing the load time down too much. Suitable uses for Flash animation in web design are things such as; Flash banner advertisements, Flash video and interactive Flash forms for online questionnaires or business presentations.

Using Flash for a whole website design however, is not such a good idea. It slows the user's experience down because they have to wait for elements of it to load. Also, sites totally developed in Flash tend to use unfamiliar menu structures and features. This can confuse visitors who just want to quickly interact with the website and not be amazed by the way the menu animates. Just because you can do these things in Flash, it doesn't mean they have any real working value in the real world. They may look pretty, but if they are not functional and only irritate the visitor then they have no real value.

Flash Web Design & SEO

Another argument against using Flash to create a whole website is that it dramatically reduces the effectiveness of your websites' Search Engine Optimisation. Flash web designs are made up of one main file within a web page which search engines find difficult to index. This is because the text within them is usually graphical text and therefore is not usually accessible by search engines. Some recent developments allow some text to be displayed for search engines in Flash websites, but this is nowhere near as effective as text content within traditional HTML based websites.

Don't Write Off Flash in Web Design

Although Flash does have its limitations it also has its good points if used correctly. For instance; Flash animation is usually smaller in file size than traditional gif animation and because of the way it is made the animation flows smoother than gif animation too. Having said this, I would recommend only using Flash in small areas within a site to compliment other imagery that makes up the overall design. Finding a balance between minimal graphical elements, imagery, Flash and good quality informative text is the key to a successful user friendly website. This isn't to say that web design needs be boring. By working with quality web design companies there's no reason why you couldn't have a visually exciting, well designed, easy to use and successful website.

Visually Stimulating Web Design

When visitors first arrive at a website, they want to be impressed and engaged with what the website has to offer. This will be determined by the ways in which the web designer has laid out the website's content text, images and features. Arranging elements such as imagery, text, graphics, flash and video in such a way as to keep the visitor interested in the website is the key to good web design. If a website has poor design and doesn't grab the attention of the visitor in the first few seconds, then it may well be dismissed as just another average website. This ultimately means the visitor will go elsewhere to spend their time and, more importantly, money.

Good Web Design Layout

A lot of time and money is spent making sure that the right elements of websites are positioned in the right places. Companies spend large amounts of money conducting research into how internet users use their websites. This type of research shows where their visitors' eyes concentrate the most, which elements of the website they click on first and generally how they interact and use their websites. Most internet users will look primarily from the top left either across the page, or down the left hand side of the web page through an internet browser via a computer, mobile phone or TV set.

I would hazard a guess, that they are looking for the company's name or logo, their main selling points or slogans and then what the website has to offer in terms of what is featured in the menu. After which their eyes are probably drawn across the page content and over to the right hand side. Successful web design usually takes this into consideration and will ultimately affect the way a website looks.

There are of course rather famous exceptions to this rule for instance one rather well known search engine has a web design which is quite different. The main focus and core functionality in their web design is located right in the centre of the page. This however, isn't any ordinary website with tens or even hundreds of pages of products and services to display, its main focus is its recognisable logo and of course its search box. It does however feature a small minimal menu across the top of the web design, which flows from left to right. So even they have taken onboard some of the research undertaken into internet users' habits. If you go looking at websites after reading this article, I can guarantee that most of the web designs you'll see, will have a left hand menu and a defined header bar with a company logo and slogan across it.

Find high quality professional web design and search engine optimization services at the EC-Plus website; http://www.ec-plus.net Established in 1999, EC-Plus has a strong team of web designers & developers who create successful online brochure & e-commerce websites.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Noah_Back

Don't Let Your Website's Face Deter Your Visitors

2009-07-16T04:09:00.000-07:00

We are all guilty of it...surfing the internet looking for products and services and stumbling upon very horrible-looking websites. You know the websites: yellow boxes with blue writing, tons of flashing pictures, photos, and images; not to mention the font displayed in good old Times Roman 12 pt. And what is the very first thing you do when you so helplessly stumble into one of these nightmares? You immediately lunge at the red "x" to close the site!

With the internet providing everybody and anybody a place to showcase their products and services there was a rush to 'get on the net' in the mid 1990s. This rush rendered the most hideous-looking websites to ever pollute the internet. Well times have changed and simply having a website up and running is not good enough to set you apart from the competition. Surfers are savvy...surfers are smarter...they want quality, they want sites that are not too loud and in your face, they want security, they want sites that are easy to read and easy to navigate.

So when you get ready to develop a new website or give your existing website a face lift, be sure to enlist the talents of a graphic artist to make your site beautiful, and utilize a developer to make the site function and write custom scripts the site may need. By taking this advice, you will not fall into the dark pit of horrible-looking websites. Even though the site may contain great info and good prices...the consumer would never know.

Appearance is everything.

Vanessa Lane is the Senior Web Developer and Chief Executive Officer of Lanitech WEB Design in Roseville, California.She has over 10 years of web design and development experience. Her Firm Lanitech WEB Design specialization in web design firms sacramento and affordable webpage designers sacramento.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vanessa_Lane

5 Things Without Which Your Website is Incomplete

2009-07-16T04:08:00.000-07:00

There are so many things that you can do to make your website as user friendly as possible like:

Wherever possible always try to keep it simple and easily navigable.
Try to have just one or two central messages that you want to 'push'.
Always create a site map. Sitemap is very essential for any business website design. It helps user to navigate your site more easily and get information easily in single click without surfing entire site.
Keep a 'Search' Feature on every page of the website.
In addition, today FAQ page is one of the best user friendly things you can add to your website. This is because most visitors have a few questions and answering the most frequently asked questions on your website make your job easier. Having a FAQ page is a win & win situation.
Place your contact details and contact form to give credibility to your website and confidence to your visitors.

Get PSD to XHTML conversion services for your web design that offers cross browser cross browser compatible, SEO semantic, fast loading, user friendly web pages for best web presence at TIS India.

TIS India is a leading Web Design Company specialized in innovative and usable web designing, graphic designs, PSD to XHTML conversion and other corporate identity solutions.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Manoj_Tiwari

Web Design is The Essence of Your Business

2009-07-16T04:00:00.001-07:00

Web Design is Fun. It is undeniably a practice of design, a process by which problems are solved. For the millions of web surfers out there, your web design is their first impression of your business and your credibility. The key issue in web design is how to add value to the user's experience, how to make them feel that they truly got something out of visiting your web site. User-centered web design is all about giving the control back to the user, which brings us to the term Accessible Web Design - the art of creating webpages that are accessible to everyone regardless of any device in use. No doubt web design is important, but usability in the other hand, is king. This importance will lead you to find a professional to design your web site right. The complexity of the resulting web design is somehow determined by the goals and budget and affordability in this aspect, is in fact a reality.

Design ideas don't have to be hard to find. For you out there that have specific ideas which are ready to be implemented, you just need someone with the technical know-how to turn them into web reality. Get ideas about the latest web design trends and communications concepts by looking analytically at your competitors sites. Evaluating example products is one way to get ideas for detailed design. From these set of ideas, you can then conclude on your final approach on how you want your assigned designer to get the whole thing done.

Flash is already the Web's standard for dynamic web animation. In creating original cutting-edge design there's nothing better than using Flash Web Design. It is by far, a very versatile and popular method to add eye-catching action to your web site. Flash is also probably the trendiest technology currently used in web design. However a slow-loading web page or flash movie makes seconds seem much longer, if you happen to "overdo" it. Flash does not only associate itself with animations but also as great complimentary values to other media such as presentations, videos and audios.

When you create your own web page keep the importance of shape in mind. You don't want certain things to be in the extra large department when other items such as your text is relatively small to keep up with the overall ratio size of the presentation. Another important item to consider in your websites is the level of seduction. Yes, you read that right. If you've ever got lost in the maze of some websites, you'll know the importance of intuitive web design. Seductive websites provide users the reason to stay longer by providing good typography and by not underestimating the importance of navigation. Knowing the importance of this, you cannot afford to take a chance on any trial-and-error method. The importance of writing quality web content is also equally important. Nevertheless, until recently, though, a greater emphasis has been placed on the importance and overall influence of color in the field of web design.

Web design is a complex discipline that involves a wide range of skills. In fact, I'd go as far as to say, web design is information design. In my experience, web design is primarily about the business. Every new web design is the solution to a design problem that can be summed up in a series of constraint questions - Who is my audience? An extraordinary web design is mandatory to a successful business, hence the goal of web design is simply not merely to dazzle, but to deliver information to the widest audience possible. Web design is exciting, it changes day by day. These changes will reflect your company's complete product and service presentation. Web design has always been made up of some basic premises, and if you understand them you can help deliver pages that will impress and illuminate your readers. A successful Web design is paramount to a successful business.

John Teh is a Malaysian Web Designer, currently active in providing web services and solutions to anybody who needs them.

Web Design Malaysia - http://www.motionedgedesign.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Teh

Why Do You Hire a Web Designer?

2009-07-16T03:52:00.000-07:00

There are lots of different reasons people hire web designers:

They don't understand the internet, what it's capable of, and how to use it to their benefit.
They understand the internet, but they don't have the skills necessary to create a web presence for themselves, and don't want some standard ubiquitous template that may or may not meet their needs.
They have some skills, but not enough time/energy to figure out all the details.
They know exactly what they are doing, but don't want/need to do it for themselves.

Rarely do people fall neatly into those categories, however. Often times someone knows a little bit, but needs some help to get going. If you're getting ready to hire someone to help you with your web presence, I recommend that you keep the following in mind:

Get organized. And I don't mean just knowing where you're going to get your domain name and hosting, or the big testimonial you want featured on the Home page. I mean that you are clear about what the goal of you project really is. For example, do you want to attract new customers or service exiting ones, or both? Do you want to enrich your existing brand, or create a new one? Do you want to attract a wide audience, or are you looking for a particular group of people? Once you have a clear goal, make a list of what you might put online to help reach that goal, then solicit advice from people who are experts in web marketing and find out if what you have planned will realistically help you meet that goal. Only once you feel confident that your idea will help serve your goal should you hire a web designer to help you put the plan into action. Many times, a web designer wears both hats, but it's important not to jump straight into what the site will look like before you've talked about what you want your web presence to *do*.
Do your research. Having an idea of what your competition looks like and what they're doing online is critical knowledge. Not only will this help you get more fluent in what your customer/audience will expect from you, but it'll help you talk with your designer about how your ideas will be implemented. For example, it's not enough to know that political candidate websites heavily leverage patriotic colors and iconography... you need to go further into the voice and tone of the site, how their site is organized, and what kind of content they're offering. This will help you position yourself in the marketplace and communicate your wants and needs to your web team. Remember, you're hiring them not because they know about *your* business, but because they know about theirs. Helping them get up to speed on your business so they can create a great solution for you will streamline the process and make sure everyone is playing to their strengths.
Understand your limitations and don't be ashamed of them. This is often the most difficult hurdle to overcome when working towards a successful web presence, but it's important to leverage the expertise of people who fully understand all the available options to be successful. Remember, your goal isn't to acquire a new skill or to prove your intellect, it's to make your web presence work for you. And most likely your business/service/product doesn't require you to be an expert on web design and marketing -- it requires you to be an expert on whatever you're offering. The tough love here is that the less your web team has to dance around your ego, the more efficient your project will be and the more likely that they'll be able to create something that really meets your needs.

In my experience, the most successful projects are those which implement the above tips. They are not only more efficient (thereby saving money), but also encourage a type of communication that benefits the end result. Make sure you're leveraging your web team to the best of your and their ability... they're there to design solutions that make you and your project a success if you'll let them.

Kate McMillan is a freelance web designer in Portland, OR. More information about her and her work can be found here: http://outboxonline.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kate_McMillan

Web Design - Use a Good Font and Background Color Combination to Improve Readability

2009-07-16T03:51:00.000-07:00

You want to make sure you use a font and background color that's easily readable. Certain color combinations are better than others. Choose the wrong combination, and you may frustrate visitors and drive them away. But a good color combination can make the reading experience better.

For instance, if you choose a color combination such as yellow text on a white background, the text will be hard to read. Web site visitors may give up, not bother reading it, and move on to the next site. Or if they decide to read it, they'll have to highlight the text with their mouse cursor so the text will be visible.

A good rule of thumb is to choose a font color that's opposite of the background color. An example would be black text on a white background. Black text on a white background is used a lot because it's easy to read.

Another example could be violet text on a green background.

You can use a formula to calculate which color combination works best. This is a formula I learned in a multimedia course back in school. The formula assumes you know the red, green, and blue (RGB) value of a color.

To find out the RGB value, one way is to load up your Paint program and choose the colors you want in there. When you choose a color, it will show you the red, green, and blue values.

To use the formula, first you pick a color for your background. Then you subtract each red, green, and blue value by 255. Then you take the absolute value of the difference.

For example, if you have an RGB value of (255, 0, 255) for your background, then your font color will have an RGB value of (0, 255, 0). Each value was subtracted by 255. But one of them results in -255. The absolute value of it is taken, which is 255.

Want more web copywriting and Internet marketing tips?
Get your FREE 31-page report along with a FREE newsletter subscription to The Web Copy Letter at http://www.francislui.com/. Visit his site now by clicking on the link.

Francis Lui is a web copywriter with web technical skills.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Francis_Lui

Design Your Own Website Free

2009-07-16T03:47:00.000-07:00

The Internet is home to lots of different websites that each sports their own unique designs. A lot of the designs can be so inspiring that you may end up being convinced to design a website of your own. Some people that have money to spare buy website templates or use the money to let a professional do the job.

Just because you don't feel like spending any money doesn't mean that it is totally impossible for you to design your own website free. There are a lot of professional and non-professional designers alike that utilize free means and the results are surprisingly impressive. Here are four ways that you can design your own website free.

Using Online Templates Builders

There are lots of services that are trying to get customers in using their web services for increasing their advertising revenue. In return, these services offer online template builders so people can create custom websites based on their own preferences. These template builders are usually designed for people that have no experience in web design what so ever. Some services have better templates than others so you may find yourself checking out sites one by one until you find the site with the best service.

Using Free WYSIWYG Editors

Free WYSIWYG or "What You See Is What You Get" editors are popular amongst designers that would rather work without opening up their Internet browser. These WYSIWYG editors are designed to make it easy for people that know how to use word processors to design websites with ease. They sport a similar interface to word processors so you can focus more on the design rather than the coding behind it. Most WYSIWYG editors allow you to view the source code anyway so the sky is the limit when it comes to fine tuning your website. Adobe Dreamweaver isn't the only WYSIWYG editor as there are plenty of software that help design your own website free.

Using HTML Resources and Tutorials

If you don't think your WYSIWYG editor is getting you anywhere, you can always find HTML resources and tutorials that will help you design your own website free. Many of these resources are free anyway and the results should be productive as long as the detailed steps are followed. HTML resources may even include friendly snippets that can be pasted onto websites that haven't been finished yet so that there is added functionality or design on the website.

Using Other Website Templates

Templates lay out the framework on how websites should look like on the template author's perspective. Whether you agree with his perspective or not, you can always make changes to these templates as long as you have the permission to. You can design your own website free by substituting graphics with your own graphics and change the layout of the template however you wish.

It is really possible to design your own website free and the results don't look cheap if you have good creative skills. It is important to have a website editing software to effectively apply these tips.

For more great information on Design Your Website visit our new website http://www.myecommercecenter.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Elijah_James

4 Critical Web Design Elements For the Success of a Website

2009-07-16T03:45:00.000-07:00

Web design is perhaps the most important aspect of a website. It has a direct effect on the appeal and popularity, and actually determines how successful the site is going to be. A site that is poorly designed will most likely be a failure, no matter how much marketing you do to promote it. Even if your site attracts visitors, it must have the appeal to make them stay. Site owners should learn as much as possible about web design, so that they can create pleasing designs that are a pleasure for the visitor and a financial success for the owner.

Basically, web design refers to the development of web pages to make up a website. Each web page should present information that is relevant to the subject of the site. In the past, web design only involved the development of the content and appearance of a site, but as the Internet has become more popular and the competition has become more intense, web developers have begun to expand into other design concepts to create a more effective formula for online success. The design concerns of a non-commercial site are varied, and are mostly dependent on the objectives of its owner. On the other hand, commercial sites have a fixed set of design concerns and issues that are paramount to having online success.

Content refers to the information (text, graphics, videos, pictures, audio, etc.) that is presented in a website. Having engaging and useful content will make your site more enjoyable and worthwhile to visit. You should make sure that your content is relevant to the subject of your site. If you're selling car wash products, you should only provide information about car washing, car washing products and how your car wash products benefit the visitor. Going off topic from the main subject is definitely detrimental and will drive your visitors away in disgust. It is important that the information is well-written and interesting, so that it can compel your visitors to take the action you want.

Usability of a website determines how easy it is for your visitors to find information and navigate about the site. If your site has an easy-to-use interface and a convenient navigation system, your visitors will actually enjoy going through your site. Internet users do not like to spend excessive time trying to figure out how to get the information they want. Ideally, they wish to get the information they are looking for in just one or two clicks. You have to make the information on your site easily accessible with good navigation in oder to not drive away visitors.

Appearance of your website is important. The graphics and the written content on your site should complement each other, so that there will be a certain sense of consistency throughout. If your site has a consistent theme, it will look more professional and appealing to the visitors. The layout of graphics and text on a web page is somewhat of a science. There have been many studies on what works and what will cause visitors to leave. For example, there are specific areas on a web page that people naturally look within the first moments of visiting a site. If these key areas are appealing then a visitor has a much higher probability of staying. If these areas are trashy then the visitor is likely to make a quick exit.

Visibility of a website is required in order to draw adequate visitor traffic from the world wide web. In order to be successful you will have to improve or boost the visibility of your website to gain the traffic you need. This can be achieved through online marketing strategies, such as paid advertising and search engine optimization. You can actually improve your search engine visibility by using keywords and key phrases relevant to your topic in your design and content. Submitting articles to article directories and creating back links (links from other websites) to your site is another way to promote site visibility.

Having a good web design will not only bring more traffic to your site, it will also ensure visitors will stay for a longer time to explore. If the visitors feel comfortable and compelled, they may just buy something from you, use your service or perhaps recommend your site to others. You will only stand to gain if you spend more time and effort to create a well-designed site.

This article provided by Woody Longacre. Internet Web Design. We invite you to visit the Web Hosting Goods Store for Web Hosting and Domain Registration.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Woody_Longacre

Your Website Layout

2009-07-16T03:38:00.000-07:00

When creating a website, there are many key aspects of good web design that need to be taken into consideration in order for your to not only create a great website, but to keep traffic coming back again and again.

If you are creating your website on your own, versus downloading and implementing a ready to use template, there are some very important factors you need to keep in mind with regards to the importance of good, simple layouts.

Primarily, you want your website easy to navigate; there is no sense making your customers frustrated and angry by not being able to navigate your layout or read your content. Your goal is to keep and increase your traffic, not drive it away.

There are many tips and tricks of good web design that you can certainly employ when building your websites layout that will make sure your website looks top notch. Among these include the basic premise of keeping it simple. If your website is complex and people can not find their way around, you have just lost potential customers.

Keeping the layout simple is also to your benefit because search engines will be able to categorize your website properly and you may find yourself at the top of the rankings pages depending on your content.

The next two aspects of a simple layout go hand in hand: colors and font. You want to make sure you use pleasing, contrasting colors as this will not only enhance the readability of your website, but will have an overall pleasing effect for your customers... the font you use is important for similar reasons.

The last couple of tricks for good web design and creating simple layouts involves the mechanical aspects of a website. First, you want to keep your websites dimensions in mind when writing your code and placing your content. There are dimension guidelines that will tell you watch your margins so your customers do not have to continually scroll to keep up with your content.

As for your content, you want to try and be considerate of the file sizes that have to load when someone navigates to your page. If your website takes forever to load, your customers are going to get easily frustrated and head off in to the World Wide Web in search of a place that won't waste their time.

Discover more about good Small Business Website Design and SEO practices or read More Web Design Articles

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=W_Sedlak

Build a Website the Geekless Way

2009-07-16T03:34:00.000-07:00

In the past it was often assumed that you needed to be a geek to build your own website. Maybe this was true once upon a time, but times have changed and now it is easier than ever for a lay person to design and build their own website.

You don't need to have a business to benefit from having your own website either. Maybe you have a family member who likes to write stories, who would like to publish them on their own website. They could even grow a fan base to whom they will be able to market ebooks.

Wouldn't it be great if they could get a website of their own where they can post their stories and update it when they have a next installment written or a new story to tell? Gifted they may be in their story writing, though web master? - perhaps not.

For that reason its best to find website building software that will allow them to easily design and buildin their own sites - one that can accommodate expansion into books sales would be ideal. And what about yourself? Even if you currently don't have a business to speak of, you may have a wealth of information based on years of experience at a particular hobby which you would like to share.

Have you wanted your own website for a long time but have always put if off because you didn't think you would be able to build one yourself - and could not justify the expense to have someone build it for you? Eventually you may like to use your knowledge to create an income or maybe make products and sell them online. You could design a webpage that has audio and video to demonstrate your craft, how to use your products, or show how something in particular is done.

To have a website building software that was suitable to your family's needs as well as your own is ideal. Designing your own website can be easy and user friendly, you don't need to be proficient in HTML. A good website building programme will be user-friendly and suitable for all levels of expertise.

Future growth potential is another feature to look for when choosing a website building software package. Even though you may be a novice at building your own website now, your skills will improve, and you will want to add more and more features to your websites.

So you need to find software that is not only user-friendly, but which also has some professional capabilities too.

All of these features come included with Xsitepro 2 the website builder of choice for millions of people.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Schramko

Best E-commerce Website Builder For Beginners

2009-07-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

Are you a small business owner? Are you looking for ways to develop your business and make more people aware of your services? Are you concerned that you don't yet have an internet presence? Do you want an easy E-commerce website builder?

Are you wondering how you could achieve all of the above at minimum cost in these cash strapped times. Are you looking for a good ROI on any investment that you make?

A sure fire way of developing your business is to have a web site presence, and if you already have, to make it even better and keep it up to date easily and regularly at little cost. Therefore, here are some simple and cost effective ways of doing just that.

Firstly, decide what it is that you really want to get across to the public about your business. What you sell, whether it's a service or hard goods. Then decide how you will offer that service or those goods. Will they be especially competitively priced or better quality or bigger sizes than someone else will have?

You can decide on this by looking at your competition both online and offline, see hat they do and how they do it make a list of each one and then compare them to yourself. Then try to work out where you can become different to them and if you can decide whether that will entice more customers to you?

Even in a difficult financial climate, price isn't the be all and end all. Service and testimonials (from your customers, if you don't have any ask the ones you know what they think, you will be surprised!) are much better ways to develop the unique benefits of your business online. Price will always cause a downward spiral and only the strongest will survive. That's not the way to go.

So how do you go about getting a strong online presence? Easy build a good website, if you do it yourself or have one of your employees do it then you will build a better quality site than if you had someone do it for you but you will need an easy website builder. This is because you know more about your business than anyone else. However well you brief someone they don't "feel" your business. They are not as passionate about it as you are... fact!

What you need is an easy website builder software package that is tax efficient and can put together a great e-commerce website for your company with minimum fuss, upload it to your web space and make it easy to update on a regular basis. Software that will get it ranked well in the search engines for your keywords (read "unique company benefits to your customers"). A software website building package that teaches you all you need to know as you go along.

Download a free brochure right now to learn about a software program that will do all of the above, in record time and without the bother and expense of outsiders so you can concentrate on developing your business and be the first out of the recession!.

It's not difficult or expensive to start your own e-commerce website for your business, you can watch how easy it is right here right now! http://www.bestwebsitebuilder.info

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_Harris

How to Get Started With Your First Website and Make Money With It

2009-07-16T03:31:00.000-07:00

To get started with a successful website, you need to have a successful idea. Luckily, that idea can be just about anything. Look around your home and I guarantee that you will discover many things that you could turn into ideas. Do you have a large collection of DVD's? Start a movie-themed site. Have a extravagant garden? Start a site to show off your green thumb. Do you have a pet? Well start a site about pets. There are no dumb ideas, and all of your interests are likely shared by thousands worldwide.

After you have decided on the theme of your site, you will need to find a domain. There are places that offer free domain names, but even if you have to buy your domain, you probably won't spend more than $10. You should pick a domain name that is descriptive, easy to remember, and reasonably short.

When it comes to designing your site, your domain provider will likely offer to sell you some editing program, but I wouldn't recommend it. There are many free HTML editors that can be found with a simple Google search. The best thing is, you don't even need to know anything about web editing to get started. I suggest you try to design your site to be clean and easy on the eyes. Don't make it too cluttered or generic-looking. Make it a site people won't mind visiting again.

The content of your site can be whatever you want. If you love pets, then post pictures of yours, tell stories about them, and give tips on caring for them. Make it possible for visitors to contribute to your site with comments or user-submitted content. If you make it seem like a community, people will keep coming back.

Now if you want to make money with your site, there are several things you could do. One is to charge a membership fee. If you charge a fee of just $4 a month, even if you only get a few thousand members, you make a good amount of money. An alternative to this is to become an affiliate. Check affiliate directories like Clickbank or AssociatePrograms, and you will likely find products related to your site's theme. Post these products as banners or recommend them to users, and you will get paid when people buy those products.

Follow these steps and I know you will find yourself enjoying your own website and making some money as well.

If you would like to learn more about building your website, increasing its popularity, and make SERIOUS money from it I recommend the guides and step-by-step video tutorials at: http://www.TheMaverickMoneyGuide.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Z._Henderson

Developing a Website That Generates Traffic and Increases Sales

2009-07-16T03:29:00.000-07:00

When you own a business, your website is one of your most important tools that can be used to reach new customers and generate higher sales. Whether you have an established website that is not currently working for you, or you are a complete newbie to the online marketing world, improving your website so that it generates traffic and increases sales is the right thing for your business.

Without a high quality website that attracts visitors and provides you with a way to capture information, you are not using the Internet's power to its full potential. The information below can provide you with an idea of why a good website is so important for your businesses' bottom line.

Why is a Quality Business Website so Important?

A high-quality business website provides you with a way to capture the enormous amount of traffic that is on the Internet. It also makes your business more accessible to your customers. It does this, by giving website users a way to contact you or find out valuable information about your products or services without having to get on the phone, and during non-business hours.

There are literally millions of people searching the Internet for various reasons on any given day. If you are not trying to capture some of those visitors, then you are losing out on many potential sales each month. Just as your store gives you a physical presence a high-quality website provides you with an online Internet presence.

Benefits of Having a Good Website

As a business owner, there are many benefits to having a quality website that is able to not only generate traffic but also increase sales for your company. The first benefit that a business website can provide you with is it enables you to have access to customers that you otherwise might not have contact with.

Without a website, you are only able to reach your potential market through traditional means, and not those potential customers that primarily use the internet for their purchase research. By enlisting the help of an internet marketing service company, you can create a highly effective direct response website that enables you to reach out to Internet traffic.

By adding an opt-in form to a quality website, you can increase your earning potential each year by at least 20%. An opt-in form provides a means of capturing visitors' contact information. This is very valuable as it will allow you to send current and potential customers information about promotions, important updates, and special sales events throughout the year.

The visitors on your list will be people that you know are already interested in the services that you are offering, and by sending out a sales message to them your rate of return will be much higher than with an untargeted ad in the newspaper.

One of the most important benefits that a business website provides is that it allows you to remain a step above your competition. If other related local businesses do not currently have websites, you are already reaching far more people than they are. By creating a high-quality website that can generate massive traffic and drive sales, you are ensuring that your site will be listed before the competitions' in the search engine rankings.

How to Develop a High Quality Business Website

Unless you are professional, the best way to develop a high-quality business website is to seek out an Internet marketing company or web designer that can create a customized plan for your business. These companies have experience marketing to those online, and they can help your website by marketing it for targeted driven traffic, and ensuring that it gets ranked well within the search engine listings.

Off-line business owners can increase their revenue by creating a business website or revamping their old one. Without a high-quality site that is able to generate traffic and increase your sales, your online presence will do you no good. Enlist the help of a professional Internet marketing company to develop a website that will help your business thrive.

For more information on website development and online marketing, contact Aaron Howard, Business Development Manager with CU Innovative Marketing at http://www.CUInMarketing.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Aaron_Howard

Developing a Website That Generates Traffic and Increases Sales

2009-07-16T03:20:00.000-07:00

Why is a Quality Business Website so Important?

Benefits of Having a Good Website

How to Develop a High Quality Business Website

For more information on website development and online marketing, contact Aaron Howard, Business Development Manager with CU Innovative Marketing at http://www.CUInMarketing.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Aaron_Howard

Web Design-Impact Beyond Measure

2009-07-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

Like a ‘mind-boggling’ yet enthralling Pablo Picasso painting, it is essential for websites to create captivating and thought-provoking material to lure an audience and, secure a solid fan base. Naturally, abstract paintings require quite a bit of out-of-the-box thinking when deciphering the artists’ vision, thought and message. This is the kind of allure that a website needs to uphold so that it can become successful over time. By ensuring that users are sufficiently stimulated on a continual basis companies will eventually attain devoted subscribers. This is what every company desires, though the trick is to develop a site that is not clad with complicated design elements (which could affect usability) and bland content that’ll bore browsers to tears, but to establish an effective balance.

Of course, if a website does not contain substance one cannot expect a great response or loyal following, now can you?

According to research, a website that has relevant and informative content can help to position a company as professional in view of the interested and targeted consumer. If a website can clearly and efficiently show a potential customer that the company is knowledgeable and up to date in their field of expertise, the consumer becomes confident and trusting of the services offered. Take into account that a web site is multi-functional entity that serves as a communication tool, thus it plays a central role in improving the impact and image of a brand. Consider your website a personal interaction with both current and potential consumers. Because of this very notion, even the slightest ‘balls-up’ can jeopardize a company’s reputation. Yet, however gripping a website’s content may be design elements have a dramatic, if not crucial impact and contribution to make.

There are a few prominent aspects of a website that is greatly influenced by web design. Keep in mind that web design’s influence on the success of a website runs deep. These are but a few significant and fundamental elements that are magnificently affected by web design.

Usability is key

When a user punches a few keywords on a keyboard, instant and relevant information and a no fuss policy is expected. Instance coffee and fast-foods bears testament to how today’s world has evolved into a fast-paced, ‘I want it now’ society. The Internet is certainly a result of this mindset. Life has become easier, like baking a cake from a box. Most users have a short attention span, when it comes to finding the information that they need and want. Because of this very reason, usability is a vital. As far as making content easy to find, with good web page design, a user should not have to wonder what to do next. Navigation is there for a reason and, makes thing easier and get information to the user ASAP!-which is what you want. The next step should always obvious. The easier it is for customers to find what they are looking for the likelier they’ll buy or enquire.

It’s like being stuck in the queue at customs at the airport, waiting for your turn to be serviced. Frustrating isn’t it?

It’s been noted that too often web sites are focused on looking attractive without considering the user. Many have won prestigious design awards, yet perform extremely poorly and as a result lose customers by the thousands. According to research 50% plus of online sales are lost because visitors aren’t able to navigate through a website and find what they are looking for. Another factor that plays a major role is how long it takes for a website to load. Research states that it makes good sense to ensure that a website loads fast. Studies have shown that if visitor are forced to wait for more than 8-10 seconds for a page to load, clients run a serious risk of losing potential consumers.

As a rule of thumb, every single web page should load in at least 8 seconds or less, preferably on a 56k modem.

Flash has been named as a huge factor when it comes to the usability of a website. However, Flash has become a popular tool in internet marketing and is now widely used across the web. But, there can be drawbacks so it needs to be carefully determined whether or not a site will benefit from its use. One of the benefits of using Flash is the visual appeal of it. It can be used with navigation, by adding interesting visual graphics. Although, one disadvantage about using Flash is that not all internet browsers have a Flash player moreover, not all users may want to download it. Needless to say, Flash technology tends to discourage usability for very apparent reasons. Flash can cause bad design, break the Web’s fundamental interaction style and it also consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing a site’s core value. Approximately 99 % of the time, the presence of Flash on a website hampers the usability and distracts the attention from the site’s core value and purpose.

Perhaps, Web designers interested in enhancing usability and their site's overall business presence should use Flash sparingly?

By focusing on improving usability, web designers are able to keep users interested, for the long haul.

Our lives are filled with colour. What would the life be like if we lived ‘black and white’ lives? Colour adds interest and can determine whether a website is fresh and alive looking or it can also create a dull and dreary image, which is not what any client wants. In the world of web design, bad colour schemes can make a site look unfriendly, amateurish, and inaccessible. So, it comes as no surprise that over 80% of visual information is related to colour. There are various reactions to colour which are instinctual and cross universal and cultural boundaries. According to a 1997 survey by Cooper Marketing Group, Oak Park, IL, power is represented by the color scarlet red for 25% of respondents, black for 17% and bright violet blue for 13%. More than 55% of those surveyed chose one of these three colors out of 100 colors. Fragility was most represented by pale pink (27%), white (9%), and pale lavender (9%).

Note that colors can be perceived by people as different moods and emotions. When designing a site one should consider the mood that needs to be portrayed. These moods can vary from person to person, depending on their life experiences. Web design which achieves successful marketing results is sensitive to the cultural, instinctual and iconic meanings of colour in relation to the product or service being promoted. More importantly, it also considers the cultural backgrounds and gender of the targeted clientele. Avoiding the extremes of sheer garishness and boredom, effective design displays symphonic colour arrangements of shades, tints, tones and complementarities to tantalise and maintain interest. Adding textures too can alter colours - a roughly textured surface makes a colour seem darker, while a smooth surface lightens the same color.

Although, it also stands a designer in good stead to know what colours signify. Different shades of colours work well in different situations. For example, using very saturated colours all the time is not always good, by using shades that can make certain things stand out more or less than others. For example, it would be good to have elements in the main content stand out more than in the sidebar, because that is where you want to draw attention. When making sites you have to use your common sense when picking colours. For example, if you were making a business site you wouldn’t use bright pink, because this would look childish and unprofessional. Another example, if you were making a laser eye clinic site, you wouldn’t use red as this would imply danger and blood. Scary.

These days computers support millions of colours (16bit or 32bit) meaning the compatible colours between systems have increased. The new palette, based on 16bit systems, is the web smart palette which supports 4096 web smart colours. When changing colours you must ensure the contrast between the colour and the text on it is enough for people with poor eyesight to see, or at least offer a high contrast version. There are sites with grey text on slightly greyer background making it very hard to read, this is bad accessibility wise. Also note some colours can be annoying together, for example some people have difficulty looking at green and red together, green text on red would be a very bad idea. In most instances, finer details are forgotten and falls by the wayside – consider color blind people on the web, ensure they have options to see a version they can actually read.

The Impact of Web Design on Conversion Rate
A simple description of conversion on the web reads as follows; Conversion refers to the form that an interested party fills out in order to buy a product from a company. A Web Site Visitor Conversion occurs when a user takes key action to do so. Conversions can be macro (the most significant action) or micro (one of the many actions that precede the macro conversion). For most sites, conversions are what can be directly or indirectly traced to a financial return. Spending money on search engine marketing or online advertising might be a waste of your resources if a site is a poor converter. Inevitably, conversion determines website profitability.
Once again it is essential to make a web site to easy to use. If not the less chance there’ll be of people buying.

Interestingly enough, making a site accessible is a legal obligation in many countries. Inaccessibility can affect sales, as visitors will find the site impossible to use and go elsewhere. Apparently a typical inaccessible site could be losing 5% of potential sales because of this. Many designers only pay attention to Internet Explorer. The justification for this is usually that 99% of the site's users use IE. It never seems to occur to the designers that perhaps the reason they have so few visitors with other browsers is that their site is fundamentally broken - it doesn't work in anything else.

Percentages of people not using IE varies from site to site.
Approximately 80-85% of web users are using IE on Windows, which means that an average site that does not work in anything else could stand to lose 15-20% of sales. Visibility is also an important factor. For instance, when a user decides to buy a product, they add it to a shopping basket. How do they add it? By clicking a button or link. But what happens when they can't see the button? They go elsewhere. There are plenty of sites out there with buttons that are too subtle, or don't say the right thing, or are hidden away at the bottom of the page. "Add" is considered an ineffective button text. "Buy" is fairly successful. "Add xxx To Your Basket" is great. "Add xxx to Your Basket" in big letters on a big, bright button, near the top of the page, is even better. Calls to action, like this, don't have to be bland but they must be obvious and clear.
Sites which are just call to action according to research could earn a 1% to 30% increase in sales as a result.

The impact the web design has on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

It is a known that having a Web site rank well in search engine results for searches on specific keywords/phrases. If a Web site doesn’t have a page appearing in the top 10 search engine result positions (SERPs) the chances of someone clicking on the listing, and actually visiting the site, will drop dramatically. Optimizing a site and content for a search engine, for a better ranking in SERPs, is known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), yet many Web developers/designers either don’t take time to code a site properly or don’t know how to do proper SEO. The basics of code optimization are just sound HTML coding practices; when followed, they go a long way toward SEO. There is a lot you can do to optimize your Web site for search engines from the code level.

The first rule of SEO is not to design your site in such a way that the code prevents a spider from being able to index it. This means avoiding pages which are 100% graphics and no text, such as pages that contain all images, or are Flash-only. Furthermore, if the first thing a user encounters is a log-in page, before being able to see the site’s content, then that’s what a spider will see and it won’t go any further, either. If you’re planning to build a Web site entirely in Flash, Don’t. If you have no choice, then read my previous column, Search Engine Optimization and Non-HTML Sites. To find out what a spider sees on your site, run a spider simulator on a given page. The simulator will show you what text the spider sees and what links it finds. There are many good ones on the market at various prices. If you’re looking for something that’s free, I’d suggest Search Engine Spider Simulator.

There’s certainly plenty of room for further impact, depending on the subject matter, in regards to information architecture, copy writing, interface coding as part of web design or the layer of graphic design (usability). Web design encourages confidence and trust in the site as it is able to look legitimate and “professional”, depending on the design elements chosen. Web design can maintain a clear, consistent and unified message and operation. Obvious as it may be, a good site should be memorable. Being memorable, and making sure you stick in the user's mind, is dependant on a lot of factors. It’s no good if your visitors remember why you are great but don't remember your name.

Evidently, web design is much more than just a pretty picture.

Do you need the creative digital genius of a web designer? If so take a look at ApprovedIndex.co.uk where you will be sure to find the right web designer for your needs. Approved Index allows you to find, compare and request free advice and quotes from leading UK based Web Design Companies, among many other services, enabling you to find the best value for money for your needs.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tara_McGovern

Ideas for Web Design

2009-07-04T02:11:00.000-07:00

Whenever a web designer gets a web design project, he or she will require to take a step back and go through the research process in order to complete the job. The research process is a tedious process, it determines how well, and successful will the result of your web design. Ideas for web design will share with you how to go through that research process smoothly and obtain results.

One fine day, you received a call from some client and he requests you to design a website for his company. Over the phone, he briefly tells you what his company is about and asks about the prices, you then fixed an appointment with him for discussion. You will probably get excited about it and starts to get more details of the company by checking them on Google, and thinks about some prelim ideas for the website. At this stage, your research process has already started.

RETREIVING THE DETAILS:

After meeting up with the client, you get a lot of details that will assist you in your design process. This details applies even when you are designing a personal website.

1. Nature of the Company
2. Client Preferences (Example websites?)
3. Target Audiences (kids? Young adults? Everyone in the world?)
4. Platform (Flash? Html? Php? Asp? )

By organizing these details, you get a bigger picture of:

1. What are you going to design?
2. What style of design are you approaching?
3. Whom you should design for?
4. How will your design work?
5. How will your design please both the audiences and the client in order to be successful?

DETERMINING THE STYLE:

With the information you have on hand, its time to determine the style. For a start, you should base on the client’s description of his company, his nature of the company to give a rough gauge on the design style. Examples below:

Example 1:
Web Hosting business >> High tech web design, sleek and professional design

Example 2:
Dolls and Toys business >> Kiddy, Girly, Colorful, Fun design

COLOR THEMES:

Having a good and suitable color theme on your web design will give users a pleasing experience while surfing through the web site you designed. One of the important techniques is to get a color chart from your local art store or use some color chooser tools to aid in your color selection. Your color theme will affect the mood and feel you want to create. Colors also have their own meanings. For example, white is clean, blue is cool and corporate, having a white and blue color theme gives you a clean and corporate web design. Orange and yellow are warm and friendly colors, Grey is cool, combining a Orange-Grey theme will give you a friendly and fun mood. Dark colors are also popular among many, because they easily matched other bright colors. A common match is using a black background and light colored text as a combination.

There are thousands and one meaning to choose your color theme. Whether your color theme turns out successful depends heavily on the first step “Determining the style” of your website.

PHOTOS & GRAPHICS:

After getting the colors done, its time to think about the graphics and images. As a graphic says a thousand words, it is good to think about how you want to approach this portion. Here are some recommendations you can try:

1. Stock photos – Some are free, some requires you to pay a certain amount before providing you with high resolutions image. If your client has the money and there are suitable photos he would like to use, this is the way to go. Searching in Google for “stock photos” will give you plenty of results on this.

2. Take your own photos – When budget is involve, usually the project will require you to take a relevant photos and use them as supporting images on the website. Having a mid-range camera should do the trick as images for website are all on low resolution. Seldom there is a chance for you to use an image more than 640 x 480 pixels.

3. Creating Graphics Images – A web design will always need custom-made graphics images. For example, icons for a Shoe section, button for submitting information. You will need some skills in creating the graphics of your needs, or you will feel stuck while designing. Consider looking for tutorials on creating certain effects, like rounded corners, Mac alike buttons, pattern backgrounds and more. Learn about vector graphics tool like Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Fireworks. They can help you to create graphics, mockups and layout fast and efficiently. This will greatly aid in your next web design project.

INSPIRATION AND REFERENCES:
If you already have some inspiration on how to design the layout, great, but if you do not, consider looking at related websites for some references on how they are being done. A search in Google also reveals some websites of the same genre. You can also check out ready-made templatesas well. I am not teaching you to copy exactly, but as a new learner, you should take reference and see how they are being designed.

Why bother looking at them?
Reference sites will give you ideas on usability, color theme, ideas on relevant images, navigation, features and many more guides to work on your web design project. Always consider them as useful references to help you whenever you need inspiration and ideas for your web design. It is all about looking more, reading more and getting your eyes and brain more exposed to the web design styles. www.sitecritic.net has alot of website reviews by different web designers all over the world and is worth taking a look.

Final Say
I hope this article has been helpful to give you some ideas for your next web design project. In this web design industry, it is a never ending journey of learning. By reading more and seeing how others create, you will be more aware the next time you design your client’s or your own web site.

Bernard Peh is a great passioner of web technologies and one of the co-founders of Sitecritic.net Web Design Ideas. He works with experienced web designers and developers for more than 5 years, developing and designing commercial and non-commercial websites. During his free time, he does website reviews, freelance SEO and PHP work.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bernard_Peh

Website Design - Things to Include

2009-06-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of different aspects that go into website design, and while including as many features as you can might seem like a good idea at first, this can quickly lead to a cluttered website. On a similar note, too few features can make a site look bare, which will cause most users to simply hit their "back" button. Having the right balance of key components of a site and extra features is a good way to attract users, and in this article we'll go over some of the things your site should always include, and some of the things you can skip.

Navigation bars are popular features in website design that make sites easy to move around in and give the site a sort of professional quality. You might also try using images as links to different aspects of your site, or have the entire site contained within a Java or Flash application for a unique approach to how it looks. If you do use an applet for the main part of your site, be careful with how you use audio such as music and sound effects, as well as moving objects and animations, as these can make websites seem overly busy and cluttered. If you use animations for navigation, like when a user moves between two parts of a site, keep them short and simple, otherwise they can quickly become annoying. When in doubt, keep it as simple as possible.

Your site should also have contact information if it is for a business or a personal news bulletin like a blog or family chat center. Keeping this contact information limited depending on how you want it used is important, and you should never post a personal phone number on the internet unless you want a lot of advertisements or potentially harassing calls. Having a support e-mail for a business or a personal e-mail for a personal website is a good website design idea, but you should present e-mail addresses like this: yourname [at] suchandsuch.com. This will keep automated programs that look for e-mails from sending you spam.

There are a lot of different website design ideas that you may or may not need for your website, and ultimately it's up to you to decide what your site needs and doesn't. The main thing to keep in mind is that simple, easy to use sites are most popular with users.
website design company, website development company

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matthew_McKernan

Website Design Schools For an Exciting Career

2009-06-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

For an exciting career that can take you a long way in today's world of computers and Internet marketing, website design schools can help you reach your goal. With even the most basic education in website design, you can count on a lifetime of excellent employment as a website designer.

Although relatively new, the field of website design is constantly evolving, and it is essential for website designers to keep abreast of emerging technology. Website design schools are in the business of keeping current, so they can provide you with the latest techniques and methods used by professional website designers.

Training in website design will place the greatest emphasis on the areas of graphic art and electronic media. Students learn to use the latest web design and computer-based design and illustration software, such as GoLive, DreamWeaver, and FrontPage. Students will gain proficiency in HTML, XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Website design schools also offer instruction in e-commerce, Internet marketing, scripting and authoring--in short, everything needed to create appealing webpage layouts that are easily navigated.

An Associate degree from any of the good website design schools would qualify you for entry-level employment; however, many businesses insist that employees possess a Bachelor degree (BA) or even a Master degree (MA). Related majors might include Visual Art, Graphic Design, Web Design, or Computer Aided Design (CAD).

If you are interested in learning more about what it takes to join the fast-paced world of website design, why not select a few website design schools on our website today? Submit a request for more information and you will soon be on your way to a rewarding career as a professional website designer.

If you would like to learn more about Website Design Schools we urge you to visit our website today.

DISCLAIMER: Above is a GENERAL OVERVIEW and may or may not reflect specific practices, courses and/or services associated with ANY ONE particular school(s) that is or is not advertised on SchoolsGalore.com.

Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved by Media Positive Communications, Inc.
Notice to Publishers: Please feel free to use this article in your Ezine or on your Website; however, ALL links must remain intact and active.

Michael Bustamante is a staff writer for Media Positive Communications, Inc. Find Training in Website Design, as well as Colleges, Universities, Vocational Schools, and Website Design Schools at SchoolsGalore.com, your educational resource to locate schools.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Bustamante

Discover How To Make Your Web Design Easier

2009-06-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

Whenever I thought of web design my face would frown, I just hated the fact that I had to do any kind of web design. I just couldn't see why web design was simple for others and not for me.
Well, that all changed when I discovered this simple program, a web design machine made for those who just don't understand that you can do it yourself if, you would only keep your web design as simple as possible.

Since using this program I have been able to launch two websites with my own web design style within two months, these websites aren't perfect, but they do look very professional.
And, they carry my touch, yes, at last I can boost to my friends how easy web design is for me, because they have no clue that I am using my little secret weapon for my web design.
What does it take to design your own website?

Now, for those who don't understand what it takes to design your own website from scratch, I will give you five important steps you need to master, before you can get your website to the next level.

Five steps for perfected web design:

1) You Need Some Type Of Web Design SoftwareNo one and I repeat no one, is doing web design the expensive way (The truth: Some are still wasting money paying for web design). Those who has enough money, pay for their web design, and those who can't will have to get their hands on a easy to use web design software that gets the job done.

2) You Need To Know Some HTMLNo matter what type of web design software your using, you must educate yourself with a little HTML. There is no way around that. Once you get the feel for simple little HTML code snippets, you will notice that you never ever need to know more than that, because you already have my little secret weapon ( My secret web design software program, that I will lead you to very soon).

3) You Need To Know How To Layout Your WebsiteWow, another killer, I had no clue how or what to do, much less layout a web site. That all changed when I bought my little secret weapon, it came with a manual loaded with tips on not only how to use the software, but also how to layout your website template.

4) You Need To Master Internal LinkingIf you going to design your own website, you must know how to internally link you website together. Ah, well, not really if you have my secret web design software you won't need to know how. This is taken of by the program, it creates all your internal linking, without you even understand how it's done, isn't that cool.

5) You Need To Keep Your Web Design SimpleThis one should have been number one, because it is so important and yet so overlooked. Look around the web and notice the top sites online, they are all use very simple web design with lots of white space. Don't get flashy if your building a website for profit. Look at Google and Yahoo, they are very simple and that's what you need to do when you design your website.

Anyway, I have given you some tips that should set your web design on fire, if you follow and study successful web sites online, you will see the trend, simplicity wins the web design war.
And now, for the long awaited secret weapon, just browse over to this simple web designed site and watch the video, you will understand why this is a secret weapon that only the guru's use, once you try it.

Be advised, your web design doesn't get return visitors, it is well written and informative content, so why spend thousands on web design, while searchers are only looking for information.

Alexander Marlin, Ebenezer St. Maarten A.N. He only uses simple web design tricks and teaches you how to build a website that isn't an eye sore. One of his many profitable websites can be found at http://how-to-build-website.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alexander_Marlin

Optimal Website Design

2009-04-12T10:15:00.001-07:00

Optimal website design is the art of logical navigation.

It will offer consistency while providing useful, quality information that is attractive to the eye and easy to understand. A well designed site will lead your viewers
to the starting point and direct them through
your site without confusing them.

While there are many ways to design a website there are
a few basic design principles that will help you create
a site that is user friendly and attractive.

1. Use lots of white space.

Don't feel that because you have a whole screen you need
to fill it up with 'stuff'. Your page should follow a clean outline. Include your site name at the very top. Below that, list the subject of your page followed by information on your topic. Leave adequate space between each section.

Don't cram a lot of pictures and ads on your site. If you have
an ad, keep it off to the side or subtly intersperse it between
your text. The idea is not to overwhelm your reader with a
lot of advertisements.

It's best to keep your text on a white background. If you
do choose a colored background be careful that your text
doesn't blend into the background making it difficult to
read.

2. Don't use animation and flashing objects.

As advertisers we feel the need to get our viewers attention.
This is important but we need to do it gracefully. Flashing
objects and scrolling images distract your visitors and take
away from the content. If your product is better demonstrated
with animation, music or some other multi-media, allow your
viewer to select the option. Don't force it on them.

3. Include an 'about' link.

Allow your viewers to find out about who you are and what
you are about. Include a biography and some background
on why you are in the business you're in or why you created
your website. By helping them to get to know you, they will
find it easier to develop a trust. If they can like you and trust you, they will feel a lot better about doing business with you.

Always include your business address, phone number
and email address. This also lets viewers know that
you welcome contact and are serious about your business.

4. Include a 'Privacy' Link

Reassure your visitors that you follow privacy guidelines
by including a 'Privacy' page. This is particularly important
if you are collecting names and email addresses. Visitors
want to know that you will not sell or give away their information.

In these days of rampant spam, your privacy policy needs to be
prominently displayed. Many viewers and business partners won't
do business with you unless you have it.

5. Always keep your links in blue.

Internet surfers have long been accustomed to seeing links
in blue. It's simply an expectation that viewers have.
There's certainly no law that says your links must be blue,
but people prefer consistency, therefore it's good practice to
keep your links consistent and recognizable. If they're not,
you may lose out on clicks.

6. Keep navigation consistent

The navigation scheme you create on your index page should
be done the same way throughout your site. Don't force your
viewers to relearn each page of your site. Keep your navigation
bars, colors and fonts consistent for each page.

7. Use Understandable buttons and links.

Title your links appropriately. Don't use cute or misleading
names. For example, if you have a link to 'cameras' don't
label the link 'hotshots', label it 'Cameras'. Your viewers
don't want to waste time figuring out what things are.
Be clear with your text or you could risk losing your visitor.

8. Focus on the 'YOU', not the 'ME'.

Make it obviously clear to your readers that you are in
business for them. Encourage feedback, provide
useful information and keep advertisements to a minimum.
Your objective should be focused on what you can do
for your reader? Convince them that your main interest is
how you can deliver what it is they're looking for?

9. Make sure your page loads fast.

If viewers have to wait for a page to load they will click
elsewhere. If a page doesn't load in 8 seconds you
could lose 1/3 of your visitors. Here's a great free tool to
help you check your website's load time:

http://www.1-hit.com/all-in-one/tool.loading-time-checker.htm

10. Use a site map.

A site map will give visitors a "guide" on viewing your site,
especially with larger sites. it's a road map for your visitors
to follow. Site maps are also popular with search engines
and are often recommended to help ensure indexing.

About the Author

Elizabeth McGee has spent 20 years in the service and support industry. She has moved her expertise to the world wide web helping businesses find trusted tools, enhance customer service, build confidence and increase sales. You can contact Elizabeth at mail@pro-marketing-online.com or visit her website at http://www.pro-marketing-online.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Elizabeth_McGee

Love at First Site: Giving Your Website Visitors the right Impression

2009-03-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

Think of the people who visit your site as blind dates. When you
open the door, your blind date usually knows whether they are
attracted to you within the first minute. How do they know? Easy.
By how you look, what you say, and how you treat them. If you
open the door wearing the same clothes you wore in 1987, say,
"Wow, from my friend's description, I thought you would be a lot
better looking," and sneeze in your dates face, not only will you
never get a second date, your date will run for his/her life.

The same rules apply to your website. When people do a search for
something they want to buy, they usually have many sites to
choose from. If yours does not impress them right off the bat, it
takes about five seconds for them to find another that does show
them what they want to see. There are plenty of other fish in the
sea. You are just one among many.

So what do people want to see, you ask? There are 3 standards
of website excellence, and they are the same standards you would
use to judge your blind date:

1. How it looks: If I visit two different websites with the
purpose of buying something, and those two websites sold the
exact same product at the exact same price, I would buy from the
site that looked better--the one whose design made me think,
"Wow, these guys must be making good money if they can afford to
hire a good graphic designer." The more money I think the
business makes, the more I will identify them with value and
professionalism.

The bottom line is, you need to make web design a priority. There
are plenty of people out there who have graphic designer friends
willing to design their website for next to nothing. Those people
have the advantage because, even if they aren't the superior
business, visitors will perceive them to be superior.

If you don't have any connections with graphic designers willing
to do you a favor, see if you can find a starving artist willing
to design the layout of your site. If anyone has an eye for
aesthetics and is willing to work cheap, it's a starving artist.
Once you know what your site should look like, either you or a
web designer can bring the artist's vision to life.

Take the time to design something that represents your business
or product well. Don't just throw up a website with gaudy
wallpaper, out of focus pictures and graphics placed at random.
Remember that first moment when you open the door to a blind
date. Remember how much appearances count for in this world.

2. What you say: You want the person who visits your site to know
instantly what you're selling and why they should buy from you.
Visual representation has a lot to do with this, but you need to
watch what you say as well. You must be clear, concise and
focused. Don't make the visitor decipher a cryptic headline full
of spelling and grammar errors. Include headlines that shout to
the reader exactly what you want them to hear.

Go over your copy a hundred times if you must, or have a
proofreader edit your copy. You must be sure that a potential
customer won't get lost in a stream of consciousness narrative
about your product or company, and come out saying, "What was
that all about?"

Above all, think carefully about the colors you use for your
font. Make sure there is plenty of contrast between the
background and the font color. Never put a yellow font on an
orange background. Also, be careful with white fonts on black
backgrounds. If the letters are large, they will be easy enough
to read, but if they are 14 point or smaller, your visitor won't
even bother with the copy. No matter what colors you use, always
make your font large enough. If people have to squint to read
your copy, it is too small.

3. How you treat them--It is socially acceptable for a woman to
keep her date waiting, letting him know that she doesn't consider
him a priority. However, it is not acceptable for your site to
keep a visitor waiting. If your site takes too long to load, the
visitor will simply find another site.

Do what you can to ensure that your site will download quickly.
One easy thing to remember is that, if you have too much content
on a page, it's going to take a long time to load. Also, if you
are on a free server, and you are sharing a port with others,
your loading time will be lengthy. More specifically, if you have
images that are uncompressed, they could be at 70k or 80k, as
opposed to compressed images that look almost identical and load
at a preferable rate of 5k or 10k.

For more information on jewelry and gemstones, we cordially invite you to visit http://www.morninglightjewelry.com to pick up your FREE copy of “How To Buy Jewelry And Gemstones Without Being Ripped Off.” This concise, informative special report reveals almost everything you ever wanted to know about jewelry and gemstones, but were afraid to ask. Get your FREE report at http://www.morninglightjewelry.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_Serio

Web Design: How To Get Your Visitors To Stay

2009-03-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

Remember the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come"? In the world of Internet marketing, you not only want them to come, you want them to stay.

The Internet is fast-paced. Your visitors decide very quickly whether or not you have what they want. There are five strategies that will help you engage your visitors and encourage them to explore what you have to offer.

Make Your Site About Your Visitors Not You

In order to do this, you must clearly know your target audiences and what you anticipate they will be looking for when they visit your site.

For example, your target audiences could include the client groups you serve, potential donors, policymakers, members of the general public and the media. In order to get and keep their atten

Cheap Website Design - Information at Your Fingertips

2009-03-14T05:20:00.000-07:00

There are still a lot of cheap website design tips that you can use to improve the marketing of your website. Information is scattered everywhere in the internet. Before you divulge into designing your website by spending a lot of money, it would be wise to learn how the highly-paid designers do their job. So to help you find your way to creating a cheap website design, read the following tips:

Branding

Since you'll be selling products or services in your website, it would be nice to put a tagline next to your company logo. It would also be good to have a favicon, which is a small graphic situated next to the URL in the address bar. This a cheap website design but it attracts a lot of customers. It makes them feel that this company is proud of its name and logo.

Navigation and Presentation

One of the emerging and the best cheap website design in terms of navigation is the use of breadcrumb trails. A breadcrumb is something like this: Home > Appliances > TV > Plasma TVs. Having a breadcrumb trail in your website makes navigation easier and faster.

Lay out your web page using tables. Set the dimensions (length and/or width) in terms of percentage instead of a constant number so that the page will automatically adjust to the screen's size. This removes the tendency of using the horizontal/vertical scrollbar to view the contents of the webpage.

Don't use amateurish features like: all caps text, centered blocks of text, busy backgrounds, unnecessary animated GIFs and too much exclamation marks.

You should also avoid using pop-up windows. These annoy and distract attention of your visitors. That's why as much as possible let all of your contents be written inside the main webpage only.

Content

Organize the content in your website. Don't put too much in a single webpage. Break the page into several pages and shorten the length of each paragraph. Don't make the font size too small or else the text will be too hard to read at. Use percentage when setting the font size so that the user can make the text size bigger or smaller by setting it in his or her browser.

Graphics

Use graphics that are optimized for webpage use. Use either JPEG or GIF formats only. Make sure to minimize the file sizes of your images while maintaining good quality. Use thumbnails for displaying photo galleries. Let them be clickable and linked to the actual image sizes.

Don't use graphics that look similar to ads. People won't notice them because they'll think it is just an advertisement.

Links

Your links must be descriptive enough to let the visitor know where it will lead if he clicks it. Use a common color in all your links and don't underline words that are not links. People might confuse this over a link and will try to mouse hover it. For visited links, use a different color for them. This way your visitor will know that he has visited that link already.

Looking for Cheap Website Design? We can show you the best software used today to help internet marketers make serious income. Stop being a newbie and go to http://www.newbiephenomenon.com now!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cary_G.

Web Design for Dictators

2009-03-14T05:06:00.000-07:00

No question about it, web design is an art.

Finding the right blend of style and usability is a delicate balance that few, if any, fully master.

Which is why I am so tired af reading bullet-pointed lists demanding what you should and shouldn't do while building your website. These dictators of web design are under the mysterious illusion that they have stumbled upon exactly the right balance of functionality and beauty.

Do you think Michelanglo painted his Sistine Chapel after reading an article entitled, "10 steps to perfect renaissance art"?

Hmm. What these designers are really saying is, "My view of what makes a good website is more valid than yours and any opinion to the contrary is doomed to failure".

There are no right and wrong ways to design a website. Every technique you have ever been told is wrong, can be utilised succesfully in the proper setting. And, equally, every technique you have even been told is right, can be a complete failure in the hands of the inept.

Next time you read an article on web design, remind yourself, this is just one opinion. Not the right one, not the wrong one, just an opinion.

In fact, better yet, stop relying on the articles for ideas. Instead, spend your time visiting websites that exist in reality, not in the mind of the imaginationless writer.

Visit web sites designed by the amateur coder and visit websites designed by professionals. The internet is brimming with original ideas and they are not the sole domain of the expert. Anyone can come up with something new or different.

If you are building your own website, visit a few hundred others first. Pick out the good, the bad and the ugly and use this as a springboard to create your own masterpiece.

If someone with more experience wants to offer you advice, listen to it, but don't automatically assume that they must know better. Have the courage and conviction to experiment and decide for yourself what works.

Because although the techniques of art can be taught, the imagination of art cannot.

David Congreave is owner of The Nettle Ezine, the newsletter for the home business -- online.

David lives in Leeds, in the United Kingdom with his wife Leanne.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Congreave

Some Little-Known Facts About Website Design and Hosting Companies

2009-02-22T09:50:00.000-08:00

To start a website, you can either do it yourself or you can utilize the services of a website design and hosting company. Rather than looking amateurish, though, a website design and hosting company will create professional graphics and components for your website. This will help your appear more professional in the business world and cause website visitors to remember your page and tell others about it.

If you want to plan a website for yourself or for personal purposes, you will still need to get a website design hosting company. Without a website design and hosting company, you can develop web site materials all you want, but nobody will ever see them. For a monthly or even annual fee, you can get a website design hosting company to host your website so it can be accessible by anybody using the internet.

For whatever purposes you want to use your new website for, a website design and hosting company can fulfill all your needs. If you are designing a website for your small business, a website design and hosting company will provide you with a quality website and hosting services that are convenient and specific to your business needs. Whether you're developing a blogging website or just a personal website, a website design hosting company can meet those needs, too.

If you shop and compare, you can likely find a website design and hosting company that is affordable and fits your budget. Website design and hosting companies provide flexible and unique services that fit your needs, too. You tell the website design and hosting company what you want for your particular website. Then their highly-skilled consultants develop web materials that are specific to your company's services and products to help produce the best possible results. The website design and hosting company that you hire works for you and if you are not satisfied with their services, there are many more companies to choose from.

Today, a business cannot be competitive without an online presence. A website design and hosting company makes this possible. With affordable rates and flexibility, a website and design company can provide businesses of any size with a site that fits their needs. Similarly, if you just want a site for your personal use, a website design and hosting company can help you with that, too. Websites are not only beneficial to businesses, but they can be a fun way to keep in touch with family and friends, too.

Lee Hopkins the author of over 130 articles on business communication, and is recognised world-wide as one of Australia's leading experts in online business communication, including Social Media or Web2.0 as it's also known as.

To connect with him, please call him on +61 8121 4444 any hour of the day or night; if he's asleep you can leave a voice message!

Visit his site at http://www.LeeHopkins.com to find many more articles on business communication. Whilst there, why not pick up a complimentary copy of his 'Social Media White Paper', which explains all about this latest seismic change to the business communication landscape!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lee_Hopkins

Good Web Design Practice to Attract More Visitors

2009-02-21T10:14:00.000-08:00

People often find a problem at the time of searching on internet, is the site they have visited is either not well designed or its very difficult to get proper information on pages. Most people leave that site within few seconds. After long search if you could not find what you were looking to, you might stop searching. Most general internet users face this every day and its very obvious. This is because people think that web design is really very easy. Its just not designing a site in Photoshop and then code it to get a site. You need to keep few basic points in mind at the time of designing.

Good Design: Well designed sites often gets more conversion in sale. Visitors feel comfortable and they rely a well designed site than a poor one.

Proper Use of Meta tags: Meta information is for search engines, as well as for visitors. Use concise but detailed information about the page in meta tags. Using whole site information in all pages or wrong pages can not help.

Proper Navigation: Put navigation links evenly distributed throughout the site. A page should not be buried inside 20 pages. No one is going to find that page. Every site is made for its visitors, if your visitors don't find proper information, they won't like your site, hence no conversion. Always make physical sitemap for your visitors and xml sitemap for Google.

Table Less Design: Table less design is very popular nowadays since we have to write less code and very easy to handle. In table based design we have to handle lots of tables, TRs, TDs. Often people get confused for tracking lots of loops. Using table less / Div based coding not only speedup the site but also gives more control over page editing.

Use of external style sheet instead of inline style: People often make this mistake of using inline style inside a page. It not only increase size of page but also you may need to implement same style over and over again throughout all pages of the site. Good practice is to create an external style sheet at the time of writing very first code for the page.

Use special formatting text wisely: Sometimes people use bold texts so frequently so that the page becomes awful. Over use of any style is bad for visual impact. Always choose eye soothing colors . Use of h1-h4 texts should be used where we have to put heading or sub heading. Sometimes I have seen sub heading at footer also, which is completely meaningless. These special formatting texts have great use in optimizing a page also. If you know proper use you can use them in great extent.

If you are looking to have a great website then you can check our website design packages. So why wait? Start making your website's presence noticed with web design company - a leader in web design in India for last 5 years.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Raja_Dutta

Lucrative Web Design Business – How to Create a Strong Web Design Business

2009-02-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

Lucrative Web Design Business – How to Create a Strong Web Design Business

How to get good at a lucrative web design business – it will require some hard work and testing, but it can certainly be done, even if you are just starting out. A lucrative web design business is one great way to explode your internet business. Also, a lucrative web design business is a great way to maximize your online business revenues.

So how do you use a lucrative web design business to explode your internet business and to maximize your online business revenues?

I have developed some incredible new innovations to help you to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business.

Try these powerful new ways to help you to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business:

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, first begin by building a list to which you can mail regularly. One of the most important things about growing any business online, especially a web design business, is creating a list of subscribers to whom you can promote your business regularly.

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, send quality traffic to your web design business by writing and submitting articles to the major article directories online. They will promote your articles for you, and you can simply write and watch the quality traffic come in.

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, use the web design business as an entry point for people into your business. Be willing to expand past just web design, and meet other needs of your customers.

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, look for additional revenue opportunities and convert one time web design customers into long term customers by offering backend, related products.

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Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 9034 articles in print and 14 published ebooks.

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HTML Code to Submit Information - How to Create a Form in HTML

2009-02-13T06:13:00.000-08:00

How do you put fields and a button so people can submit information from a fill-in form on your web page?
This is done inside a "form". You can have several types of controls inside a form. The most basic form has some text fields where the user can input some information, and a button to submit. Most forms will have more functionality. They may contain a button to clear or reset the fields in case the user wants to start all over.

The fields (described below) should fall between the form open and close tags:

&lt;form&gt; field 1, field 2, field 3... &lt;/form&gt;

The form tag at minimum must have an "action" and a "method" argument. The action tells the form what to do with the data once the user clicks submit. The action argument generally calls a script. An example of a very common action argument would be an email script such as formmail.cgi the simple form would look like:

&lt;form action="formmail.cgi" method="post"&gt; field 1, field 2, field 3...&lt;/form&gt;

Common fields and controls in HTML forms

All fields should have a name. The name for the field and the data it contains will be passed to the script which processes the data.

The Text Field: It is used for inputting one line of limited information. An example would be a place where someone can input their name or email address. The length of a text field is usually limited in length (by the maxlength argument). The "size" argument tells how long the field will appear to be on the screen. Below is a simple text field:

&lt;input type="text" name="email_address" maxlength="120"&gt;

The Text Area: This is where longer text such as comments would be input. Textareas have a scroll bar and can accept unlimited amounts of text. You can put default text inside the textarea between the opening and closing tags.

&lt;textarea name="comments" cols="50" rows="7"&gt;Please enter your comments here.&lt; /textarea&gt;

The Radio Button: This is where people can choose one (and only one) of a certain option. They usually have a dot indicating what the user has chosen. If they change their mind, the dot will move to their new choice. A good example of where to use a radio button control would be if people were allowed to choose only one size: small, medium, or large for instance.

The Check box: This could be used for Yes/ No type questions, or you can have several check boxes if people are allowed to make one or more selections.

The Drop-Down (select) list: When people click a little down-arrow, a list drops down that the user can select one option from.

The Submit Button: Clicking this will send the results to the script defined in the "Action" property of the form.

&lt;input name="Submit" type="submit" value="Submit"&gt;

The Clear or Reset button: This allows the entire form to be cleared in case the user wants to start all over again.

&lt;input name="Reset" type="reset" value="Reset"&gt;

A very simple example:
Here is a simple form with a field for first name, last name, email address and comment that will be sent to a mail script to be mailed to the websites' owner.
The form elements in this example are placed in a table so they line up nicely.

&lt;form action="mailform.php" method="post" name="feedback"&gt; &lt;table border=0&gt; &lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;First Name:&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;input type="text" name="fname" maxlength="20"&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;Last Name:&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;input type="text" name="fname" maxlength="20"&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;Email:&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;input type="text" name="fname" maxlength="20"&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td valign="top"&gt;Comments:&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;textarea name="comments" cols="40" rows="7"&gt;Enter your comments here.&lt; /textarea&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt; &lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;input name="Submit" type="submit" value="Submit"&gt; &lt;input name="Reset" type="reset" value="Reset"&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/table&gt; &lt;/form&gt;

Allen Howard is the senior Technical Support Representative for InfoServe Media, LLC. InfoServe Media is a full service business Website design company in Houston, TX. Custom Web design is our specialty. In addition to exceptional website design that even a new business can afford, we also offer hosting and domain names. We offer a full spectrum of website options that even a new business can afford. Your site can be developed using an excellent CMS if you wish. Our e-commerce sites are built around Zen Cart. We also have a site builder for those who'd rather do it themselves. We can build a site ranging from a full-blown e-commerce site to a small "Presence" website. See our website for complete website design and hosting solutions including domain names, website promotion, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services, SSL certificates and more.

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Tips on How to Design a Website

2009-02-13T06:10:00.000-08:00

Designing your own website could be one of the best ventures you can choose to do to make your website much more attractive to your customers and much more informative. You should definitely consider designing your website to make it not only informative but also unique and of course user friendly.

The success of your website will actually depend on the effectiveness of the design and whether or not your customers could make good use of your website. It is important that you consider hiring a professional website designer if you do not necessarily know how to design your website. If on the other hand you have an idea of how you want your website to look like but do not know how to execute it, you can also seek the help of a professional.

When you design your website, you should definitely think about the products and services you are specifically focused on. It is necessary for you to make sure that your website is complete not only with information but also with all the other important things that will make it worth visiting or logging on to.

Another thing that you need to take into consideration is how to make your website design stand out and leave an impact on your visitors and you can definitely achieve this if you are able to set up a concrete plan on how to actually make your website work to your actual advantage without having to spend too much or make things very much complicated for you.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Edison_Guzman

HTML Radio Buttons, HTML Checkboxes, and Other HTML Form Controls

2009-02-13T06:05:00.000-08:00

The basic input form for users to submit information such as text boxes, etc. serve their purpose well. But to make the web page more user-friendly and robust, there are other controls available for special purposes that you may want to use, like a drop-down list of possible choices, a checkbox, or a password field.

The HTML Checkbox (or HTML Check Box)

The check box is used to indicate one of two options when used by itself. Either "Yes", or "No" for example. You may want to put a check box on your page that the user can check or uncheck to be added or not to be added to your mailing list, for instance. The "checked" argument will cause the checkbox to be checked as its default value.

A simple checkbox control looks like this in HTML:

&lt;input type ="checkbox" name ="subscribe" value="subscribe" checked="checked"&gt;

The HTML Radio Button

The Radio Button is typically used in an array so that one and only one value can be chosen. Each button has its own line of code. Each will have the same "name" but a different value. You may want to use Radio Buttons to allow a person to select only one size: Small, Medium or Large, for instance.

&lt;input type="radio" name="Size" value="Small" checked="checked"&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;input type="radio" name="Size" value="Medium"&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;input type="radio" name="Size" value="Large"&gt;

The form will pass the "value" of the selection to the script that processes the information. The checked="checked" argument sets the default size to small (When the page loads, the "small" option will be selected) in this example.

The Select list (or Pull-Down list, or HTML Combo Box)

The Select list has a simple opening tag, the list of the options (each enclosed in option tags) then the closing tag. The text that the user will see is betwen the Option tags. The "value" is what the form will pass to the script. It may be, but does not have to be, the same as the text. It could include a catalog number that the user is not necessarily concerned with for example.

&lt;select&gt;
&lt;option value="XRRW002 White"&gt;White&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;option value="XRRG008 Grey"&gt;Grey&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;option value="XRRB011 Black"&gt;Black&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;/select&gt;

The Option Group - Create more elaborate Select List

Options in a Select List can be grouped by category.
For example, let's say you want a list of desserts. You could group the various desserts by category.
The example, below, shows how the Select List might look for Ice Cream, Pies, and Cakes.

&lt;select&gt;
&lt;optgroup label="Ice Cream"&gt;
&lt;option value="Chocolate"&gt;Chocolate&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;option value="Vanilla"&gt;Vanilla&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;option value="Rocky Road"&gt;Rocky Road&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;/optgroup&gt;
&lt;optgroup label="Pies"&gt;
&lt;option value="Cherry"&gt;Cherry&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;option value="Apple"&gt;Apple&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;/optgroup&gt;
&lt;optgroup label="Cakes"&gt;
&lt;option value="Sheet"&gt;Sheet Cake&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;option value="Wedding"&gt;Wedding Cake&lt;/option&gt;
&lt;/optgroup&gt;
&lt;/select&gt;

The HTML Password Field.

This is simply a text input field that displays placeholders such as dots or asterisks in place of the characters that the user types.

The password field looks as follows:

&lt;input type="password"&gt;

In addition to exceptional website design that even a new business can afford, we also offer hosting and domain names. We can design a site that you can easily make minor changes to, yourself. We can build just about any site from a full-blown e-commerce site to a small "Presence" website. See our website for complete website design and hosting solutions including website promotion, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services, and more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Allen_Howard

5 Tips to Improve Your Website Design

2009-02-13T06:01:00.000-08:00

Stop customers from leaving your website because of poor website design. You can stop that from happening and keep those customers right there on your website. How can you do that? Here are 5 tips to improve your website design so you keep your customers on your site and keep them coming back.

Tip Number 1. The first method is to make sure your typography of your content is suitable. Make sure your lines are spaced out accordingly to the text and sentence structure. Check your font and font size that you are using. You may like using a 10-Pixel text in Times New Roman but is that big enough for all to read. Do you have to strain to read the text? If so increase the text size and maybe change the font. As we get older our eyes are not like they use to be so make sure your font size, font style, and sentence spacing is easily readable.

Tip Number 2. Reduce large images so your web pages load quickly. There is nothing more bothersome than to have to wait on images and graphics to load before the entire website displays. Make sure the important parts of your website loads quickly so you do not lose visitors. Some say a website should load within 15 seconds. After this time, people tend to get disinterested in the site and click off the site. Continuously check your website design for loading time as you are building your website.

Tip Number 3. Content sells a product or service. Updated content will sell your product and service repeatedly. Your website design should include relevant content for the visitor and for search engine optimization. The search engines love content and they love fresh content that is relevant to your keywords. Be sure to break the content up and do not write a paragraph a page long. You are not writing a high school report you are writing website content for your internet visitors. Break the content up by using short paragraphs and white space. It is easier for the reader to read.

Tip Number 4. Have a simple and clear navigation area. A good website design will have a navigation area for the internet visitor that will take them from one place to the next in the website. Test the links to make sure they are directing the visitor to the right page and most importantly are working. The navigation links should be easily read. That means the text size, font size, and color should be distinguishable from the rest of the content. If it is hard to read people will leave the site. In addition to the navigation for navigating throughout the site include a "contact" or "about us" link to your navigation area. This gives creditability to your website. People want to be able to contact someone if they have a question or something is wrong. They also like to read about the business owner. What the business owners credentials are and a little about the business. This builds relationships and people buy more from people they have a relationship with.

Tip Number 5. This last tip involves testing your website. What do I mean by testing your site? I mean to test it out like you are the internet visitor. Whatever HTML editor or program you use to design your website you should be able to click on a button to preview your website in a web browser just how it would look on the World wide Web. Test the links to make sure they direct you to the information that they pertain to and you instructed. Pay close attention to your load time, and your layout of your website. Is the content easy to read and understand? How does my graphics look? Are they overwhelming? Is the color scheme of my website off and not matching the feel of my website style? Are my paragraphs justified properly and is all spelling correct?

These tips above will help you in your website design process to ensure a professional appearance of your internet business. Step back and look at your website from your customers perspective and ask yourself is this a site that I trust to provide me with the type of service or product, I need. If you answer yes then you have completed a successful website design and if you answer no just go back and correct it until you get it right. Remember Rome was not built in a day.

Pat Turman is a successful internet business owner who built from scratch and co-owned an e-Retail Ladies Golf Store (Turbalo Golf Clubs for Women) with revenues of a quarter million dollars. She likes to help others create online business and runs numerous internet businesses herself. She has a BBA from an accredited University and has received many awards and certificates. Check out http://www.nichebusinesssecretsrevealed.com to learn more about starting a profitable internet business.

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Why you need professional Web Design

2009-02-13T05:56:00.000-08:00

1.Your younger cousin's free design isn't a big help.

Let's face it- we don't want to spend a wad of cash on website design. Getting a cousin, brother, relative, or friend to design a website is a great way to save cash. But the downfall is having a website that (unless they are a professional) has errors, looks unprofessional, and drives away clients and potential buyers. In the end, you aren't capitalizing on viewers, and your potential for increasing business online is lost.

2. The 90's are out. So is that website

We've all seen websites that are remnants of the past. Single columns, a billion words per page, animated icons, poor colors, and a host of other repelling features. What was once cutting-edge, is now stone-age. It used to be the norm for people to learn how to make their own website and put it up. But now that we've settled in, these "old school" sites are avoided like the plague.

3. If you don't have a website, you might as well not have a phone.

This sounds harsh, but the fact of the matter is this- the younger generations search the internet for business and services, not the phone-book. If you don't have a website, then I can guarantee that your business is missing out on a lot of exposure. Even if you simply list a phone number, directions, and some basic company information, this greatly aids customers in finding you. Google is quicker and easier than flipping through classifieds, YellowPages (which are online now), or any older media. With iPhones and wireless internet devices, people are now Googling while in-transit. Looking for restaurants? Looking for a specific store? If you're not online, you won't get found.

4. Your website is the face of your business

Think about websites that are really outdated. Do you trust them? Do you think they are professionally run? Is the information accurate? Businesses put a lot of time and effort into generating a professional image for their clients. Literature should be typo-free, staff should be friendly, and the business should be well organized. If a customer visits a website and it looks poorly made, rarely updated, and generally bad- this reflects poorly on the owners. It's also likely that they'll search Google for a similar company with a better website.

5. Professional sites make money.

You need a website that has these three characteristics:

Visually appealing
Easy to navigate
Search engine optimized

Why? The average time someone spends on a website is 15 seconds. If the site looks bad, people will leave. If something is hard to find, they'll leave. If your site isn't search engine optimized, they won't find it in the first place. Homemade or outdated sites often have no search engine optimization, show up incorrectly, and are difficult to navigate. Sites like this are a disaster for companies. It makes the business look bad, and it discourages viewers from buying your products.

Getting a professional website designer eliminates these problems and increases the chances of making sales to your online viewers. It inspires buyer confidence. As stated earlier, your website is the face of your business. A great looking site with quality material makes the customer feel secure, and that they are dealing with the best in the business. This is extremely important when it comes to online sales. People are still very cautious to give out their credit-cards online, and rightly so. If your site is old or doesn't look modern enough, you simply won't be selling products online. Customers must believe that your site is legitimate, that they will receive their product, and that their information is secure.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article. Have a wonderful day.

-Matt Powers

http://www.VACreative.com

For more information on Matt Powers, visit his portfolio:
Creative Web Design

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4 Keys to Web Site Design

2009-02-13T05:25:00.000-08:00

Web site design is a creative work that needs some idea and creativity. For a lucrative web site design, each element of design should be in right combination. Below are 4 keys that can be used for lucrative web site design.

Layout –

Decide the layout before you start designing the website. The layout is the placing or positioning of the contents of a website or a web page. What portions you will have in the web page and in which position they will look good should be decided before. Layout is very important in designing of a website. Layout can make a web page look attractive.

Design –

Next design the website. Design is a very important part of website designing. Website designs can vary greatly. You have to decide the design before starting designing it. Use a design that suits the website and its content.

Use best technology -

Use the best technology available for lucrative web site design. New and improved technology helps in improving the website in all aspects. By using new and improved technologies, you will be able to add many advanced features in the website in interaction, look, attractiveness, communication of the website and webpages.

Accessibility -

Accessibility is a very important aspect in web site design. Your website should be accessible from any place and at any time. Make it accessible by using advanced technologies and best servers. Use lesser animation and graphics. When you are accessible, visitors will like your website. People generally will not like to wait for a website that takes too long to display.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? Secrets of Article Marketing

Raymond Nesa is an experienced web marketer specializing in article marketing, traffic generation, and list building.

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