Learn from them

Approaching retirement age I was made redundant last year and decided to create my first web site, initially knowing little about it. I hope that, by reading about my experiences, I may save you both time and money if you ever find yourself in the position of wanting to build a site with little initial knowledge.

eBooks

I bought five or six ebooks on how to make my web fortune from the one-page web-sites that you see on the web. The prices ranged from $9.95 to $29.95. It would be unfair of me to say that they were of no use, as you can always pick up the odd pointer, or contact. However, with the benefit of hindsight I would not have purchased any of them. Instead there are free, better written books which give you at least the same pointers, and often have more substance. You can download from my web site, for free, two excellent books by Ken Evoy, which will provide you with a good basic knowledge to move forward. Don’t get carried away with the sales hype contained in some of these “get rich quick” single page sales letters that offer huge free bonuses and an imminent price increase.

Universities and colleges

There are various colleges and universities on the web which promise you the ultimate in web creation, site marketing, search engine optimization and much more, “all under one roof” They usually have libraries of “how to” books and membership is by monthly subscription with some offering a lower fee for the first month. Have a look, by all means, I looked at three and claimed my refund within the stated period. I found that I could obtain similar information offered for free with a little searching, and that what they really offered was convenience.

Web Design software

I initially purchased a web site building package for $69.95 and was soon disappointed by its lack of functionality. I then looked over the shoulder of a friend whilst they showed me the workings of a top-end product costing nearly $400.00 but I found it to be too complicated with too steep a learning curve too be quickly productive. I posted a request for help on the Warriors forum and there were more recommends for a particular product than any other. So I decided that my first web site would be a review of that product, which I would create as a trial, before I went on to build a site that would aim at generating income.

What should the web site be about?

Several of the books that I read suggested that the subject matter should be about something that you enjoy doing and therefore you will create your site with more passion and enthusiasm. Whilst this is sound advice I found that the need to create a trial site, which would force me to learn the basics, was more than a sufficient driving force.

Domain name & Web hosting

Go for a dot com registration and pay no more than $10 per annum. Don’t go for free hosting, you get what you pay for. I looked at hosting sites that offered complete package with hosting, autoresponders, SEO and linking software and much more. Whilst everything was conveniently in one place they failed to convince me that each product would stack up well if they were competing in each niche market. I therefore opted for the best of breed approach and a little less convenience.

Search Engine Optimization

This was probably the subject that I was most worried about as I new that it referred to making a web site as easy as possible for the search engines to find, but I had no clue as to how to go about it. I have a free ebook that you can download entitled “Search Engine Optimization Made Easy” which will give you the basics to carry out this process. The book is really a plug by the author of SEO software for his excellent product. I was fortunate in that the web design software I selected also, somewhat unusually, held my hand through this process, carefully pointing out page, by page, what I needed to do.

Article Distribution

I was aware that, in order to succeed, I should submit articles to the numerous Article Directories present on the Internet. There are two ways to do this. By purchasing one of the two major pieces of software to assist me in doing it myself, or to use a company to do it for me. I looked at each way and found that, whilst both software solutions cut out some of the tedious manuals tasks of submitting to over 150 directories, it was still time consuming. Having examined the market place carefully, discounting any company who charged for a fixed number of submissions, I opted for one who for a fixed quarterly fee would submit any number of articles.

Link software

Again, so that I would get more site traffic, I new that I should get other sites to link to mine and that I would have to manage those links and the emails back and forth etc. I initially started to design an Excel spreadsheet linked to Microsoft Word but decided that I would still have to create the links pages by hand. My advice is to obtain software which houses all your links in a searchable database, handles all of the emails, including template housing, and that automatically creates the HTML link pages for you.

© Paul Lewis 2006. Paul Lewis is the author of an in-depth review of web site design and building software, XSitepro.
You can see detailed functionality, and much more, by visiting the XSitePro full review at http://reviewxsitepro.com He is also CEO of Demovision Systems who specialise in Talking Heads. Examples can be seen on the About Us page at http://www.reviewxsitepro.com

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For your website to be successful, it has to contain the proper web design. This isn’t too hard if you’ve been designing websites for years and have had the time and experience to perfect your technique, but for everyone else, web design can seem somewhat daunting. Don’t worry, though, it doesn’t have to be. Just remember that using common sense, and applying your own taste are the best things that you can do for your web design strategy.

However, just because you think your site looks good, doesn’t mean that your visitors will read it. Nor does it mean that they will come back a second time. Therefore, web design only starts with your own taste, and must also include other techniques that will ensure continued success.

There are five basic things that you need to look at to develop your web design strategy. They are as follows:

1. Your Website Title - Every successful website must first have an excellent title. A truly great title needs to be interesting, catchy, and applicable. “Bob’s Website” isn’t exactly the most attractive way to make a first impression. The title is, after all, the first words that will catch the visitor’s eye. If the title doesn’t work for your readers, they won’t click it on the search engines, and they won’t stick around if they arrive at the site. Give yourself time to brainstorm great website title ideas, asking friends and family for inspiration, and using a thesaurus for some dazzling words.

2. Columns - The number of columns used within your web design will alter the entire perception of your website. The standard first website will usually have a rather plain layout, consisting of only one column, however, the majority of readers actually prefer two-column pages to allow for written content in one column, and navigation links within the other. This web design is much more attractive, and makes navigation throughout your website much easier. Though the three-column website does have its fans, it is not necessarily any better than the one- or two-column web designs. However, if you have a great deal of complexity to your website and you need additional navigation options, or if you need additional writing space, then the extra column might work well for you.

3. Colors - Although it might seem that colors are among the simplest decisions that you need to make for your web design, once you get started, you may find that it’s more challenging than you first thought. Colors are very important to the overall appearance of your website, and will influence people’s decisions to find out what your site has to offer, and their decision to return. If your website design is bland, it will make people believe that your website is dull. If the colors are too bright and are hard on the eyes, staying at the website will feel unpleasant. If the colors are warm and comforting, making the customer feel at home, they are more likely to feel that they like your site, and will stick around and return more frequently.

4. Navigation - When building your web design, don’t forget that navigation will be key to allowing visitors to properly benefit from your site. The key is consistency and easy access. Every page on the website should link back to the homepage so that visitors don’t get lost among the different pages of the site and finally give up and go elsewhere. You’ll also need some sort of index which appears in the same way on every page, so that users will always know where to look when they want to head to the next page of interest.

5. Content - When it comes to web design, content is among your most important features. If your content isn’t good, nobody will have any reason to visit your site. Among other site-specific pages, your content should include a minimum of a homepage, which tells visitors what your site is about, and why they’d want to visit. An “about us” page is also advisable, telling visitors who you are and why you’ve got the website. Use this space to show people that you know your stuff, and they can trust your site for reliable information and resources. When visitors understand you better, they’ll feel more comfortable visiting your site.

Most importantly, don’t just follow a template, do something new, and keep it fresh. People won’t want to keep visiting a site that never changes. They want to see updates, or they won’t have any reason to return. The more often you update your site, the longer people will spend visiting your site in order to keep on top of things. Once a week is ideal, but once a month should be your bare minimum. When it comes to web design, you have to be up to date!

Mark Nenadic

Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North http://www.15dn.com, where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

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I have been using Macromedia products for my web site production for years. I just recently found a new way to design that has made my life a lot easier. Prior to the “Layers” feature, I always found it difficult to make a page look the way I wanted it to due to the fact that I had to put everything into tables or just position my images around my text and hope for the best. Now, Dreamweaver offers this killer shortcut to making a website: Layers. Imagine being able to put anything (text, tables, graphics, whatever) WHERE EVER you want!! This is an absolute godsend in the design world as far as I am concerned.

Now, I just discovered this feature in Dreamweaver 8. There were previous versions of Dreamweaver (MX2004, etc.) that also allowed for this feature. Either way, I am glad that I was able to find it and utilize it because it has made a considerable difference in the design for web sites for me.

The concept is simple: create a new page. To do this you must have first established within Dreamweaver’s site manager a site from with which you will work in. By right clicking on the site name in the properties bar you get a drop down menu with multiple options, one of which is “New File”. Create a new .html file and then double click that file to open it in the main Dreamweaver working window. The next step is to insert your first layer. Under the “Insert” section of the top tool bar go to “Layout Objects” and then to “Layer”. A little blue box will appear on your page. If you click on the perimeter of the box you get these little squares around the perimeter of the box allowing for resizing. You will also notice a small square in the upper right hand side of the new layer which when you click your mouse button on this square it allows for you to reposition the layer to where ever you wish to place it on your site.

You can now place anything you want within this box (layer) including text, flash movies, graphics, tables, library items and so on. The most awesome feature of this is that you have total control over where it is placed on your page and Dreamweaver will automatically write in the html code the exact X & Y coordinates that your browser will translate to show the page properly. It doesn’t get much better than this.

I found this feature to be very similar to working in Adobe Photoshop because with layers you have total control over every aspect of the design, without the stress associated with web design.

Now say you want to add some text to a layer but the text runs far off the page or far off the size of the layer box size you chose. Well Dreamweaver has resolved that issue as well. In the properties inspector at the bottom of the screen you have a drop down box labeled “Overflow”. If you drop down this box you have a few choices, Visible, Hidden, Scroll, and Auto. For the example I am explaining here you would choose “Scroll”. This tells Dreamweaver to write in the code that if your text over flows the size you designated for the layer box to insert a scroll feature allowing your visitors to scroll down the text to read whatever you placed in that layer box. Pretty slick!!

Other features with using layers is that you have a choice to name your layers in the Layers Tab on the upper right tool menu as well as setting the succession of each layer. I do highly recommend that if you decide to use multiple layers that you save yourself a major headache and label each layer in accordance with what it is related to on your screen. This makes editing the layer later on much easier.
Layers allow you to have the freedom within web design that should have been there all along. I suggest you give this a try and play with it and see what creative things you can come up with. Go nuts with this feature and have fun with it. You never know what will come out now that the boundaries have been dropped!

Other features that are pretty slick are the ability to overlap two images on a page. If you were doing an artistic presentation or something similar, this is a kewl feature which can be turned off on the upper right hand side of the “Layers” Properties box. Just put in a check mark under “Prevent Overlaps” and then you don’t have to worry about it. Dreamweaver will automatically make sure that nothing overlaps in the layers. However if you did want to have an overlapping effect of say two images, then make sure that the Prevent Overlaps is unchecked and you will further unlock the magic of this wonderful feature.

In closing, this is a really awesome feature, but it takes some getting used to. It breaks all the rules of what we had previously learned that we could and couldn’t do with web design. This takes that to the next level without making you reach for the aspirin.

A few other options include a command called “convert layers to tables” and “convert tables to layers”. On the top tool bar in Dreamweaver, if you go to ‘Modify’ - Convert - you have the two options I just mentioned. Clicking on convert layers to tables will automate Dreamweaver to start calculating down to the pixel how to design a table out of the information you have given to it by placing layers on the page in certain areas. This feature is mainly used for those web surfers who have a browser that is not up to date (i.e. Version 5 or earlier of Internet Explorer or Netscape) The new versions of most major browsers now support and properly display layer content within the browser window. But if you think that your target audience might not have updated browsers, then you might consider this feature. Personally I don’t use it because it is rare that people nowadays have outdated browser technology with all of the Automated Windows Updates and all.

The exact opposite if you choose convert tables to layers. If you already have a site and you built it in tables, choosing the option to ‘convert tables to layers’ will do just that.

I hope that this helps someone out who is doing their own design and wants to make their page look the way they envision it in their head without the stress of worrying about how to construct the right table and arranging things in that table to make it happen. Web design is moving forward and Macromedia has put the fun back into web design again!

Scott has been a web site designer for over eight years now and his artistic vision and creative skills have earned him quite a few satisfied customers. His innovative and easy to navigate sites have been applauded by the many who have hired his services. He currently has built over 100 web sites and maintains them for his clients. Aside from Web Design, Scott is also an accomplished photographer shooting pictures for Willie Nelson, the Dalai Lama, and Goldie Hawn, as well as fine art photos.

http://www.houstonphoto.net

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