Speeding Up Web Design Process

by: Darko Krsmanovic

You thought it all over a hundred times before and you have finally decided to put your business on the Web (or to replace that embarrassment of a website that was actually turning heads when it was first made during the nineties). Now you probably think it will be enough to find the right web design company and they will take care of everything. It should be easy for you... Well, think twice!

There are thousands of web design companies in the world and choosing the right one isn't easy especially when you don't know where to look and how to determine what is the right choice for your needs. In this article I will help you do your homework before you end up being disappointed either with a lousy website you'll get or with spending way more than you initially expected.

First of all, you have to do some research (Google, Yahoo, MSN...) typing keywords that you would use if you wanted to find services or information related to your own business. This way you will be one step closer to getting to know your competition.

Since many of the results will be useless and not necessarily related to your business, the next step is filtering the results in order to make a selection of websites that are similar to your own website needs. When you've made your final selection sort the remaining websites by: a) great visual appearance and b) good functionality (these two characteristics are the two most important defining factors of any web site).

Go through these two categories and make notes about what you liked at every site regarding design: logo design, nice images, flash animation, useful navigation, attractive color scheme, etc. and also find out and note what your competition put on their website: what kind of information they have included, how do they make their visitors stay and research further, what is the structure of the sites and how the content is organized. Finally, make an exhaustive list of things you want to put on your future web site.

Now that you have collected all the information you needed you will see that you are much more certain about what you want and how do you want it to be done. Now you should collect all the material that you need for your website: articles, images, legal stuff, related texts, reviews, technical information... It is important that you collect as much material as you can because that process will get you a much clearer picture of requirements of your business than you had in the very start and in the end you will know exactly what you need and what you don't need on your website.

Next step is narrowing down your list of web sites with good design (three to four examples) and finding out which web design firms created those websites. If you can find out who did it, take a tour through their site: look at their portfolio, learn about their pricing and collect their contact information. Almost every decent web design firm will have an RFQ form where they will ask you questions about your web site needs, your budget, colors you would like to use, links of a few web sites that are similar to what you need and details for each site (e.g. "has the features I need but design is lousy") and if you remember what I said earlier in this article you see that these are all questions you already know the answers for. :-)

This way, not only that you will speed up your designing process by telling your web designer exactly what you want and having all the material ready, but you will also know exactly what is good and what you want to be changed when you see first design mockup from a designer. Finally, what is most important, you will avoid hiring a firm that's not fit to do it right or within your budget.

About The Author

Darko Krsmanović

Website Acquired: www.pear-logo-design.com

Date Written: 8. December 2005. This article is allowed for reproduction as long as the links and information about the author are kept intact.

© 2006 Pear Logo Design

Web design, e-book covers and advertising

by: Alexei Kouleshov

For those of you who are involved in electronic commerce, you would know that one of the reasons why some people don’t buy online is the lack of ability to feel the product. By creating e-book covers, product boxes and software packages you can increase your sales of your electronic goods. As for the usual products a photo of a product can have the same impact. As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

In the advertising of your electronic product the story changes completely. Customers prefer text ads rather then the graphic ones. Perhaps, users are tired of pop-ups and flashing banners. In this case you can say the opposite, “a word is worth a thousand pictures”. Wondering how? Think of the word “home” for a moment. Got a few warm thoughts coming to your head? Well every single person will percept this word differently in a personal way. I guess you now better understand why textual ads can have more impact on people.

There is not a single person out there who can’t make money online. It’s the income that varies. Some people sell thousands of dollars of products through their websites, others use ebay and make just as much. There are ones who don’t sell anything at all but get paid from content advertising and of course there are ones who are sceptical that it all will work. Which category do you fall into?

About The Author

Alexei Kouleshov is a web developer and an online marketer.

For more information visit http://www.youreasywebsolutions.com

Search Engine Friendly Web Design Advice

by: Jimsun Lui

Online marketers understand the importance of getting top search engine rankings in major search engines. Therefore, they spend many time in optimizing website content, seeking inbound links, and optimizing title and Meta Tags. However, many of them ignore the fact that web design structure has a role in search engine optimization (SEO). Sometimes, you cannot just rely on web designers because they could be good at web design but not good at SEO.

This article reveals several important web design elements you must consider:

1. CSS Stylesheet

It is good to use CSS stylesheet to format your web design because it can standardize the appearance of your website. For the sake of convenience, some web designers use internal CSS. It is no good! You should use external CSS stylesheet so that your HTML coding becomes consise. It is an essential SEO practice.

2. Content Management Software (CMS)

If you use CMS to manage your website, make sure your CMS provides these features:

a. Allows you to define different templates for different sections/pages. It gives you flexibility in optimizing website content.

b. Allows you to define Title and Meta tags for different web pages. Again, it gives you flexibility in optimizing every web page.

c. Allows you to generate static HTML pages instead of dynamic pages. Search engines are not good at reading dynamic web page. Accoding to Google webmaster guideline, Google may not index dynamic URL with more than 2 parameters within the URL.

If your web pages cannot get indexed, you definitely get no rankings no matter how many SEO effort you make.

3. HTML Code Compliance

As a good web design practice, make sure your HTML coding is compliant to some well recognized HTML standards such as W3C standard. Some search engine optimizers reported that non-compliant web design could cause difficulties for search engines

to index and analyze your website. It hinders your website to get top search engine ranking.

4. Use of Graphics

You must optimize the file size of your images. As search engines like to read text, you should consider avoiding the use of graphics near top of your website, whenever it is possible.

5. Multiple-level Navigation Menu

Many websites use multiple-level navigation menu in Javascript. However, the coding usually leaves in the HTML body. This is no good in terms of SEO. I recommend seperate Javascrpt from HTML coding by using external Javascript file.

6. Bad Web Design

To make your web design search engine friendly, you must consider avoiding:

a. Use of frame. Search engines have difficulties to index all your frameset. Even though they can index some frame pages, users would only access to part of your webpages only in case they can find your website from search engines, e.g., only see a left-hand side navigation menu with a blank page on the right-hand side.

b. Re-direct techniques. For some reasons, web designers may make some re-direct pages or adopt Javascript re-direct techniques and re-direct visitors from one page to another content pages. Since search engine spammers usually use this technique, search engines could penalize your website.

7. Flash

Web designers may sell you to build a flash website or make a flash intro page as your home page. Their point is that flash makes your website more appealing and it would improve effectiveness of your website. However, it is not always the case.

Visitors want to find information fast. Flash sometimes could make your website slow and require visitors to install plugins before they can see your website. In terms of SEO, simply speaking, search engines treat flash as a graphic and cannot analyze content inside a flash file. The implication means a flash website is hard to get top search engine ranking.

Conclusion:

For small business to succeed online, you must strike a balance between SEO and fancy web design. A too fancy web design, in many cases, cannot give you any business as no one can find your website from search engines and if it annoys your visitors.

About The Author

Jimsun Lui, is working in Agog Digital Marketing Strategy Limited, a company offers SEO Services for both English and Chinese search engines. Click here to learn more about how to optimize website. The company also offers Ecommerce Web Design Service with an emphasis of search engine friendliness.

agogdigital.com

jimsun@agogdigital.com

Web design industry future

by: Richard F. Antille

While the number of internet users continue to grow, the number of businesses using the internet as a tool has taken an exponential turn. The web is now recognized as being a real source of revenue and a competitive market where large and small companies sell their products. What does this mean for the web design/development industry?

New comers are attracted by the growth potential of this industry, the strength of its positive trend and its size. We see more and more competition among small web development/design companies while bigger and larger companies are entering this market offering a complete range of services. Those same companies have a strong financial basis, can afford massive advertising campaigns and develop tools that would take months or years to develop otherwise.

Does this mean the end of freelancers and small companies? To a certain extent, Yes! This industry is still growing and still requires a lot of available resources but large corporations have understood the potential of that market and are quickly adapting their tools and products to respond to a more and more professional demand. There is no doubt that it will become increasingly difficult to compete in such a market and that many freelancers and small 'one man' companies will close their shop.

To some extent we should see some restructuring in this industry as well as acquisitions and mergers. There are no other way for those who want to survive than thinking bigger and better. The time when those same large corporations were offering somewhat of a product at a somewhat good quality level are behind us. Today, the quality of services, tools and products offered are far more professional at a cheaper cost...

About The Author

Richard F. Antille has over 10 years of experience in asset/money management and over 20 years of experience in the computer/internet field. Business owner of a 'one man' web development - project management shop, Richard F. Antille works closely with his clients to develop solutions adapted to their needs, requirements and future developments. You can contact Richard F. Antille at: design@rms7design.com or visit www.rms7design.com.

Web Site Design Color For You

by: Maricon Williams

Color is an attitude. It can make you strong, weak, wild, wanting, passionate and complete. Colors can influence our behavior, feelings and psyche. In fact, colors are oftentimes used as treatment to psychotics and other mentally incapacitated persons.

However, when it comes to web designing, many designers overlook the enigmatic power of colors. It can bring life to any image, text or graphics. It can create the atmosphere needed in order to capture the viewer's decision and loyalty. These are the reasons why colors should be on our topmost list of things that need to be considered in mounting a web site. You don't want a drab looking site, do you? It will appear, melancholic, chaotic, plain and boring. Thus, colors must be chosen in order to complement the site's ambiance, feelings and purpose.

Web browsers only see 256 colors. However, there are times when the number may not appear as such because no browser shares the same 256-color pallet. Nowadays, web browsers are sharing 216 common colors. Thus, in order to complement to other web browsers, web designers must stick to the 216-color pallet. If they go beyond this color pallet, chances are the colors may not exist on other browser. In order for the browser to display that particular color, it will need tiny dots from the colors native to the browser. The process is called dithering. Unfortunately, this will result to the distortion of some tiny dots. Further, this will make the image appear speckled and without a solid color. In connection to texts, dithering will make them blurry and hard to read.

Verdict: Web designers must use browser safe color when using solid color as a design element. However, caution must be exercised.

There are times when we feel we are tricked by our eyes. In fact there is what we call mirage? An optical illusion and there is a long list of optical illusions that can otherwise trick us. But there are times when we are neither tricked or deceived in fact it is an act of science. How do this happen?

At the back of our eyes, there is a thin layer of tissue. This layer of tissue contains millions of tiny light-sensing nerve cells which are called rods and cones. Our eyes have ample decoding cones. These cones are the ones responsible for responding to specific wavelengths of light. Say, when you look at a red box, the cones that have detected the red wavelength become exhausted and fatigued. As a result, opposite cones in the eyes start to enter and different colors are made apparent.

Eye fatigue is one of the important considerations in designing a web site. Thus, avoid colors that are tiring to the eyes. It can result to disaster and can further result to giving of wrong notion or idea to the viewers. Colors like red and yellow, strains the eye faster than any other colors. Thus, limit the use of these colors. Use them on areas that need emphasis and focus. This will surely pull viewers attention. Other that those areas - a big no-no!

About The Author

Maricon Williams

Please visit Web Development Services Pros site at http://www.webdevelopmentpros.com for comments and inquiries regarding this article.

How to Choose a Web Designer?

by: Maricon Williams

Hiring a web designer is the next big step upon entering a web design business or anything in relation to it. Moreover, we have to make a good choice because our business depends on it.

To give you a clearcut idea on how you are going to choose your web designer, here are some of the things that you must consider:

1. Be aware to beware. First, you have to have the basic knowledge of web design techniques. It is a well-settled fact that before you enter a business, you yourself must have a good grasp of its totality. When you are knowledgeable, you know when a design is excellent or when mediocre. Another, you also know when to criticize or appreciate the work of your web designer.

If you are not aware of the surrounding circumstances of your business, chances are you will easily be deceived or your business will sooner or later go down the drain. You do not like that to happen, do you?

So, keep those thinking caps and explore your business world. Spend some time reading about web design and everything about websites. Go to your local bookstore and invest on books and other facilities.

2. Talk with basis. Get in contact with the experts in web designing. From them you can learn the ins and outs of web design services.

Another, talk to some of the designer’s former clients and ask them about the services of other designers. Learn from their mistakes as well as their achievements.

Don't just peruse a number of great sites, be sure to know the reason why they are best. From it you can glean the gist of what you should be focusing.

3. Bear in mind that graphic design is not the be-all and end-all. Graphic design is not the only basis in choosing a web designer. Though it is an important factor to consider, still that only forms part of what makes a feasible and lucrative website.

Other factor to consider is the designer's quest for equilibrium between form and function. If form is what matters the most for him, then that could be pretty dangerous. Next, is his organizational skill. Is he good in organizing the page layouts? Better be sure about it. Good navigation is also another factor. This is because viewers get bored easily. They can change their minds to your drawback with just a flick of a finger. Therefore, you must have a good navigation to keep them from getting bored. Good navigation must also be coupled with user-friendliness so as to be used easily and hassle-free by the visitors. The most important factor to consider is the 'call for action'.

The designer must be adept in the purpose of mounting a website. Is it to make the visitors buy a product or subscribe a business?

The website is there to serve a goal. Be sure the web designer caters to that goal!

4. The lowest bidder may not be that good. It is not just about getting the website done. It is about getting it done right! Quality may sometimes have a crucial link with price because of the maxim - You get what you pay. Moreover, web designers who have the lowest rate are usually inexperienced and hard to work with. Do not sacrifice the quality over a meager sum. It will surely spoil your business!

About The Author

Maricon Williams

Please visit Web Development Services Pros site at http://www.webdevelopmentpros.com/sections/Website-Design.html for comments and inquiries regarding this article.

Web Design By Example: www.cj.com

by: Sitecritic.net

Commission Junction is a popular online advertising company and has a number of big clients including ebay in their portfolio. This site has a strong corporate identity and a very user friendly navigation system. I usually judge a website by my first impression and this site certainly got my attention.

IdentityThe corporate colors are used effectively on every page. The headers of each section are highlighted in strong green, providing a good contrast with the white background. The faint CJ graphic embedded in the flash movie on the top right provides a subtle reminder of the brand. Looking at the CJ logo, I thought more characteristics of the circular shape or some curviness could be used throughout the pages.

NavigationThe site utilizes an easy navigation system with the top level "Solutions, Our Clients, About Us" on every page. All the links are easily visible user friendly. The client login system on the home page is very well thought of. However, the country navigation script on the top right hand corner seems to be abit slow.

Navigation trail or bread crumb is often used in many web sites to provide easeness in navigation. The bread crumb in this site is hard to see because its color does not contrast with the green background. The links below the page have the same problem.

The flash is not heavy, so it does not slows down the loading time. Overall, the site loads quite fast even on a dialup modem.

DesignAll the pages in the site are very consistent in terms of typography and layout. Important headings are bolded and all the texts are easily readable. The layout is effective with dotted lines separating different sections. The spaces around the text and images makes the page neat and tidy, improving user experience when navigating the site. The orange color is well used to balance out other colors on the page.

Most important of all, the graphics used are appropriate and presentable. (Graphics can spoil a great site or makes a crappy site looks great.)

Conclusion www.cj.com is well organized and presentable. The web site designers must have gone through a long planning process to create the site. It is all worth the effort.

About The Author

Sitecritic.net is formed by a group of web addicts, mainly volunteers from all over the world. Our goal is to create a community of web designers and developers who share the common interest in bringing out the best in creatiing effective web sites.

admin@sitecritic.net

Web Designer's Guide to Search Engine Optimization

by: Bernard Peh

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the buzz word you will see everywhere in the internet nowsadays. Designing a website today is no longer about aesthetics. It must not only look good, it must be visible to the search engines as well. What should a web designer take note when designing a search engine friendly website? This article attempts to discuss some important pointers for web designers in creating SEO friendly web pages.

(Note: We are not talking about boosting search engine rankings as that would require a separate article.)

From a search engine point of view, the perfect webpage has no graphics, no scripting, no tables...etc but just alot of normal, plain readable text. You can just take it that plain text is the food for search engine spiders. Therefore, the more text you have, the more you will keep the spiders happy. However, from the design point of view, such pages are very boring but the fact is that everyone is more interested in keeping the spiders rather than us happy. The argument is that if search engine spiders cannot find your site, no one will. Based on this philosophy, we witnessed the fall of flash and sites with strong graphics over the years. Many sites that utilized heavy graphics where no longer found. Web developers become happy because they have an excuse to create less impressive websites...

The question is can we make both the saerch engine spiders and us happy? The answer is definitely a "Yes" provided that web designers can follow certain rules when designing web pages. They need to step out of their comfort zone and learn abit more about new web technologies.

Domain Name and URL Naming Convention

Having a proper domain and url name is quite often neglected. Many search engines actually put some weightage in the way you name your domain or url files. You will definitely want to include some juicy words in your naming convention. For example, if you site is about website critics and your url is http://www.sitecritic.com, this will definitely be better than a domain like http://www.bluecatfish.com. The same principle goes for hyperlinks. If you have 2 words as key words, you can use an underscore "_" or dash "-" to separate them.

Title

Do not fool around when writing the title. From my experience, this is the most important part of your webpage. Many designers like to put special characters such as " * "," | ", " : " or " [ ] " in the title to make it look unique. If you really want to make your webpage special, I advise you to do it else where such as in the body of the HTML document. You should include your keywords in your title. Like the previous example, if your web site focuses on website reviews, make sure you have the words "Website Reviews" somewhere in the title. Noticed that "WebsiteReviews" is not the same as "Website Reviews". Spacing is important.

When writing the title, try not to write more than 8 words. There are no hard and fast rules on that but the fact is that more does not mean good. In fact, the more you write, the more your keyword density will be diminished. If you keep repeating the same keyword in the title, search engines will see your site as spam and you will be dead in no time. For example, a title like "Sitecritic Web Reviews" is much better than "Sitecritic Web Reviews, Internet Marketing, Web Design Ideas, Internet Directories, Budget Web Hosting, Melbourne". I will have to stress again, do not fool around with your title.

Meta-Description

After the title tag is the meta description tag. Many people argued that meta description is no longer important. Based on my experience, they are still relevant in SEO rankings especially if your website is new. The principle in writing the meta description tag is the same as the title. The only difference is that you want explain abit more about the services that you provide in a friendlier format. You will also want to include your keywords in the meta description.

Menu, Content and Links

You should not use any javascript menus that hid the urls. Many javascript menus are fancy but actually not SEO friendly. What ever technique you are using to create the menus, make sure that the "a href" tag is visible. You might also want to include a variation of the keywords in the menus, links or text. Like the previous example, if your keyword is "Web Site Reviews", you might not want to use the same word over and over again. You can vary it by using "Professional Web Reviews, Reviews of Websites, Site Reviews...etc". Varying the keywords makes your content more interesting and is good for SEO as well.

When writing the contents, try to put the keywords in different areas of the document. Use tags like "b" or "h2" to make the keywords stand out. Avoid urls that say "click here" or "view". Though often used, they are not advisable for SEO purposes.

Text links are stonger than image links. It is therefore not advisable to use images as the main navigation menu throughout the website. If you would like to incorporate images in the user navigation experience, you might want to consider separating the text from the images. This can be achieved easily using CSS or the background image option in the table or td tag.

Images

Unlike many Search Engine Experts, I strongly encourage the use of graphics because I am passion about Web Design and is sad to see so many websites that are well optimized for search engines but look crap on screen. You need to balance between the amount of graphics used and downloading speed. Like I mentioned before, if your header banner or important images contains text , you could split up the text and use the images as a separate background or floating layer. That way, you can make the image size smaller and also make the text visible to the search engines. Transparent gifs are very useful for laying over other content or images. Appropriate use of jpegs and gifs can also cut down loading time by alot.

CSS Technology

CSS helps you to cut down your tag and gives more room for the spiders to read your content. The problem with CSS is that it is not as straight forward as tables. At the moment, CSS is also inconsistent in different browsers, so before you publish your web page, you need to check the layout in different browsers. I am actually not against designers using tables especially if they find the time spend in creating a full CSS site not justifiable. The fact is that there are still cases when using CSS is not advisable. An example is when displaying tabular data; Tables still excel in displaying tabular data at the moment. Unless you are using complex nested tables, the table, tr or td tags should not pose too much of a problem for the search engine spiders.

Conclusion

Web pages should not be boring and web designers should not bow down to the Google revolution. A well designed site combines both form and function and yet, still able to be search engine friendly. I strongly believe that this can be easily achieved if website designers are able to follow very basic rules in designing their web sites.

About The Author

Bernard Peh is a great passioner of web technologies and one of the co-founders of Sitecritic.net - Website Reviews and Design Ideas. With more than 5 years of commercial experience in the web industry, he leads a group of experienced web designers and developers to provide the web community insights into creating effective websites. During his free time, he enjoys reviewing websites, doing freelance SEO and PHP work.

admin@sitecritic.net

Internet Marketing: 10 Deadly Sins of a Poorly Designed Website

by: Dean Mercado

Face it. There are tons of websites out there but very few that actually pull their weight and get results. Effective website design is not easy. If it was, every business that put up a website would realize enormous success. It takes many different skill sets to pull together a killer website.

That being said, here is a list of website design sins for your edification. Consider these deeply and I highly recommend you make sure your website doesn’t commit them.

Website Sin # 1 – Website does not have a crystal clear objective. Why do you have or want to have a website in the first place? What do you want it to do for your business?

Website Sin #2 – No clear call to action. This sin dovetails on the previous one. Once you are clear on your website’s objective, make it real clear to your visitor what action you want them to take. Clearly spell it out. Trust me, leave no room for interpretation.

Website Sin #3 – Website does not have a means to capture visitor’s contact information. You are missing a tremendous opportunity to gather prospects who are clearly interested in what you have to offer – hence qualified prospects to market to going forward. Do whatever it takes here. Offer what we call an “ethical bribe” in exchange for their contact information.

Website Sin #4 – Website doesn’t give visitors a reason to come back. Unless your website is a one-time sales website, you must keep it chock full of new and great content to keep it producing for you.

Website Sin #5 – Website has no substance, all style. Dovetailing on the previous sin, focus should be more on adding valuable content as opposed to having flashy animations. Flashy animations may wow your visitors once (if you’re lucky), but great content starts building a relationship or dare I say a dependency on you. Bottom line you’re adding value to your prospects.

Website Sin #6 - Website has an “it’s all about me” mentality. Keep the copy conversational in tone and focus clearly on what’s in it for your visitor. Make them feel that it’s all about them – make them feel special.

Website Sin #7 - Website is inconsistent with your “Brand”. Your website does not have to be the best looking site out there. It is far more critical to be consistent (same overall look, feel and design as your other marketing materials).

These next three sins are absolutely inexcusable and should not require much explanation. Nothing will frustrate your visitor more and detract from your credibility faster.

Website Sin #8 – Poor or inconsistent navigation. Don’t make people think. Make it real easy for visitors to find what they are looking for.

Website Sin #9 – Dead links. This is a credibility killer. Always do what you say you’re going to do. It is amazing what people can read into a dead link – the worst being that you simply don’t care enough about you visitor.

Website Sin #10 – Slow website. I know, it’s hard to believe but not everyone is using high speed broadband Internet connections yet. A little compassion here goes a long way.

© 2006 Online Marketing Muscle -- All Rights Reserved.

About The Author

Dean Mercado is an Internet marketing coach, strategist, author, and speaker. Dean and his company Online Marketing Muscle help entrepreneurial professionals leverage the power of Internet marketing to turn their businesses into money magnets. Visit Online Marketing Muscle for many more Internet marketing tips.

onlinemarketingmuscle.com

dean@onlinemarketingmuscle.com

Web Design – The Basics

by: Mark Nenadic

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!

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

About The Author

Mark Nenadic 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.

Website Design Considerations

by: Tim Knox

Q: Should I build and maintain my business Web site myself or pay someone else to do the work for me? -- Wesley L.

A: When you say, pay someone else to do the work for you, Wesley, I am going to assume that you are talking about hiring a professional Web site designer to do the work and not your next-door neighbor's teenage son. If my assumption is correct, then read on. If not, go ahead and surf on over to Dilbert.com. You will get no good out of the advice I'm about to give, so you might as well consult Dilbert for your hot business tips.

Should you build and maintain your business Web site yourself or pay someone to do it for you? Let me answer your question with a couple of my own. Number one: is building and maintaining Web sites the key focus of your business? Number two: could your time be better spent doing more important things like, oh I don't know, say running your business? If your answers were no and yes, respectively, then you have no business building and maintain a Web site.

Remember this: every minute you spend on tasks that are not related to the key focus of your business is time spent to the detriment of your business. In other words, every minute you spend focusing on tasks that do not contribute to the growth of your business and thereby increase your bottom line is time wasted.

If you want to be a web designer, be a web designer. However, if the key focus of your business is building widgets, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that your time would be better spent building widgets, not Web sites.

Case in point: I once had a very wealthy dentist ask if I could teach him how to maintain his Web site so he wouldn't have to pay me to do it. Now my teeth had helped put this guy's kids through college, but that didn't seem to matter. At that moment he was more concerned about having to pay for changes to his Web site than my personal oral hygiene. Sure, I said, I'll be glad to teach you how to update your Web site, just as soon as you teach me how to clean my own teeth so I don't have to pay you to do it. He got the point. And he charged me enough for the cleaning to keep his site updated for months. Smart man.

Many business owners think they can't afford a professionally designed Web site and that simply is not true. While the old adage, "you get what you pay for" is never more true than when applied to Web site design, having a professional web designer do the work for you is money well spent. A well-designed Web site can bring you a many-fold return on your investment. You can't say that about too many other collaterals. While it is best to leave Web site design and maintenance to the experts, it is up to you (or someone considered a subject matter expert within our company) to provide the designer with the content (text and photographs) that best conveys your company's message to your customers. A Web site, no matter how well designed, is meaningless if it lacks the content required to interest customers in the products you sell or services you provide.

Here's are a few questions that, once answered, will help ensure that your Web site's message is as appealing as its design. Go over these points with the designer before the design process begins as the answers will help determine the direction your Web site's design should take.

What Is The Purpose Of Your Web Site? Most business Web sites have two purposes: (1) to educate the consumer and, (2) to sell them products or services. If you sell shoes, for example, the purpose of your Web site is to educate potential customers on the quality and durability of your shoes and as a result, to sell them shoes. If you paint houses the purpose of your Web site is to educate home owners on why your services are superior to other painters and sell them on hiring you to paint their house. By defining the purpose of your Web site you will give the designer the information required to create a Web site that best conveys that purpose to your target audience.

Who Is My Target Audience? Your target audience consists of those folks you want to attract to your Web site: potential and current customers, future and current employees, possible investors, etc. Anyone who might be interested in your company and its products or services is a member of your target audience. Correctly identifying your target audience is vital since your Web site should be designed specifically to appeal to your target audience.

Put yourself in their shoes (or in front of their computers). Imagine your Web site through their eyes. If you were visiting a Web site such as yours what would you expect to find and what would you be disappointed not to find? Identify your target audience, then have your Web site designed to fulfill their needs and surpass their xpectations.

What Content Should My Web Site Feature? Your Web site content should be driven by the nature of your business. If you're a real estate agent, your site should feature photographs of homes you have for sale and information on buying and selling a home. If you own an auto body shop, your site might feature before and after photographs of cars that you have repaired. Remember to determine the purpose of your site, then develop the content to serve that purpose. What's My Competition Doing? The last question you should ask is one of the most important: What is your competition doing on the Web? Do a Google search for similar businesses and click around their Web sites. How are their Web sites designed? What message are they trying to convey? Are they doing a good job of conveying that message and as a result, selling products? What do you like about their Web sites? What don't you like? Make note of the things you like and the things you hate, then share your findings with your site designer.

Remember, you're not stealing trade secrets here.

You're just borrowing ideas.

Here's to your success.

Tim Knox tim@dropshipwholesale.net For information on starting your own online or eBay business, visit http://www.dropshipwholesale.net

About The Author

Tim Knox
Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker
http://www.prosperityandprofit.com
http://www.dropshipwholesale.net
http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
http://www.timknox.com

How To Make An Excellent Investment In Your Web Site Design

by: Abe Cherian

A lot of online entrepreneurs are under the impression that they have to do everything themselves and be everything to anybody. They want to do it all. The want to be the inventor, the creator, the author, the accountant, the graphic designer, the web designer, the copywriter, the tech guy, etc. This is very inefficient.

Do only the things that you do well and then you pay someone else to do the things you aren't good at or take a long time for you to do. Other than saving money, there is no reason that you should even try to do everything yourself. There is a strong relationship between time and money. That is that time is money.

Once you understand and appreciate that you will be more efficient and less scared to spend a little money to get things done fast and well. Even if it means freeing up a significant amount of time. Who you are is communicated through your website. There was another harmful myth circulated amongst internet marketers that web design doesn't matter as long as the sales copy is good.

This myth sprung from the philosophy that a site should be stripped down to it's bare essentials so that there is nothing to distract or confuse the visitor. That is true. But then someone took it a step further and said that web design doesn't matter at all - only the sales copy. That is not true. Your website should look good, professional, classy, appealing, etc.

Online, surfers judge you by the quality of your site design. They judge your credibility according to how professional your website looks. They judge your sincerity by how "classy" and "not cheesy" your website is. They assume your product's quality and the quality of your website are linked. And why shouldn't they? Your website is usually 100% of the experience they have with you.

They haven't met you in person, they haven't talked to you on the phone, they probably haven't heard about you before they came to your site. So, they land on your homepage, the page loads, and at that point all they know about you is what is sitting in their browser window which is words and site design.

A good web site adds to your credibility, professionalism, and builds trust with your customers because it indicates that you are a stable, successful operation. Not bad things in anyone's eyes.

If you split test a well designed, professional website and a homemade website with the exact same sales copy the professional site will out pull the homemade site. By how much will vary depending on the unique attributes of the prospects in that niche but Beyond just having a better site in the end, think of all the precious time that you will save by having someone else do your site design.

Obviously sales copy is more important but assuming that site design is insignificant is not thinking clearly. If you still aren't convinced. Look at it this way, you can spend two weeks learning how to code and do bad design work, eventually producing a very amateur site, or you can hire a professional who, for $300 can do that work for you in 4 days and produce a much higher quality website.

That makes this an excellent investment. Have your site designed by a professional. Designing it yourself is a waste of time and money. This can free up your time spent doing other things to get your online investment rolling.

By Abe Cherian

Copyright © 2006

You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter on your web site as long as the byline is included and the article is included in it's entirety. I also ask that you activate any html links found in the article and in the byline. Please send a courtesy link or email where you publish to: support@multiplestreammktg.com

About The Author

Abe Cherian's online automation system has helped thousands of marketers online build, manage and grow their business. Test-Drive iMediatools for free and watch your sales shoot up. http://www.imediatools.com.

support@multiplestreammktg.com

No Frills Website Design Company

by: Steve Hill

There are a very large amount of people and companies offering web design services and therefore it should not be difficult to bag yourself a bargain. There is a market for no frills web design where you should be able to obtain a website for under a £100.

Web design companies are in a very competitive market and some offer some great deals at various times of the year, especially around christmas time

People who are just starting out in a career building custom design websites will often offer their services at a very reasonable rate, basically to build up a portfolio. Once they have established themselves they then tend to increase the amount they charge. Therefore you need to get in quick while there offering a professional service for an unprofessional fee.

I have even heard about one person who for a very short period of time was building websites for free! This is an extreme case though.

A colleague of mine called Peter was looking to have an internet prescence for his small business a number of years ago. He did not have a huge budget, however was looking for a person or company to create him a professional looking website which would be search engine friendly at an affordable price.

He tried looking in many areas including yellow pages, ebay, bargain pages and also by asking his friends, to see if they knew of anybody.

He also searched in Google for the search term, very cheap website design in Birmingham. There were many different websites listed, after a few phone calls, he managed to find a very good deal.

There are plenty of people offering quality website design services, who do not charge huge fees, just keep looking and you are sure to find them.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

About The Author

Stephen Hill has a number of websites including:

http://www.std-treatment.com

http://www.stutter-therapy.com

http://www.information-about-herpes.com

info@stammering-stuttering.co.uk

The 5 Most Important Rules for Designing your Company Website

by: Mike Roshuk

Have you ever visited a website that was so bad that you felt like it was sucking the life out of you? Sure you have, we all have. We all know what a poorly designed website looks like. And the sad thing is, internet surfers will more often than not judge your company by your website. These web-surfers are your potential customers, and the last thing you need is them fleeing from your website just seconds after they arrive.

If you’re thinking of creating a website for your company, or redesigning an existing one, here is a brief list of some web design principles that should be followed:

1. Make sure it loads quickly.

You could have the best designed site on the planet, but if it’s not in front of me within 3 seconds, I’m gone. Once you have your website up and running, check it from a few different computers. Make sure it loads quickly on other machines and internet connections, and still looks good on a couple different screen resolutions.

2. Use Consistent Navigation Layout

Never take away the viewer’s ability to navigate through your site. If you have the navigation links to the various pages in your website listed along the top or the left-hand side, try to keep this placement on all subsequent pages. You want your viewer to be focusing on your products and/or services, not on how to get back to the page where they were at.

3. Color Theory

This has always been a favorite of mine. I’ve even been criticized at times for paying too close attention to color theory, but there are many studies which prove that color greatly influences shoppers. This applies equally as much to the internet. I suggest doing a search for more intensive articles on color theory on the net; they can be a wealth of information. But here are some brief examples to get you started:

-Reds / Greens : Hunger colors, great for restaurants, grocery stores, and other food vendors
-Royal Blue or Orange: Know to appeal to ‘impulse shoppers’.
-Blue: Color of loyalty and trust. Calming color
-Red: signifies action, passion, and strength.
-Purple or Black: Colors of royalty, sophistication, or wealth.

Keep in mind the psychological impact of color also varies from culture to culture, so be sure you know who your target audience is.

4. ‘Dumping In’ photos and content

‘Dumping In’ content refers to placing images and text on your website without paying attention to how it affects the overall design of your website. Too often I see nicely designed websites with poorly placed content.

When designing your website, it is a good idea to have all your content written beforehand, as well as all the images you will be using. Also, pertaining to images, try to have the image incorporated more into the design of your site, rather than simply having it as a rectangular jpg floating beside your text.

5. Research

Before you even sketch anything on paper, before you open up Photoshop or even look at Dreamweaver, take a good look at other websites. Famous artists still dive into the history books to seek inspiration from the masters. Skilled painters still use photo references of their subjects. There is no reason you shouldn’t do the same type of research when creating a design for your website.

A good place to start is to do a Google search for ‘best websites’; this will usually yield some interesting results. There are some brilliant web designers out there, and getting inspiration from their techniques will make your website better in the end.

About The Author

Mike Roshuk is a professional freelance designer specializing in Web Design, Graphic Design, and Illustration. Mike Roshuk operates under the name dieselshack, based in Edmonton Alberta. To learn more please visit http://www.dieselshack.com.

mike.roshuk@dieselshack.com

The Plastic Web of Ecommerce Website Design

by: Mark Nenadic

Ecommerce website design embraces the idea of the Internet storefront. When it comes to operating a store on the Internet, taking money from customers should be as easy as it is when dealing out of a street front shop. Cash, checks, credit cards, and debit cards are all viable means to handle paying for services, goods or other. When it comes to ecommerce website design, this is an issue that acquires paramount importance.

The importance is highlighted when you acknowledge there are no cash registers or night deposit-drops on an ecommerce website design. Instead, these features must be incorporated into the design’s capability. Whether the site is selling artwork, books, music or services rendered, there must be a functionality that allows users to not only add the items to a virtual shopping cart, but also total up the final price including shipping. At that point, payment should be rendered or the ability to render payment should be available.

Many ecommerce website designs do not limit their payment acceptance to just credit or debit cards, but also feature a way that customers can pay by check or money order. The power of plastic aside, the ability to accept a check over the phone or an address to send a check to is still the preferred choice for many Internet shoppers. Discounting these options discounts an entire class of Internet shopper.

So what goes into the ecommerce website design to increase the functionality of accepting payments over the Internet? A merchant account can be a tough call because unless a company possesses a proven financial track record along with a solid financial backing, chances are the merchant account could be expensive. However, a good relationship with a bank may compensate for that.

Barring the banking relationship, another alternative is to sign up directly with the credit card companies. Visa and MasterCard both have direct access, as does American Express. The official websites are packed with information for developers setting up their ecommerce website design. There are also other independent acquirers that can be used including Pay Pal. The drawbacks to independent acquirers are the fees and exclusions that the seller will have to cover. Pay pal is likely among the most simple of formats because the fee is based on a percentage of money received.

The age of the plastic web means that setting up an ecommerce website design has never been simpler. In the same breath, it also requires some intensive setup before the design goes live for customers. In order to make the best decisions during this phase of the ecommerce website design, check the fees associated with the merchant account or acquirer. For example, make a chart that compares the fees for application, setup, statement, discount rate, transaction and monthly minimums.

By breaking down these fees, the selection of merchant account will become easier. The determination of fees will also impact the way business is billed, including raising certain prices to absorb the cost of how payment is received. Imagine, for example, the service industry where the client is billed by the hour. If there is a 5% fee for covering their method of payment, that 5% must be included in the initial quote.

For standard ecommerce website design where the site boasts its own shopping cart and shipping calculator, the fee breakdowns would be rolled into the posted prices. That may mean a 5-cent increase across the board or it may have less impact than imagined. The research will prepare the developer of the ecommerce website design model that incorporates a pricing model.

If this all sounds confusing, it shouldn’t. The process to go through in setting up an ecommerce website design should include the following steps:

• Identify Products/Services • Set Prices • Determine Shipping Vendor • Establish Shipping Prices • Research Merchant Accounts • Obtain Merchant Accounts • Give All Data to the Designer

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

About The Author

Mark Nenadic 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.

Web Design Books : The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating Winning Web Sites (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

Simply Beautiful!,

January 22, 2007

By	W. Ince (Charlotte, NC United States) - See all my reviews

It is now the 22nd of January 2007, and this is my 6th book on the topic of usability, customer-center design, and plainly, human-computer interaction. Certainly, this is the crème de la crème of them all--though i am not dismissing the merits of the other books. This book is the soup-to-nuts on building sites that focus on content management, E-commerce essentials, Web UI, and best practices on enhancing user experience. It is simply a chock-full o' timely and very practical tips and techniques.

The Design of Sites, Second Edition, is the definitive reference for the principles, patterns, methodologies, and best practices underlying exceptional Web design. If you are involved in the creation of dynamic Web sites, this book will give you all the necessary tools and techniques to create effortless end-user Web experiences, improve customer satisfaction, and achieve a balanced approach to Web design.

After a comprehensive tutorial covering the foundations of good Web site design, you will move on to discover the thirteen major Web design pattern groups. These patterns solve recurring design problems and help design teams avoid reinventing the wheel. Patterns range from creating a solid navigation framework and the all-important home page, to instilling trust and building credibility with your customers and improving site performance through better design.

The book features

• Coverage of AJAX, the Mobile Web, and online communities
• Seventeen new design patterns to add to the original ninety, including the new blog site type
• More than twenty significantly updated patterns
• 450 four-color screen shots and diagrams, including more than 150 new images
• Key site elements, including site maps, style sheets, dynamic elements, and customer profiles
• Clear, visual organization with color-coded sections for easy reference
• A balanced approach to Web design that takes both customer and business needs into account

Web Design Books : Mastering Dreamweaver Made Easy Training Tutorial

System Requirements

• Media: CD-ROM

---

Product Features

• Over 6 hours of video lessons (124 individual lessons)
• PDF instruction manuals
• Hands-on practice exercises
• Introductory through advanced material
• PC or MAC

Product Description
Over 6 hours of full-motion, animated instruction with crystal-clear audio in Dreamweaver. 122 individual lessons. The best Dreamweaver tutorial available. Designed by software training professionals who teach Dreamweaver in our classrooms all year long. Learn at your office or home - at your own pace. Includes all of the topics covered in our two-day classroom training. Deluxe Training includes the same two classroom manuals our students receive (in PDF), along with practice exercises & keyboard shortcuts! Customize your training with the easy-to-use menu. Clear, easy-to-follow, step-by-step instruction. Watch the training sessions as many times as you want while you practice in Dreamweaver. No messy set-up, no internet connections needed. The best way to learn Dreamweaver on your own.

Consistency In Web Design

by: Sitecritic.Net

The human mind constantly searches for patterns in everything that it sees everyday, striving to find the unified picture as a whole. If the mind cannot find pattern in what it is seeking, it has a high tendency to look elsewhere.

When doing web design, it is important to design the website in such a way that makes it easier, not harder for the mind to see the pattern. It must be clear to a visitor he is still at the same site.

If objects with similiar functions are grouped together, its function will be easily understood and remembered. When designing an interface, it is important that all similiar tools used for navigation and accessing information should stay consistent. The webpage font, style, colour, layout, mouse over effects should also stay consistent. When the user clicks a link, he must recognize the connecting page is similar to the previous one, failing to do so will make the user confused and will prompt him to visit other websites.

If there are sound or animation used in navigation, the sound and animated effect should stay the same in all pages. For example, if an animation is turned on by clicking a flash button, it should be done the same way in the rest of the webpages.

One method of ensuring consistency is to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). By defining standard style properties in another document, it is possible to achieve the same look and feel to all your webpages that use the same style sheet. A style sheet, for example, can be used to make the text on every page 12 pt Verdana, all headings (h1) orange..etc. If the style of the site needs to be changed for any reason, only one document needs to be updated. Without style sheets, doing manual adjustments on every page is tedious and often result in errors and inconsistency.

Another way to promote site consistency is to use templates. A website template is a document that defines the structure of muliple pages in your site. For example, if the header and footer are standard across all pages in your site, they can be attached to the body of your document via an automated process, saving you time and typing errors. Many web editing softwares such as Dreamweaver offer templating function. Server-side technologies can also do the same job easily.

Consistency is very important in website design because it makes the reader do less thinking. Time is money. Your reader wants to find the information he needs quickly. Inconsistency design only slows down their surfing speed and make them lose interest in your site easily.

About The Author

Sitecritic.net Website Reviews is formed by a group of web addicts, mainly volunteers from all over the world. Our goal is to create a community of web designers and developers who share the common interest in bringing out the best in creatiing effective web sites.

admin@sitecritic.net

Top Tips for Attracting and Retaining Web Design Clients

by: Jason Fellingham

Quick Response Customers are immediately impressed with quick responses to questions and service sign-up. Be sure to mention how important customers are to the success of your business and strive to respond to their message as soon as possible. In this case, under promise and over deliver. I will typically state on my web site that I will respond to emails within four hours. Customers are often pleasantly-surprised to hear back from me within an hour. First impressions are everything! If you do well with you initial response, then you are more than likely to get your foot in the door and ensure repeat business.

Total Customer Experience Be sure to ask plenty of questions and get the customer involved with the design of their own web page. Ask them to give you a few sites that they like already and put together a rough draft. Publish to a staging site, password protect it and give to your client. The more you keep them involved in the project, the more important they feel and the more impressed they are with your offerings.

Be a Perfectionist in the Customer's Eyes Pay close attention to detail, ask if the visual components such as color, layout and fonts are pleasing to the eye. Staying involved with the customer in this way gives them the impression that you truly care and gives them a sense that they are involved with the creation of the web site.

Stand by Your Work Be sure to follow-up with your customers a few days or weeks after the completion of the project. Always offer to fix any and all perfections. Dazzle them by offering to update their web site free for 30-days.

Keep in Touch / Repeat Business There is absolutely nothing wrong with checking-in with your customers from time to time just to say hello. Just be sure to ask if everything is OK with their web site and remind them that your services are available for updates/redesign. The odds are in your favor if your customer is happy at this point. It is likely that your customer will come back to you for updates. You can even go as far as offering a discount or. even a coupon from time to time. You want to flatter your customer, make them feel appreciated that they have given their hard-earned money to you.

Ask for Referrals and Testimonials Do not be afraid to ask your customer for a testimonial or even refer business to friends and family. Happy customers are often more than willing to help you out if you have done them right.

About The Author

Jason Fellingham

I could not believe my ears when my friends and family with small businesses told me how much other web firms were charging for a little five page web site.

I launched http://www.ShaggyPuppy.com in the Spring of 2005 in response to the limited financial constraints often faced by small businesses. http://www.ShaggyPuppy.com caters specifically to the needs of small business while charging less than half of most competition. I am able to charge much, much less than the other guys because of my very low overhead costs and involvement with two other diversified businesses.

Please, feel free to stop by my web site and see for yourself, just how affordable a web site can be. I am happy to answer any questions that you may have about this article or my business.

Shaggy Puppy Web Design We Offer Pricing Our Competitors Wish They Could Offer You

Designing Your Website

by: Andy Lewis

‘First impression lasts’ is very much true for online business. Website content (texts, graphics and animations) must create a 3D picture of product/service in the mind of the consumers, and entice them to buy it. Content can make a business click or sick on internet.

A website is like your online shop, your virtual interactive portfolio. For web design tool, it is important to determine your target audience and then design for speed, quality, and impact.

Speed

Keep the graphics to the minimum. Remember graphics don’t entice customers to pay up, the content does. The rule of graphics is use only where necessary.

Quality

A customer cannot see you or touch your product or service. He can only see what is presented to him visually on the website. Your product or service has to make an impact as to be able to make purchase it. Quality here matters a lot. Nothing but the best is the rule when it comes to quality.

Impact

The rule of website usability is that your website has just 20 seconds. You either make an impact on your customer or you don’t in these 20 seconds. To make an impact on your customer you need to get the right mix of graphics, colors, content and layout.

Impact of Content

Content is king, it is said. It either converts a visitor into your customer or it doesn’t. Content can make or break a website. The power of the written word has been witnessed many a time. Products have become success stories, resumes transformed into high profile jobs, a 10-cent brochure into millions of dollars just because of the right word. Content should always be professionally managed by people who understand how it will impact your customers.

Impact of Colors

Pink is so feminine, ouch! Cute and light.

Blue defines power and professionalism. It’s also for space and networking.

Red is associated with love, passion, warning, excitement and action.

Green is for money, nature, animals, health, healing, life and harmony.

Grey is associated with neutrality. A sense of being reserved.

Website design tools

Serverplex.com features an excellent web design tool - http://www.serverplex.com/webdesign.html. No coding knowledge required. No HTML tags or any complicated code. A simple interface where you type in what you want. Add pictures. And you have your webpage ready. The icing on the pudding is yet to come. This tool is free!

About The Author

Andy Lewis is an expert author on varied topics related to web hosting - http://www.serverplex.com/ and web designing - http://www.serverplex.com/webdesign.html.

andy@orientinfosolutions.com

Quality Website Design At An Affordable Price

by: Steve Hill

I always have people asking me if I know of anybody who can build them a website which is affordable but also professional looking. They want the website to be search engine friendly, there is no point in having a website if no one can see it, and fully optimised.

I am sure there are many people looking for something similar. In my opinion you should not have to spend a lot of money for such a service.

With such a lot of people now offering web design and optimisation services in the UK, there are bound to be some good deals to be found. In reality you should be able to have your website built for between £50 and £100.

The question is where do you find these great deals?

These are the areas I would try:

search engines such as Google

internet auction websites such as ebay

yellow pages

newspaper advertisements

shop window advertisements

asking family and friends

If you are willing to spend a bit of time, making lots of phone calls and sending lots of e-mails you will soon find the right web design quote.

It is not just the cost that is important however. There is no point accepting a quote of £20 per website if the site will be of poor quality and not search engine friendly. It is therefore advisable to look at the person or companies portfolio and see if you like their previous work. I always look to see the page rank of the sites they have previously built and run a few searches on the key phrases relevant to each website.

About The Author

Stephen Hill has a number of websites including:

http://www.stammering-stuttering.co.uk

http://www.alternative-therapy.co.uk

http://www.stress-management-game.co.uk

info@stammering-stuttering.co.uk

Website Optimisation & Design: Which Screen Resolution to Design for?

by: Ilan Touri

It is at times a common mistake for web designers, especially beginners, to create a website which is not optimised for various screen resolutions. With over 40 different screen resolutions, it is extremely important to optimise your web pages for the most popular screen resolutions so that your web pages can be viewed by a greater number of online visitors.

Here are some basic facts to consider when designing for screen resolutions:

- 800x600 is the minimum resolution offered on most PCs and notebooks. 800x600 is also the preferred viewing option for 14% of internet users.

- The most popular resolutions used by approximately 60% of online users is 1024 x 768, followed by 1280x1024 and other resolutions, with 26% of internet users.

Designing for a wide spectrum of resolutions is therefore essential. But how is this achieved?

The process of designing for all resolutions is achieved through a “lowest-to-highest” resolution technique. Which ever image editing or web building application you are using, it is important to set your working area or table width to a resolution within 800 x 600. A suitable area of 770 x 560 is recommended for best viewing in a web browser on a 800 x 600 screen resolution. This recommended area will not only alleviate horizontal page scrolling but will keep your pages user friendly and easy to read.

Designing web pages for all resolutions is especially useful for attracting and keeping visitors for a longer period of time on your site. Easy to use and read websites are always more likely to attract customers. A poorly designed and structured website with irritable horizontal scrolling will only drive away visitors and potential buyers.

About The Author

Ilan Touri is a search engine optimisation specialist and website designer working for SEO Sydney. He has worked on many projects and offers website optimisation services and website design to companies in Australia.

seosydney.com.au

Universal Web Design Catering to All of Your Visitors

by: Mark Nenadic

The world wide web is an extremely unique place that allows everybody to have access to the same information from all around the world. This truly is an ability never experienced before by humankind. Just as exciting is the fact that this resource is always growing, expanding, and improving, so that a web user is limited only by his or her own imagination.

As the world wide web continues to grow, so will the needs of its different users. For this reason, universal web design is also increasing in its importance, so that web sites are continuously able to accommodate these needs.

Fortunately, by implementing a site with a universal web design, you can continue to grow with your visitors’ needs, and without a great deal of difficulty. In fact, by using universal web design, you’ll achieve a much more professional, clean, and usable website. Any alterations will involve only a few very simple, straight forward changes, which will make you much more likely to keep it improved and fully up to date.

Universal web design, when done correctly, will automatically accommodate your visitors, no matter their computer skills, internet experience, needs, and desires.

For example, when using the universal design style, your site will be consistently laid out as far as its links, navigation, content, and other features. This way, your visitors will quickly become used to the way the site works, and they will not have to “re-learn” it every time they changes pages.

Universal website design will also not rely wholly on Java-Script, and without using alt-tags for images. This is all very helpful to users who want a faster result, as well as those who aren’t really sure what they’re doing.

After all, many of your users may be visiting with the graphics feature turned off in order to give themselves higher protection from viruses and spyware, and to speed up the process because of a slow computer, a slow connection, or an expensive connection. If your site depends entirely on graphics and Java-Script, you have already excluded those clients before they were even able to get started.

Universal web design, therefore, will often require that the site offers two different methods of website accessibility for reaching the same goal.

Even better, this will open your website up to visitors who have very special needs such as those who are:

- Visually impaired, such as blind or color-blind
- Deaf
- Motion impaired, resulting in greater challenge using a mouse or keyboard
- Cognitive impairments
- Text-only browsers, such as Lynx

This is true because many of these individuals have different hardware, software, and overall techniques for accessing the web. For example, people who are visually impaired will frequently use a screen reading software. This software works by reading the webpage to the visitor one word at a time, one row at a time.

Now consider your own website accessibility. When you first see it, your eyes will go over the entire layout of the page, including its headings, side bars, text content, images, subheadings, ads, and other elements. You are quickly able to recognize the organization and goal of the particular page and are able to skip to your desired information right away.

However, will a person with a screen reader be able to do the same? Their reader will go across the page one word at a time, straight across the entire page, including any alt-tag information that may be there. Top-listed links create a disastrously confusing result.

There is an easy way to get around this with the universal web design style. When you create your alt-tags, simply enter the words “Navigation Bar” within the information and the screen reader will this information and then the links, having it make sense to the person listening to the screen reader, and will remain invisible to sighted readers. If you want the screen reader to ignore it altogether, simply enter “” as your alt-tag description, and it will move past it without a pause.

Similarly, make sure that your buttons are a good size, so that any visitors with motion impairments won’t struggle to point and click.

Remember that color should be used very carefully, as approximately 8% of all visitors to your website will have difficulty distinguishing among colors to some extent or another. Your colors shouldn’t be dense enough that they appear black on a black-and-white screen, nor should they be so similar that those with red-green color blindness cannot differentiate between them.

By taking the precautions of universal web design, you’ll make certain that your site visitors are always able to access the different elements of your website, and that you’re always keeping up with their changing needs and desires. This is the mark of a web designer who will achieve great successes.

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

About The Author

Mark Nenadic 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.

Essential Of Good Web Design

by: Arnab Ghosh

If you want to design a web site, you should follow nine rules of thumb.

1. General Impression

Your web site is like a window display of your business. If the impression that it creates is not good enough visitors will simply leave.

Your site must be:

Neat
Organized
Attractive
Professional

It is better if your site shows less than too much. Over crowded websites, with too many flashy elements, create a negative effect on your visitors.

2. Message

The first question that visitors ask themselves when coming to your site is “What can I gain from here?” Visitors are not impressed that much by promotional offers of free goods and services. They are looking for ways in which your site can be useful to them. If your site should offer one or more of the following:

Entertainment
Information
Advice
Helpful tips

Contact with people who share same interests, links to other interesting sites. Your corporate site should provide information about your business and products and services. A business site should be simple to navigate and offer products and services that located in a simple way and ordered quickly.

3. Fast download

Your site should load as quickly as possible. Market research shows that the average surfer leaves a site that fails to load in 7 seconds. For a dial-up modem that means a maximum of 56 kilobytes. So avoid large graphics and flash animations. The opening page of your site should not overwhelm your visitors with too much information or you risk loosing them. Many Internet sites offer advice on how to increase the download speed of your site. Look for such articles read them and follow the suggested advice.

4. Graphics and Design

The graphical design of a website is crucial for a positive first impression. Every graphic element should help present the main idea of your site. Funny images are not appropriate for a business site, but they can be a good choice for an entertainment one. Graphics load slowly so use them sparingly and efficiently. Try to keep the overall size of your web pages around 30k. Individual pictures should be about 6-8k. Additional 2k adds about one second to download time. Right-click on an image and check its properties to find out its size. The choice of colors is also significant since different colors provoke different feelings. The warm colors like orange and red increase the pulse rate and stimulate the senses. Cold colors like blue and green have the opposite effect. Yellow is considered a happy color because it reminds us of the sun. Select the right colors for the emotion that you want to create. People read a text from top left down to bottom right. Place your images accordingly. Images that have a directional aspect should point to the most important part of your page. If you use the image of a bird its beak should point to inside the page and not outside. This is valid for all images: Faces should be turned to the center of the page. Cars should face the center of the page. Neckties, roads and other prolonged objects should point from left to the right and from top to bottom. You should put your navigation bars down the left side of your page, as well. This will keep them visible for your visitors.

5. Readable texts

Here we do not consider choice of words (we will deal with this later on), but rather the appearance of words on a page. To impress word should be surrounded by sufficient white space. Use dark texts on light backgrounds (preferably white). Dark backgrounds make visitors feel confined and depressed. Bright backgrounds make texts difficult to read and red, orange and purple backgrounds can be dazzling. The text color you choose is equally important, different browsers interpret colors in different ways. A text that looks fine on your browser may be illegible on a different one. Divide your text in columns to make it simpler and faster to read. It is easier to follow a column than a large chunk of text that stretches across the whole page. Choose fonts that are available on all computers and that are easy to read like Arial, Times New Roman, Garamond and Courier. Exotic fonts like Gothic, Script, Westminster, or Cloister look attractive in headings, but not all users have them installed on their computers. In this case, your visitor’s browser will render the missing font with a system one and ruin the effect that you are aiming at.

6. Easy Page Flow

Most people do not handle well large pieces of information. We have already suggested that you divide your page into columns that would separate the text vertically but you should also use headings and sub-headings that separate it horizontally. Write short statements for the key facts on your page and use the statements for headings. Examine each section to check if you can break it into smaller pieces. Write a short statement for each of these pieces and use these statements as sub-headings. Use the same font for all your headings and subheadings. Make them bold and increase the font size for headings. It will make simple to spot the large and bold headings and subheadings that are the same size with the text but bold. If you follow this advice, your visitors will be able to see the key points of your page at a glance. Write your headings carefully, because if you grab your visitors’ attention with them they will stay and read on. If you want to attract your visitors’ attention to other parts of the text you can make some sentences bold or change their color. Use this approach carefully, because some colors are difficult to read even on a white background.

7. Navigation

There are two reasons why you should put your navigation bar on the left side of your page -

People read from left to right and from top to bottom. Web surfers expect to find navigation bars on the left of web pages. It is a good idea to put a button at the bottom of a long text that would allow the visitor to return to the beginning of the text. When you create a page design that you like use it on every page of your web site, it will make your web site predictable and will help your visitors find the information they need. Save a blank page with the layout, columns, logos, standardized graphics, alt tags and navigation bars built in. Use this page as a template for all pages that you create for your web site and just fill in the content that you like.

8. Privacy and Customer Opinions

It is invaluable to get prospective customers to trust you, if you run a corporate site. Tell your visitors how you are protecting their private information. Set a privacy page that explicitly lists how and what information you collect from your visitors, how you keep their e-mail address, how you accept and process their orders, who has access to this information and what precautions you take with information collected from minors. People like to know what your customers think of your products and services. Invite your customers to share their opinion, they would love to know that it is appreciated.

Make a dedicated page with the opinions of your customers. Offer links to their web sites in exchange of their opinion. This can be beneficial for both parties involved.

9. Spelling, Grammar and Word Choice

These are of crucial importance. If you are not careful here, all your efforts are in vain. Poor spelling and careless grammar and punctuation are the easiest way to lose visitors. Spelling and grammar mistakes tell that the site owner is lazy, careless, and unprofessional. Your visitors would not like to do business with you. What can you do? Take steps to polish your own writing. Hire somebody to check and edit your writing. Hire somebody to write the text of your pages for you.

About The Author

Mr. Arnab Ghosh is having more than 4 years experience of internet, web development & web design. Now he runs his own webdesign & web development company named Mod Studio India at Calcutta,India which can be viewed at http://www.modstudioindia.com. You will get loads of webmaster resources at http://www.modstudioindia.com.