Ten Website Design Rules For High Search Engine Rankings

While millions of people run some sort of website, only a few - it 's estimated at only 1 to 2% - are really successful in accomplishing what they want on the Net.

The main reason for this is the lack of well defined goals and the necessary focus to achieve them. A great plan goes a long way. Part of a good plan is web design.

Successful website design lets your visitors focus on the most important part of your website: the content.
Whatever the content is, sales pages or valuable information, great website design makes your visitors feel comfortable taking notice of your content.

Because it 's your content that has to do the job, whether selling, generating leads, picking up subscribers or whatever it is that you want your visitors to do. That is your MWR, your Most Wanted Response!

Therefore, the first and most important factor of website design is to get your content indexed and listed in the search engines. No listings means no free traffic. You can still buy it, but at what cost? Better use search engine optimized website design.

So, how do you do that? Below are 10 rules for successful website design.

1. Use a search engine optimized template. Using a great template makes your life easier, as all your pages will have the same lay-out which makes adding and updating websites a breeze. Templates will save you tons of time maintaining your websites.

2. Use Meta Tags. I know, the keyword meta tag isn't that important any more. But the Title tag IS! In fact, it 's the most important meta tag and so many websites don't use it. Search engines use the title tag to see what your page is all about and list it in their result pages.
Also, they use your description tag as added information. It 's a great way to entice searches to click on your webpage when they found it.

3. Use CSS. With CSS, abreviation of Cascading Style Sheets, you can control the style and layout of multiple web pages all at once. In other words, your website layout and style design is defined in one place and one place only. Change your css file and your complete website will be updated.

4. Delete all the crap and focus on your content. Flash and (java)scripts are funny, but very often they don't serve a purpose. Instead, they fill up your visitors' computer memory and make them run slow. Dump it. Using as less code as possible is the best way to guarantee good search engine positioning.

5. Have a simple and clear navigation You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

6. Reduce the number of images on your website. Yes, I know a picture can say more than a thousand words, but many pictures don't. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. And if you have an image that says more than a thousand words, make sure you optimize it to a minimum file size and offer a larger version as an option.

7. Use a sitemap. Site maps are a great way to take the search engine robots by the hand and show them all the pages of your site, and also help them understand what each page is about which means it makes your site more search engine friendly and helps get a higher ranking.

8. Write crisp HTML that will validate.
When they arrive at your site search engine robots only see a bunch of HTML codes. No fancy images, no colored text, nothing of that kind. So to make search engines understand what your website is about and show them that it deserves to have a high ranking, you need to speak to them in their own language: crisp HTML coding that will validate!

Don't use deprecated HTML coding and make sure your website complies to web standards at w3 org and make sure they are cross-browser compatible.

9. Write one page for one keyphrase and use the keyphrase as the page name. Divide your site into major blocks, ordered by themes, and start building new pages and subsections in those blocks. Without doubt you have researched the keywords and keyphrases you want to get listed for. Now, use them as the name of these blocks and individual pages at your website. Use synonyms inside the pages, so the search engines will get a good idea what your website is all about.

10. Keep your content limited to 500 pixels.
For optimal reading convenience, a with of 500 pixels is recommended with a font size of 11 or 12 pixels. It 's the easiest way for our eyes will read the text. Use dark text on a light background.

About the Author

Case Stevens developed a hand coded, custom made website template ready for the top of the search engines and easy website maintenance. Check it out at:

http://www.websitedesignantwerpen.com

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Your Guide to Doing Web Design Right

Your website is your chance to make a great first impression with potential customers. It is your business persona that Internet users have access to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It 's important that you do your web design right to encourage visitors to stay awhile. The longer they do, the more chance you have of gaining new customers.

Here are some basic principles to ensure you do web design right. Following them will give you a head start in building up your Internet business faster.

* Make your navigation system easy to understand. Make sure you have clearly defined navigation buttons that are easily viewable at the top or side of your web pages. Don't make visitors to your site hunt for your navigation bar.

* Place your navigation buttons in the same place on each page. Keep these buttons in the same order on each page, with the same graphics. This ensures a unified theme for your website and makes navigation a breeze.

* Make sure visitors know where they are on your site at all times. Have a breadcrumb trail along the top of each page that shows where they are and where they were previously. In this way, your visitors can trace back their steps to where they first landed on your site.

* Use shorter line lengths than you would for hard copy print publications. This makes it easier to read your web content on a monitor or laptop. Don't have long lines running from one side of the monitor to the next. Block your text into organized groupings with suitable margin space on either side.

* Be diligent in grouping similar content together. Don't have a hodgepodge of information not closely related to each other on a web page. Don't have "About Us" on the "Shop Here" page along with "FAQs." Have a logical flow of information from page to page. That means having one theme per page. Visitors to your site will get confused if you do not. They will be unsure as to whether they should shop, get instructions for product use or read about your company 's history, if it 's all on one page. Make the knowledge-gathering process a cumulative one from page to page. Lead them smoothly from page to page, gradually building trust in you and your product or service until making a buying decision.

* Don't just make sure visitors know where they are on your site; make sure they know they are still on your site. Never lead them to believe they've clicked away from your site to a different one. This can happen when there is not a common theme among your pages. You need common identifying elements that tell your visitors they are still on your site.

You can do this by repeating specific visual elements on every page of your website. This lets visitors know they are still in your store and inside that great cyber mall. They did not wander next door away from your site. These repeated visual elements give your website continuity and a unified theme.

Repeat color schemes on your various web pages to help present that common theme to visitors across all web pages. Use colors that are consistent with your business image. Repeat typefaces across your various web pages. This allows for smoother reading across web pages so readers do not have to adjust their eyes to different styles and sizes of text.

* Keep your graphics appropriate to your audience. Homer Simpson style cartoon graphics may not be appropriate if you are a business specializing in corporate tax law. Neither do you want to come across as too conservative if your business is selling flamboyant summer leisurewear. Let your graphics match your product or service personality.

Above all, know your website 's users and what they are likely to look for when they happen upon your site. Make your landing page convey a clear message about your business. Web design is all about letting your potential customers know two things quickly: what you have to offer them and why it will benefit them. When you let them know these two things in a clear, concise way, you will capture their interest.

An attractive website encourages visitors to stay on your site. An easy-to-navigate website encourages those visitors to take their time and explore the site further. The lasting profits come when they explore to the point of proceeding to your e-commerce checkout.

About the Author

Chris Coleman is a Business Analyst at Capita Technologies. Capita Technologies provides web design services for a wide variety of clients.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Creative Website Web Page Design Works Wonders

You can do it yourself, or you can get someone to do it for you, just make sure it 's done right. We're talking about website web page design here, something that you need to think of right from the start when establishing or reconfiguring your web presence. Your website 's attractiveness and usability depends on excellent website web page design. Web page design done right means a better chance that visitors to your site will stay there. Creative website web page design works wonders for e-commerce because it make a page easy to navigate and read.

What do you need to consider when it comes to web page design? The following are some of the major things to consider in making your pages visually pleasing and user-friendly.

* Contrast: Contrast adds visual interest to a web page. Contrast occurs when two web page elements are visually different. This makes them stand out. This makes each one get noticed. If things look a little different, it 's not striking enough. You want them looking the same for visual harmony or totally different for obvious contrast. Add contrast to your web pages to spark visitors' interest in the contrasting elements.

* Proximity: When designing your web page, items relating to one another should be grouped close together. Related items grouped together become one visual chunk or unit. This means your visitors do not have to look everywhere for related information. With proximity of related information, your page is organized and less confusing to a reader. It gives a general impression of clarity and structure.

* Alignment: You should not place anything on your web page haphazardly. You do not want your web page to resemble an avant-garde artist 's splashing, unless you're an avant-garde artist promoting your work. Every element on your web page needs to have some connection to another element on your web page. This gives your page cohesiveness and a clean, organized look that allows for comfortable eye travel from one element to the next.

* Repetition: The repeated use of visual elements is very important in website web page design. This could be color, shapes, graphics, photos, shapes, background textures and spatial relationships. It could also be fonts, sizes and thickness of lines and borders. Repetition promotes an organized, pleasing appearance and gives unity to a website.

Consider the four basic web page design elements above and then consider some of these additional points to make your website web page design appealing:

* Make sure your navigation links are readily available at the top or sides of your page. Don't make your web page visitors have to scroll down the page searching for the navigation tabs.

* Try not to make your visitor scroll sideways. That 's annoying too. Have everything viewable within the frame, so there is no side-to-side scrolling movement to find text and graphics.

* Don't use a gaudy fluorescent background color for your web page, especially with text of similar luminosity. Those elements are eye-killers. You want your readers to have a comfortable reading experience. They do not want to feel they're witnessing an online fireworks display as they read.

* Don't use "default blue" for your link colors or even your main text. Show some ingenuity: use text and link colors appropriate to your web page theme. The "default blue" is a sign of laziness in website web page design and shows a lack of creativity and sophistication for the web design process.

* Don't overdo the bold words on your web page. Bold words with extreme care because you lessen the effect of this design element when there are as many bold words as plain type words on a web page.

Finally, clean and simple is something to give great thought to when designing a web page. Most people do not enjoy clutter in their home. Consequently, they certainly will not enjoy clutter on your web pages. Clutter on web pages gives the impression you're not very organized. It also conveys the message that you're not very professional.

Remember, website web page design is a tool for presenting you and your website properly to your visitors. Your web pages are ambassadors for your business. You want them organized and structured, while still full of creativity and your unique business personality. Website web page design means doing the homework necessary to get it right. Let well-planned, creative design work wonders for your business.

About the Author

Chris Coleman is a Business Analyst at Capita Technologies. Capita Technologies provides web design services for a wide variety of clients.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

An Online Business For Web Designer And Developer

A friend of mine, a web developer came up to me and asked if I have any idea on how to start a business online. I, a web designer for one can not believe that I'm making a business of the internet much so that I got intrigued and excited about him making an effort to start an online business. He already has a very high salary already, working as a head web developer of a very known company. So I already have an idea that my friend wouldn't quit his job anytime soon. But I'm quite happy for him for making the effort of starting his own business and earn an income online.

He was my professor back in college, having the same passion for learning, he is very successful with his career and so am I on my chosen path. He asked me, "What 's the best blogging platform?'. I said wordpress, 99% of blogs are wordpress. He already have an idea on how to get started but really have no clue of the process of actually making money. I asked "What 's cooking?" he said, "I went up looking at an entrepreneur magazine looking up for a business to start, then I realized I'm a web developer. There must be some way to make business out of it. Then I remembered you. You are the prof now. Can you help me?"

Of course I can. Here are some of the tips that I said to him.

* Blog about your passion if its profitable - Many people will say that, blog about your passion. Well it depends, you don't want to starve do you? You must take priority of your needs first so you can quit your job early. If you can blog about your passion and there 's a market for it. Go for it. That 's 2 birds in 1 stone. Know if the topic is profitable first then make a site around it. Personally, I'm a believer of delayed gratification. The first things we have to do when making a business online is to get paid and not starve. Blogging about my passion may give me the joy, but its useless to continue if I starve. What 's the point of doing business and quitting your job then if you can't make a living about your passion?

* Invest in yourself - The reason why most people fail in business, especially making money online is that not many people are willing to sacrifice and spend some money to learn. Bloggers are known to be tech savvy and will do anything to get things for free. But real entrepreneurs know the value of knowledge so much that they are willing to spend time and money to attain it. I had an experience wasting 10000 pesos trying to learn PPC. Did it really went to waste? No! I learned PPC a little bit and might take more money to get a grasp on it. But I'm willing to spend to educate myself.

* Stop reading make money online blogs - The best way to make money online is to go out there and try it yourself. Shed some money if you have to. That will be your foundation. Just stop reading make money online blogs. No offense to the make money online bloggers, I know its their passion to blog about making money. But being a newbie once in this field, make money online blogs didn't really help. Its better to read SEO blogs for SEO, affiliate marketing for making money as an affiliate or self improvement blogs for your business mentality. If I have found a good make money online blogs and teach people the truth and really make money, I would gladly advertise it on my site.

* Learn SEO - This is the bread and butter of online business. Learn real SEO from keyword research to promoting a site. Stop reading make money online blogs. Learn from the real experts in SEO read SEOmoz, or ask at webmaster forums.

* Choose only 1 type of monetization - If you're going for adsense, go for it and no more. Do not put competition on your page. There is the thing we call in business "Diversification' this is true as to not put all your eggs in one basket. But it doesn't mean put all banner ads or adsense on the page that you can fit. In reality, what it means is that, don't put all your effort into 1 site. Putting thousand of ads in your site will not only make your site look desperate, it will lack the credibility for affiliate offers and direct advertisers.

* Choose a niche - Blog about a specific niche. Do not blog about anything under the sun. If you'll be monetizing the site with direct advertising, you know that these companies only want people that are viewing the ads that are related to their interest. Would you sell a guitar to a piano player? Having to blog anything without any specific topic will give advertisers the second thought of advertising with you. Its because your viewers and traffic are junk that came from different sorts of life.

* Quit your job when you're making twice as much online - This should have been my goal back then when I quit my job. It could've been a lot easier. It took me about 3 hard and sleepless months stumbling and starving to get my passive income as much as my day job and another 3 months to double it. Well its a good strategy to quit early though, for me, I had fun, if I didn't make money within this certain period of month, I'm gonna fail my parents and die hungry.

About the Author

The author 's web site Snoob - Web Design Blog aims to teach people about web design philippines and building an online business for web professionals.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

What Does Your Web Design Do For You

There are so many websites on the internet nowadays, so if you want a great website that stands out from the crowd, you are going to have to have brilliant web design incorporated into it. A website that is badly designed will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. If you want a website that is remembered for the right reasons, you are going to have to have a design that makes your website unique.

Your web design is the first thing that people notice when they arrive at your website. If you have an untidy website with bad graphics and terrible navigation, you are going to lose your readers and viewers right from the start. That is why web design is important in the process of creating a successful website. Whether it is a personal website or one that you intend to use for business purposes, it needs to be well designed and well maintained.

If you can grab the reader 's attention by graphics that are relevant and useful, text that is of a very high quality, colors and layouts that are easy on the eye, then you are half way there! Research has shown that more people buy from websites that are designed professionally and look trustworthy, rather than quickly made and badly thought out designs.

So, you can see how important your web design really is now. There are many ways to improve your web design, both for free and by hiring someone else to do it for you. Which you choose will depend on your budget and your time frame. A busy web designer may not be able to fit you in for months.

How you layout your website is also very important. You may have lots of great content on your website that people would love to read, but what if they can't find it? If you haven't clearly and easily lain out your website in the web design process, your readers won't be able to click on any other pages. This could be disastrous if you are selling some kind of service or different products.

All in all the web design aspect is only a small part of getting your website up and running, however, it is very important. When you are designing your website, remember to make it easy to navigate, concise and clear.

If you are not familiar with web design and all the aspects that go into creating a website, it may be worth your while looking for a professional web designer or a pre made template. Web designers come with different price tags all depending on where you get them from and what you need doing. If you want a relatively simple design you will be looking at a fairly cheap price. If you are looking for a complex website with many features you can expect to pay a fair amount of money for it. A good designer will include you all throughout the process. You will be able to approve the website as many times until it is just right.

Ready-made templates are great if you don't have the budget for a professional designer and don't have the time to learn how to create one from scratch. There are many free ones that you find on the Internet or ones that you can buy for a small amount of money.

About the Author

If you need high quality VPS Hosting or FFMpeg Hosting with a guaranteed high uptime look no further.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Avoid Glitches with Professional Website Design

E-commerce is dependent on high quality websites. Presentation and functionality are top priorities for Internet businesses. Poor website design can certainly lead to a loss in revenue. Even minor glitches can cause major problems with a website. The worse kind of error you can get is when your web page won't load at all. Internet users want fast results and are unlikely to return to your site later if their first and second attempts of viewing your site fail.

The best products and services won't sell if customers can't reach the website, if they have technical difficulties, or if they experience glitches during the checkout process. Furthermore, marketing efforts are wasted on a site that doesn't function properly.

Poorly Designed Websites Experience Glitches
Glitchy website design includes unintended consequences. Things that are supposed to happen don't and vice versa. Website glitches have a direct effect on the number of visitors to your site and the amount of revenue you can earn from it. Technical glitches include (but are not limited to):

* Issues with pictures not loading properly
* Delays in loading website pages and images
* Problems with sizing
* Display issues
* The website temporarily going offline/being unavailable
* Delays in processing orders
* Shopping cart items disappearing
* Text that overlaps or appears jumbled
* Images and lines appearing fuzzy and unclear
* Line detailing not matching up properly
* Colors not fading correctly
* Blocks of unmatching color appearing on the site for no reason
* Broken or incorrect hyperlinks
* Meta tag issues
* Malicious code
* The site changing computer settings

A solid web design company is knowledgeable enough to check for glitches in website design and work out the bugs before delivering the final product. The ability to locate glitches in web design and solve e-commerce problems comes with experience and is dependent on professionalism.

Top Notch Website Design

Using a professional web design company makes all the difference in having a glitch-free site for your online business. Experience speaks volumes when it comes to website design. An ideal e-commerce site is simple, creative and effective.

Simplicity. Customers shop online for convenience. If they can't find what they are looking for easily on your site or have a difficult time figuring out the checkout process, they are not likely to shop there anymore. There is far too much competition to leave this to chance. Keep the content, images and functions of your website simple and user-friendly. A clean, crisp appearance is preferable as well.

Creativity. Creativity is vital for websites to stay competitive on the Internet. This doesn't mean to make your site look busy, but to use white space appropriately, make images stand out. Use headings and subheadings to make the information on your site easy to find and easy to read.

Effectiveness. The effectiveness of your e-commerce site is in the numbers. Look at your page visits and sales. The right website design makes it easy for customers to navigate your site and make their purchases without a glitch. Non-working pages and checkout problems are not effective ways to get sales or returning customers.

Glitch-Free Website Design

Mistakes happen and even the best web designers experience glitches from time to time. The difference is the support you get with a reputable design company. Your website designer is your online partner in success. They should be able to create a usable, tested website with working extras like shopping carts, being able to accept payments online with credit cards, and customizing pages specific to your business needs.

The bottom line is a margin of human error that can be expected when it comes to programming and software. The difference between the average website design company and a top notch one is the ability to assess website glitches, admit to them and solve them quickly with minimal interruption of services. A 24-hour store front is essential for Internet businesses. Down time of any amount leads to lost visitors and revenue.

Check out design companies before you hire them to design your website. Be sure they respect your business needs and are willing to work with you to create a knockout website that is free of glitches.

About the Author

Chris Coleman is a Business Analyst at Capita Technologies. Capita Technologies provides web design services for a wide variety of clients.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

How SEO Web Design Impacts Search Engines

An SEO web design is a concept for a site which uses great architectural design principles based on the Internet. The design should be able give out the information that the user is seeking and at the same time be easily navigable. This is part of search engine optimization because the SEO web design should also be able to satisfy robotic crawlers and spiders in their quest for information regarding the website and other data.

SEO Web Design and Site Optimization

Search engine optimization is more than just a trend nowadays. It is used and applied by almost all sites on the internet that aims to make money and become well known. Among the many strategies of optimizing a web site, SEO web design is one of the topmost priorities.

The impact of the design of the site on search engine robotic crawlers or spiders can help raise the ranking of the site. This is where SEO web design comes in. There are many ways to make the web site more attractive to robotic visitors and human visitors alike. Actually, spiders and crawlers from search engines do not mind the over all aesthetic value of the site. All these robotic crawlers need is the information it can get from the site. The tricky part is how to put relevant information in the site in order for the crawlers to properly index the site due to its relevance. SEO companies who specialize in optimizing web sites must also know how to put a site in front of others in order to bring it to the attention of the Internet users. The search optimizers who will handle your site must be able to know the right strategies to place the web site ahead of others in its field through accepted methods of optimization.

SEO web design is a competitive area where website architects work hard to come up with ideas and designs that are aesthetically appealing and relevant at the same time. There has to be consideration for ease of getting around the website, being appealing to a wide range of visitors and finding the right place for the website. Making a visually appealing site is easy with the many technologic advances available today, the problem with these advances are that they are sometimes quite tricky to use thus making your website difficult to navigate in. SEO web design should be easy to use and friendly to both human and robotic browsers.

Easy navigational access can be done by making the pages of the site easy to navigate to and having easy to understand and use button or labels to click on. The pictures and images on your SEO web design should be just the right size and scale to enable users to see them promptly after clicking instead of taking a very long time to download. Waiting for images and other graphics to load can be off putting for most visitors and will eventually lead them to another site which is more optimized and easy to view. Even robotic spiders and crawlers will give up on a site which is not easy to navigate and get into.

The overall appeal of the SEO web design should not only be focused mainly on the niche that it is targeted on but also for Internet users who might have stumbled onto the site. SEO web design should have a universal appeal even for the most specialized type of sites on the Internet. Some webmasters or website owners could opt for specialized SEO web designs and these can also be done with the targeted audience in mind. It will also benefit the site if it is indexed as it should be. You might want to have a specific SEO web design which is built around the entire concept of your site and this can add to the ranking if you are quite specific with what you aim to sell or market. If you are marketing a specific product or information, SEO experts can focus on this product or information and build the SEO web design around it.

Another aspect of SEO web design that needs to be considered is what your competition is doing. The saying, 'know your enemy' is the key here. You do not want to have the same boring marketing strategies as the competition. Why? Because it is a good idea to keep abreast with what they are doing and how well they are doing in this field. There are many site optimization tools that can help analyze and determine what is needed for the site. Hence, in regard to SEO web design process, content is one of the prime needs and tools of making the site rank high during searches. Finding out or identifying the right keywords to integrate into the site can be crucial in making the site among the top ranking ones. Keyword search tools and having keyword rich content and titles can help to optimize a site efficiently.

SEO web design experts should also bear in mind that there are web strategies that may be unacceptable for search engines. Using these underhand or black hat tricks to perpetuate a site in rank can cause the search engines to ban the site and also the SEO web design company that did the search engine optimization work for it no matter how well the SEO web design is.

About the Author

Seomul Evans is a SEO Web Design consultant specializing in professional SEO Web Design.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Your Business is Doomed Without Good CMS Web Design

Well, not quite. But deciding what kind of content management system is right for your business can go a long way toward the success or failure of your business. The decision comes down to the answers to these questions: Is the flow of work in your business as productive as it could be? Can your current CM solution expand its capabilities to keep pace with your business as it grows? Consider the following to determine if your current CMS is working for you, or if a change might be in order.

Is your current content management system outdated? There is no question that outdated content management methods can often be more of a hindrance than an asset to productivity. Further, content management systems that cannot match the rate of expansion of the business quickly lead to outdated content, confusion amongst the team members and a lag in the workflow.

Is your system difficult to use? Symptoms of a user-unfriendly system landscape include inconsistent categorization, organization and publishing of content. All of these things can easily frustrate a user and slow down the workflow. That 's counterproductive, and if this is happening to your team, a new or revised CMS may be the answer.

Does your team struggle to produce simple, fast revisions to your content? By their very nature, updates like product information and press releases need to be accurate, timely and valuable. If your team isn't able to keep pace with such updates to your content, investing in a new CMS may be a good idea. Publishing information will be sped up with the availability of tools that will allow subject matter experts to create, edit and publish their content on their own. Your business won't be at the mercy of staff trained in HTML to update the content. With an effective CMS web design software package in place, anyone on staff will be able to create and edit their own content, making it easier to keep the content up-to-date and accurate.

Few things are more fracturing to a team effort than getting road blocked by missing information. It is difficult when you think you have found just what you are looking for only to end up in No Man 's Land. Ineffective CMS web design can cause gaps in and overlaps of information that can really slow down work. A CMS is meant to help with organization, not hinder. A CMS web design solution can ensure that your content is always accurate, thereby keeping the flow of work productive amongst the members of your team.

Successful CMS web design makes it easy for everyone on staff to manage content, regardless of whether they are computer savvy or not. An effective CMS solution can put even your non tech-savvy staff in the driver 's seat because they can create, modify and design content without needing any specialized technical knowledge. The interface should be intuitive. A good CMS helps each cog in the machine to work at optimal productivity. And that leads to increased productivity all around.

A well-designed CMS solution consolidates control of content from an organization-wide "home base," thereby reducing the amount of information overlap, and can identify and assemble content automatically. That means that multiple people can be adding, deleting and editing content all at the same time. A good CMS web design solution will help your team be more collaborative and more productive all at once. That means less time wasted, which translates into more money in your company 's coffers.

If your business is suffering from any of these ailments, you need to re-evaluate your current strategy. Improvements in your CMS can drastically affect the way in which your staff reaches it goals. Through effective CMS web design, your staff can both work collaboratively and individually to get the job done.

In summary, the goals of CMS web design are to consolidate control of your content and make it easy for your staff, regardless of their level of technical computer knowledge, to create and publish their own content. If your information is outdated, difficult to navigate or subject to the isolated control of various sources, your CMS isn't working as well as it could be. It 's time to make a change.

About the Author

Chris Coleman is a Business Analyst at Capita Technologies. Capita Technologies provides CMS web design services for a wide variety of clients.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

How Much To Charge For A Freelance Web Design Work

There 's no doubt that freelance web design is the cheapest service to avail compared to a web design company if you want a web site done . As a freelancer you will only work by yourself thus, limiting your expenses and clients having to pay less. That 's why big companies sometimes outsource and stick with freelancers to do their job. Look at India and the Philippines for example, these countries are two of the most outsourced countries with regards to IT, call centers, and programming.

Now that we know that freelance web designers have an edge over companies with regards to price. How much do you have to charge? Well, that is one of the most asked questions by new web designers. And to tell you the truth, the answer lies in your own capabilities as a web designer.

Points To Consider When Pricing

1. Consider All Your Expenses In The Design - In web design, you are pretty much zero in on the expenses as you may already have a computer. You may put in the electricity spent when working on a particular design if you can compute it. But, there are times when you will really have to spend some money like buying stock photos, fonts, software tools, icons and more. Keep in mind these things to add on your pricing.
2. How Much Time Will It Take You To Finish The Work - Most of the time, programmers are paid by the hour and so are designers. But also, most of the time, designers are paid per project. So, consider how much time will it take you to finish this web site. The longer, of course the higher. You're time is pretty much important here, you might turn down some clients while a project is still on going and you may lose more money than earn if you're price is wrong.
3. Research About Your Competition - Web design is a competitive field so there will always be a competition. Know the price of other freelancers and compare the quality of their work with yours. Then decide whether you deserve a much higher price than them or lower. You decide.
4. What 's The Cost Of Living - This is probably the most important. Set a price that 's just about right to help you survive in this world. Don't go dirt cheap just because you want clients. Don't "whore" yourself if you think you can attract clients by lowering your price. Be sure to set a minimum price that you can afford to help sustain your business. And also, don't go overboard in raising the price. Some people would raise their charges just because people from other countries are charging this kind of amount. Always remember that in other countries, the cost of living is different from yours. They need that price to sustain and continue running their business.

Although I didn't exactly said how much you should charge your web design services, I know you could come up with really good and reasonable prices for your clients using the pointers I laid out. All these things depend entirely to you and your skills. If you think you should charge x10 than the competition, you are free to do that no one 's stopping you. Someone out there might avail that services if they feel its worth it. Don't be afraid to ask for a certain price of web design, especially if its reasonable enough for you to sustain your business.

About the Author

The author 's web site Snoob - Web Design Blog aims to teach people about web design and pricing for freelance web design.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Free Software For Struggling Web Designers

Here are a few nifty programs for the thrifty web designer. They answer the question: What do you do if you can't afford $300+ for the popular tools but you don't want to use war3z?

(Note: Because some web publishers don't like having links to web sites in their articles, I've omitted them here. The following softwares can be found easily by typing their unique names in a search engine.)

1. NVU Web Editor.

Alternative to: Dreamweaver, Frontpage.

This is a pretty good web page editor, and is easy to use. Quite full-featured. Turns out good-looking web pages which display properly in FireFox and Internet Explorer. It has Source Code, WYSIWYG and Preview tabs which make editing a snap.

My only minor gripe is it doesn't support the display of Server Side Includes on-screen, because I use these [grin]. That would be asking for too much, I fear, as no other editor besides Dreamweaver supports this, as far as I know.

For people who want Word-For-Windows-For-The-Web, this is a nice alternative to FrontPage.

2. GIMP Image Editor.

Alternative to: Adobe Photoshop, PaintShop Pro.

This is a good image and photo manipulation package. I used it recently to make up a set of passport photographs. It did a fine job, but you need to examine all the nested menus; I found I was saving in a compressed format, when I didn't want to do that.

If you're used to Photoshop, the learning curve is slight. Like with any other software, you just need a bit of patience to discover where your favourite tools are. Give it a chance before your ADD kicks in(!)

3. OpenOffice.

Alternative to: Microsoft Word and Excel.

Now, this suite of programs is some of the best freeware available. People who know nothing beyond Microsoft will find these programs easy to use. Probably there are some minor compatibility issues with the more advanced 'features' of Microsoft softwares. If you are working for a Fortune 500 company, let them cough up the Microsoft licence fees and pay for being finicky.

For thrifty ol' you, OpenOffice is a steal, especially if you just want to open and manipulate a few Word and Excel files. There 's also the strange satisfaction in hitting the 'uninstall' button on the Microsoft Office Suite.

4. Opera.

Alternative to: Internet Explorer, Firefox.

Ah, Opera, the also-ran of the browser wars. A handy thing to have installed if you want to quickly visit a site 'in disguise' i.e. display a different User Agent string and cookie profile.

This is a browser you need make no excuses for; it works a treat, and has all the features of its competitors.

5. SimplyMepis.

Alternative to: Microsoft Windows XP and Vista.

This is the only Linux operating system I can get to install on my old Dell Latitude. It is very easy to install and operate. It was a delightful surprise when it found my cable modem, when Windows couldn't. I clicked on the Firefox icon and bingo! internet access.

Burn the ISO image to a CD and you can try out SimplyMepis without installing it. You can use it to diagnose problems with your PC, or get at files if Windows is giving you grief.

See also Damn Small Linux. Burn this to a CD, and you have an emergency operating system if your PC throws a wobbly. It will run quickly from the CD.

The key selling point of these is that they're free, and have been developed independently of Microsoft products, and thus have less code bloat and 'eye candy'.

6. Ashampoo Burning Studio and CDBurnerXP.

Alternatives to: Nero Burning CD Rom.

These programs will help you burn your SimplyMepis ISO image to a CD. This means that when you boot up your PC with this disc in the CD drive, your PC will read it as an installation disk, or you can just browse the contents.

Nero is a fine software, but if you just want to bring the odd CD, try out these free alternatives.

Conclusion: The free softwares above are great if you want to be frugal, or just set up a PC for someone else, get the praise, and not have to ask your pal to fork out cash. Your PC can be free of bootleg or overpriced software. You can be free from labouring with commercial products, that have been bloated with unnecessary features, just to keep paying corporate customers happy!

About the Author

T. O' Donnell is a credit broker running insurance and merchant account web sites in London, UK.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

How to Design a Site That Will Attract Traffic?

Are you planning on having a professional website built for your business and would like to know the best way to design a site that will attract traffic? There is little point building a website that looks great but is not search engine friendly as you will never get found. You don’t want to spend hundreds of pounds on a flashy website if no-one will ever find it. The best advice is to have a website built with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind or spend as little as possible on a website but as much as you can on SEO or site promotion.

Here are a few points that need to be considered when having a website built:

Download speed – fast download or people with not stay
Search engine friendliness (SEO) – without, your site will be like needle in a haystack
Simple Navigation
Simple colour schemes (not multi coloured)
Ease of updating the site
Contact details on every page

The above points should be remembered and made clear to your web designer. When users visit your website they expect to find the information they are after quickly and easily. They will also expect your home page to be interesting and self explanatory of what your website is about. Visitors will not stay long if they believe that your site is not offering what they are looking for.

There are known hot spots in web sites and one of them is having your contact telephone number on every page at the top right each page. Also a form on every page is important, especially if you have more than 5 pages. Professional websites often have hundreds of pages to draw in traffic, each of these pages will be consistent with the rest of the design and the phone number and a contact form on each page.

Download time is another important issue. You need to make sure you website downloads to a browser in 15 seconds or less. Most people will click away if they have to wait longer than 15 seconds. Generally a website with just text will take only a couple of seconds to download. It’s when there are large images or flash files that take time to download. A website designed in Flash might look great but a search engine cannot read it, so will ignore it as they will ignore images. If you must have images and obviously some images are needed to give a page an interesting look, then ensure you describe the pictures with alt tags.

Navigation is an important factor in good web design. When a visitor comes to your site as well as being obvious what the site offers it should be really obvious and easy to navigate. An ideal website should be built so that the visitor is only ever 2 clicks away from what they are looking for. Generally most of us are used to sites having a logo at the top with page navigation either at the top of down the side. It is best to sick to this layout and ensures you have consistency throughout the website. When a visitor goes to one of your pages it helps if they know how to get back and if all pages are consistent with regards to the layout they will know where pages are without having too think much about it.

Text colours should be used as little as possible, obviously a colour scheme is important in making the overall look nice but the use of too many colours is very off putting. Stick to 2 or 3 colours only. Colours are useful for making points stand out which is useful. Text is very important as this is all the search engines can read. Search engines are just programs which analyse the text on the page. So you need to ensure you have plenty explanatory text. Use bullet points and hyperlinks within the text also as visitors will just of glaze over the most of the text but click on parts that are most interesting to them.

Search engines like websites that are constantly being updated and not just left stationary, so it’s important to have a site that you can easily update. If you have a shopping kart you might sell out of a product or have new products to add. Except for those proficient in HTML and other programming languages people will need a type of content management system (CMS) so they can edit a site. This can be costly but in the long run will save you. If you don’t have a CMS then you will have to use a web development company to do your updates for you, the cost will differ depending on the company but most will not work for less that Ј25 an hour. Over weeks and months this will build up so it is worth have the site built so that you can do all these changes yourself.

With regards to SEO it is worth finding a competent company to promote your site for you. But for those wanting to have a go themselves here are a few pointers:

If you want your site to be listed on the front page for a keyword like for example ‘computer repair’ then you need to have a page totally dedicated to those keywords, the title of the page needs to be computer repair, the body of the text need to have a high density of the keywords ‘computer repair’. As well as good keyword rich text you also need to have other websites linking to your page. This is like a popularity vote and Google will see your page as being popular and important with regards to the keywords of ‘computer repair’. Now before you go off getting links to your newly optimised keyword rich pages you must be realistic. Do a search for your chosen keywords. If there are over 20 million results, it will take a lot more than what I have just explained to get you there, even for 2 million results it could take some time. You need to find a keyword phrase that is less competitive. For instance, if your computer repair shop is in Kent then you can only really help those in your area so you should be targeting keyword phrases like ‘Computer repair in Maidstone’ or ‘Computer repair in Ashford’ and so on, covering each town in Kent. All of these phrases are very obtainable and would only take a few weeks to get there.

If you choose to find an SEO company be very careful, there are many sharks out there which offer the impossible. No SEO company can guarantee high rankings because a) search engines algorithms are always changing, b) they do not know what your competitors are doing c) some key phrases are just too competitive (sites have been optimised for those keywords for years and years - so there will be no knocking them off the top). If your competitors are paying over Ј1000 a month on promotion and your only have a budget of Ј100 a month, then your SEO company will find it hard to compete. I recommend finding attainable key phrases and working on as many different variations as you can afford. Also ensure your SEO Company can prove they can get result by asking for case studies. It can take between 6 and 9 months of promotion before you start seeing any real results.

About the Author

Carolyn is the SEO Manager of Discount Domains Ltd, experts in Professional Web Design and Search Engine Marketing.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

When To Quit Your Web Design Job

Being a full time web designer for a company would mean 9 hrs of your day dedicated to your company, and around 3 - 5 hrs more for your side business (freelance). Freelancing is a business and it will take you more than just do this, and do that kind of thing to get it going. You have to do the accounting, invoice writing and the dreaded customer support. You know you can't go forever with this kind of set up, juggling full time work and your freelance web design business. You'll soon realize that you have to pick. Full time web designer or full time freelance web designer?
Full Time Web Design Job

People loves security, no doubt, we want a better and safe future. That is why sometimes having a full time job is the best way to go. I think this is one of the best reason why people can't quit their job. It 's for the security. Being a web designer, you know that you only need to design sites for the company, day after day. And wait till the end of the month to get paid. The only thing is, you'll always hope to have an increase of maybe after a year? The good thing is you only have to work 9 hours a day for the pay check.
Freelance Web Design

Freelance web designers are entreprenuers at heart. They depend on their skills not only in design but people management and social skills. Maybe some business skills but the basics are all there, you can research the internet for that. Now, the advantage of this is that, the more you work, the more you earn. And time is flexible. BUT, the draw back is that, you are not sure of your income. It may decline or rise. There are income fluctuations, just like in real business.
Things to Remeber If You Want To Become A Freelance Web Designer

There are a couple of things I always think about before I took the plunge and quit my full time job. They are:

1. Do You have money to pay your expenses? If you quit your full time job, you have no more income source. Do you have the money to pay the bills without working? What I did was to set aside money to pay my bills for 6 months. Secure that money and quit to become a full time freelance web designer.
2. Do You feel limited, bored at work and think that work is getting in your way of improving? I always felt that doing routine work can bore the hell out of people. And the hardest part is that, you're like a robot that does things over and over and over again, without consciously thinking about it. This will stop improvement in your skills and, come on people, its plain boring, if that hits you, you know there 's something wrong with your life or you're better of doing business yourself than browsing youtube in the office.
3. Do You have a good number of clients and works to sustain your freelance web design business? If you are doing freelance web design jobs while having a full time job, it is best to have and keep clients that trusts you and those that have more work for you. When I quit my full time web design job, I have no rock solid client base, I only depended on contests to hopefully feed me. So, if you have the guts to go and try what I did, this I say to you, don't you dare, or your family will think you're stupid. Build a list of clients first and think if these clients will come back to you for more work and hopefully sustain your business.
4. Do You have a strong control of your emotions? Believe me, this one is a biggie, most people will think you're stupid to quit a high paying web designer job. Do you have the guts to control the urge to get angry? If you don't mind what other people think, you are on your way. Always remember that: "An entrepreneur stands tall against the tide of popular belief".
5. Have you prepared yourself for the worst and planned for the best? Freelance web design is a business. In business, there are no certainty. We are all at risks. Business will come and go, are you prepared to accept that fact? No one will give you pay check, you are in command of how much you could earn now. Make plans for expansion, harness your skills. Learn more skill set. These are the traits that a full time job won't teach you.
6. Don't Be Afraid To Fail! If you never failed, you never lived.

If you follow this pointers, it will help you get started in the freelance web design industry. Always remember that freelancers are entreprenuers, selling their skills, it takes a lot of confidence to sell their skills to people. If you got these trait of an entreprenuer, making money by freelance web design will be easy for you.

About the Author

The author 's web site Snoob 's Web Design Blog aims to teach people about freelance web design and give pointers for freelance designers when doing business.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Basic Considerations For Web Design

Successful web design centers around the principle of always considering the experience of the audience first and foremost. Thus, before creating a website or webpage and uploading it to the Internet, the webpage designer must consider the website 's anticipated audience and/or targeted market. What will their experience be? Doing so aids the web designer in defining the purpose of the website or webpage under construction and helps determine what content and features should be included in the design.

Who Is Your Audience?

Consider who the people are that are expected to visit the website under construction? Consider the purpose for which the audience will seek out this specific website or webpage. What exactly will they be looking for? Why? In doing so, the designer will be well served to examine the key words that describe sister pages on the same web domain, as well as competitive sites that show up for these same key words in a general search query.

Experienced web designers recommend drawing up a profile of who a website 's visitors are likely to be, taking into consideration the following variables:

* Audience Characteristics
* Information Preferences
* Computer Specifications, and
* Web Experience

Designing the layout and content of a webpage with these factors in mind, rather than tailoring its focus and function afterwards, is more likely to deliver the desired content to the targeted audience or market demographic.

What Is the Purpose?

Writing out a "purpose statement" that sets out the website 's principle objectives will help keep the focus on what the website will accomplish for its targeted audience. Is the principle purpose of the site informational, or is the website or webpage marketing a product or service to its targeted audience? What are the short-term and long-term goals for the webpage or website? Do . . . or will . . . these goals change over time? How?

The short and long term purposes of the particular webpage will determine the features and scope of the content that initially needs to be provided for the targeted audience, as well as the links and functions that need to be built in to allow users to navigate around the web domain the page sits in. As the "purpose statement" is developed, the content that needs to be provided for users will become more or less self-evident. As construction of the webpage nears completion, checking the content you have included to the page 's purpose statement will be an important check to ensure the webpage functions as it should, not only in the HTML behind the page but, equally important, from the user 's perspective.

What Content Will Users Need or Expect?

Listing and organizing the content and features that users will expect or require should be done with reference to the purpose statement for the webpage or website. Organizing the features and content of the page or site with an eye both to the audience and purpose statement will help focus the theme of the page or site. Content and features that are superfluous to the main purpose of the site should be removed. Each page should have its own focus, segregating individual purposes to separate pages will help enhance the user 's experience - provided well-defined links and navigation tools are included in the overall website design.

Now What?

Once you have set up the webpage or website, it is time to move to the beta phase. Test the site 's effectiveness and usability with a focus group that has the same characteristics as your targeted audience. If this is not feasible, at a minimum invite one or more persons who have not been involved in the planning and layout process to give it a test drive, so to speak. Feedback regarding user experience is the optimal way to tune up a page 's or site 's functionality before it is uploaded. Once your focus group has given the site or page a thorough testing ask these individuals to compare their experience to the goals and objectives that were listed in the purpose statement.

About the Author

Smith & Saunders are leaders in Web design in Cambridge, England. They have been in business since 1980 and have a proven history of creating award-winning online marketing solutions. Visit Smith & Saunders online, or call 07768 255967 to speak with a representative from one of Europe 's pioneering and most experienced Web design firm.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Are Your Website 's Colors Tiring Our Your Visitors?

Color is one of the most important aspects of web design. Many web designers overlook the importance of color when designing a website. Color should be one of your major concerns when it is time to start website design. If you don't consider colors while designing a website, your site will end up looking plain and boring or so chaotic; it 's hard to look at.

You should take extra care and consideration choosing colors. Most of the web browsers can only recognize 256 colors. Unfortunately, all browser don't share the same 256-color pallet. Currently browsers only have 216 colors in common. You need to consider the 216-color pallet when designing key elements of your website.

If you use a color that doesn't exist in the 216-color pallet within the browser, your browser has to mix colors that do not exist. To display the color, it needs to take tiny dots from the colors present in the browser color pallet to make up an approximate color. This is called dithering. It is bad for your website since some displays distort the tiny dots so much that the image becomes so speckled that it does not appear to be a solid color. It will make the text placed over the dithered color hard to read.

Always consider browser safe colors for your website provided if you are using solid color as a design element. However, some browser safe colors should be used with caution.

As you know that most of the eye operations are muscular; it tires out as with all the muscles of the body. If you look at red color for too long, your eyes will be fatigued. I will illustrate the example. It is a simple test and it works every time. This test will help you better understand about the eye fatigue.

Look at the black dot in the red box for about 30 seconds. Concentrate on it and don't let your eyes wander here and there. Now look at the black dot in the white box. What do you see? You will see bluish green color in the white box.

This is not a trick or hallucination. The explanation is simple. There is a thin layer of tissue at the back of your eye. This tissue contains millions of tiny light-sensing nerve cells called Rods and Cones. Cones are light-sensing cell which respond to specific wavelength of light. Your eye is filled with color decoding cones. When you fix your eye on the red box, the red wavelength becomes tired and fatigued. To relieve the fatigue, opposite cones in your eyes starts to kick in which is why you see bluish green color. Now you know the scientific reason behind eye fatigue, you should apply this principal to your website for maximum effect.

Have you noticed that the caution signs are yellow? Pure yellow strains your eye more than any other color and because of that your eye will fix on the Yellow color first. If you use Yellow or Red color for your banner, it will instantly catch the attention of the viewer 's eye. So you can use these colors to highlight any text or an image. Use these colors sparingly because there is no reason to irritate your visitors with bright colors. Only use these colors where you want to make a point.

You shouldn't use bright colors too often on your site. You might get the attention of the visitors but consciously or unconsciously they will feel the eye fatigue which will make them leave your site --- fast. Use bright colors sparingly. Use them in places where you want the visitor to focus. If you want them to focus on the text, highlight the key sentences with yellow or red. Use subtle and light colors too. That soothes the eye.

A combination of bright and subtle colors can create a great website design which will make the visitor stay longer on your site and visit more often.

About the Author

For more information visit Netlyte | Houston Web Design firm. You can also request information to find out how we can help you build a great website for your business. Visit Website Design Houston

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Why Aren't You on the Web

Numerous folk mistakenly think that having their web site on the net is an expensive venture, fortunately though this does not have to be true; if you choose the right web host, the benefits of getting a website will unequivocally exceed the fees.

There are a great many ways to benefit from having a website, whether it is meant for personal benefit or to assist the success of your business. Those who have their own personal web sites chiefly have them to pursue an interest or a hobby; owning a website is a superb way to share and swap material with other individuals. Organizations on the other hand tend to have a web site to bolster and market their products and services, whilst reducing such expenses as mailing, couriers and advertising, etc.

Here are several crucial advantages of getting a web site:

An increased perception for your commodities and facilities - Companies can now uniquely increase the scope of their reach, without needing to keep the focus to the immediate location of the business, by employing the web, Businesses can expand into global and regional markets with greater ease. This situation dynamically changes the complexion and the marketing exercises of quite a few Organisations, probably helping the business to expand the range of its products and facilities and to grasp these relatively new markets.

Websites, in their nature, permit virtually unlimited products to be accessible 24/7; consequently encouraging a greater reach not to mention continuous trading hours without the necessity of extra staff.

Independence - With the Freedom of being able to post your information on your web site, and therefore on the information super highway, at any time of the day; information of all types is increasing at a huge rate. The Independence to search anywhere and interact with anybody must be sufficient to tempt the tiniest of Organizations and the shyest of people to get connected to the online world; and consequently internet users are gaining in numbers at a staggering pace, approximately fifty thousand each 24 hours. Companies are humming on the information superhighway, they have discovered a way to be competitive on an even playing field, with even the biggest companies; and in a customer marketplace that is increasing daily

Cost advantage - world wide web Businesses are extremely aware of how they can profit by being on the Internet; they have the ability to advertise their goods and services without having the enormous costs and in-built delays of publishing, printing and distributing their marketing materials. The stage is a much bigger one whilst at the same time being multi-cultural, which adds a much bigger value to the costs paid out for marketing and promotion. This all compares extremely favourably with the restrictions of doing business in the real world.

Ecommerce facilities can be incorporated into the website, transforming two-dimensional screen images into user reactive models. For example, clients can buy merchandise and facilities on the internet, massively lowering the costs of administration. Reduction of telephone calls to potential customers; follow ups by email; newsletters digitally made, using email promotions or downloads from the website, all lower distribution overheads; less promotional material, printed, posted and wasted; greatly increased hours of opening without the requirement of the presence of people; are just a few of the many methods to reduce overheads.

The current way of thinking is that any organisation which is not currently on the internet world is not only foregoing the rewards of this important and vibrant opportunity, but is heading to the end of its life. Don't waste your time and energy scratching your head wondering what the www can do for your company, or you could possibly be left behind; rather, you need to consider how you can make good use of this dynamic and cheap form of industry awareness. Find a a company that does web design and a company that supplies reliable hosting, get a quote, and tell them what your requirements are. Don't be left behind, act now.

About the Author

Don't miss out, you can get everyting you need by going to Ultimate Domains UK.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Website Design The Latest Trends

Website design has evolved since the beginning of Internet. The first page uploaded on a web server was just a simple document with black text. This page was created by Tim Burners Lee, the founder of internet. Since then, websites have evolved into a more complicated combination of design and code. In late 1990s, websites were designed using colors and text effects. The design was simple and the web pages looked more like brochures.

The internet boom and the opportunity to do business online changed the look and appeal of websites entirely. People were flocking to tap the online market and get the first mover advantage. They developed visually compelling sites to attract visitors and more sales. The websites were crammed full of information and there were lot of colors on a single page. Those websites managed to do well for sometime although they were a nuisance and most of the people use to run away from those websites. Those websites had overlapping colors, big text and some eye popping text effects which used to you're your attention away from the main product/service. There were multitude of bright color with intrusive text and those websites were crammed full of information.

Then, came the internet recession, this was a golden period for website designs. People learned from their past mistakes and started to design some engaging sites that allowed the visitor to focus on the main product/service they were offering. But there was one drawback; the internet population was going through a learning curve and they used to think that simple websites are designed cheaply and used to run away. To solve this problem, most of the big players changed their website design to interactive flash based movies which used to impress visitors with the flexibility and uniqueness of flash based design.

Those were the times when HTML, DHTML and Flash were used to create website designs. The table based design was good but it had some limitations; lots of codes to write and implement style on each and every object on the web pages.

To address this problem, CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) was introduced and many designers adopted it to get rid of long codes. CSS is the latest trend in web design. There are no tables to draw. You can use the div tag to assign styles to any object or component on the web pages.

The latest trend in website design is the result of a 15 year evolution that occurred step wise. Now website designs are more mature and they are centered on the content of the website; not the other way around. Layouts are hot these days. Good web designers are using layouts to direct visitor 's attention to the content and not the design. The designs are aesthetically developed to soothe the visitor eyes and keep them engaged. The liquid layouts are things of past.

Now designers are more inclined toward creating perfect layouts and keep the background simple. The website is intentionally left blank outside the layouts to avoid distraction. The images and icons are used to highlight certain points and videos are embedded on the sites to provide dynamic content that will engage the visitors instantly. Subtle and light colors are used to complement the design. 3D gradients and reflection effects are current trends.

All in all, website designs are getting better day by day. The mature professional look is more important than cramming and stuffing of images, icons and other design components. Less design and more content is the rule of today 's online era and it has given visitors reason to think about the product/services they are interested in rather than appreciating or loathing the design of a website.

The future of website design is very promising. In future, dynamic content like videos and images will be used to attract and entice visitors. As the internet progresses towards becoming the sole business platform for most of the major businesses, the website design will be considered less important. Content will rule and design will only be there to complement it.

About the Author

For more information visit Netlyte | houston web design. You can also request information to find out how we can help you build a website to grow your email list at website design houston

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Very Important Rules Of Website Marketing

When it comes to successful website marketing, the one word that should never be invoked is "haphazard". Instead, a deliberate approach that follows established successful marketing logic is a far better plan. This, of course, begs the question as to what rules comprise this logical, success based approach. While there are no absolutes that guarantee website development marketing success, there is a number of "tried and true" website marketing rules that will improve any strategy. These rules are worth examining.

Chart your goals - First and foremost, any website marketing strategy needs clearly defined goals along with a clear plan to achieve them. This will aid greatly in keeping any marketing plan on target and focused. For example, if you are selling a product you may have a goal of increased sales. In order to do this, you have to spell out exactly HOW you plan to increase sales. Also, the intended time frame for achieving the goal should be spelled out. This way, if you are not on target for meeting your goals, then the website development marketing strategy can be tweaked and modified. But this can only be accomplished if a clear goal is sought at the very beginning. You can't revise something that never existed in the first place.

Keywords - More than anything, website marketing relies heavily on search engine traffic. A significant reason for this is that most people find websites through their search engine queries. This is done by plugging keywords into the search engines related to the subject they seek. As such, weaving proper keywords into the text of a website is critical to any website marketing strategy. Without proper keywords, search engine traffic will always be minimal.

Stay up to date with website marketing innovations. There have been many inroads achieved in website marketing over the past three years. The explosion of pod casting, social networking, and file sharing services has all been utilized to market websites with tremendous success. Staying current with web development marketing trends along with being open minded regarding new marketing strategies are critical for success. Yet, there are many website publishers who do not take advantage of what these new inroads offer. Sorry, but a 1998 website marketing strategy will not work in the modern era. Exploring valuable cutting edge marketing strategies, however, will give any website 's exposure a boost.

But never forget tried and true methods such as email promotions either! Email marketing to promote a website is virtually as old as the internet itself. Email website marketing has survived for so long is because it is effective if used correctly. This means a website must employ targeted emails derived from solid "opt in" lists. (Random spam emailing has long since lost its effectiveness) The email should also not be "prattle" and must include items of interest. This includes website news and updates, discounts on products and services, etc. This is a strategy that the major websites (Amazon.com, Borders.com, and Ebay.com) have all used for significant success. There is no reason why this success can not be duplicated by other websites.

Create a solid website. Ok, you have drawn traffic to your website….now what? Any website marketing strategy is only as strong as the website itself. If the website is poorly designed, difficult to navigate, not user friendly or just downright boring people will leave it soon after they arrive. As such, it is critical that any website being marketing be properly designed or any web development marketing strategy employed will be doomed to failure. If there was a golden rule to website marketing it would be this!

As you can see, there is no "magic" to proper web development marketing. There is simply a common sense approach that applies logical rules to enhance success. While this isn't always easy, it is never difficult either.

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About the Author

Creatively yours, Todd Herman Senior Vice President GlobalWebsiteCreations.com President GlobalWebsiteCreating.com

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