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Showing posts from August, 2020

The Wonders of Content Management Systems

 As you get serious about your web site, your time will become invaluable. A content management system is the best way to maximize your efforts. What A Content Management System Does for You A good CMS system will allow you to update can entire site by making a change one time in the admin that can carry over to all pages of your site. This means you can change the menu, side bar, page bottom, site design, or other sections of your site all at one time. So while some webmasters are changing every page, others can have the task completed in minutes. Includes, Style Sheets and Content Management Systems For the do it yourself webmaster, or a professional web designer looking to easily improve update efficiency, there is a middle ground between plain HTML pages and full-blown CMS. Includes By simply using an include on your sites, you can allow your entire site to be updated with one change. Includes are files that are included in a web page with one line of code. This allows all pages wi

Things a web site Newbie should know to save money.

 Don’t subscribe to get rich quick schemes. There are thousands of sites out there trying to get you to part with your money, and inferring that you will immediately start reaping the rewards. Don’t be fooled by compelling one page sales letters, often with copies of bank statements, and invariably concluding with free gifts worth hundreds of dollars. Often the letters are sprinkled with testimonials and attempt to close the sale by offering only a limited number left remaining for sale, or you are warned of an imminent price increase.  Check some of them out. Make a note of the price and the suggested uplift date. Does it really happen. Check out some of the reference sites. Are they really sites of substance, in which you would place the utmost faith in their recommendations. Yes, you can make money, but is usually after the passage of time, and not without a good deal of effort. Don’t pay for information on How-to. There are thousands of publications offering, at a cost, to teach yo

Things to consider before redesigning or redeveloping a website

 Its 2006 and you have made a few resolutions. You need your website to perform so that you reap the rewards. This article will be more useful to companies who have a web based business or a portal. Does this sound familiar: 1.  We have a website and have spent a lot of money but it’s too clunky. 2.  It served us well when we had a tight budget and needed to have a website but its not performing. 3.  The development company that built the website for us told us they could do all these wonderful things but left the site incomplete. 4.  Our competitors have mastered the web business even though we can out beat them with our marketing and reputation. 5.  When ever we ask the developers to add new features or functionality they turn around and claim it cannot be achieved or that was not the scope of the project. The list can go on and on but if the above are statements that you have said or heard and you need to break free then read this article and let me know if it was useful. When a bus

Things to Consider When Hiring a Design Firm

 With the myriad of chores filling up most entrepreneurs’ “To Do” list, it seems that many side tasks - like getting a logo - get put off until the last minute. That’s when countless business owners realize how important finding the right graphic design firm is to getting their company’s logo.  Here are a few questions you should ask yourself when you’re browsing for a graphic design firm, be it traditional or online:  Guarantees . Given that many entrepreneurs are strapped for cash to begin with, finding a design service that offers recompense to unhappy customers is a must. Nothing can be so frustrating as spending countless hours working with a designer to get revisions on a logo design, and end up with a logo that isn’t at all what the owner envisioned. Make sure the company you choose has a money back guarantee.  Adequate Resources. Since small business owners that go to an ad agency typically go only needing a logo design, most agencies won’t dedicate a great deal of time and res

Think before you select the right logo design company?

 All business establishments and companies should have a logo representing them. The right logo provides a graphic representation of your companies identity to your clients. There are thousands of logos around us, it is up to you to create the right logo for your company. New businesses have to go about creating a company logo for them as they are the ones competing with established companies. With a quality and right logo, it is possible to gain credibility and professionalism in your area of expertise right from the start of your business, when you need it the most! The need of a company logo for your business can be rightly seen by the fact that the right logo attracts customers away from their competitions.  It is always better to enlist the services of a company logo designer to create a logo for your company. This is because though you may be able to create your own logo design, the end product of the logo designer is bound to be better than your own logo design. There are some p

Thinking Of Starting A Web Design Company? Don't Do It!

 If you are thinking of setting up a web design company - Don't. Once upon a time this was a dream market requiring a tiny software investment with massive prices, meaning an unbelievable profit margin. This is no longer true. The market is saturated, with many companies based in developing countries with low wage costs. There is no room in the market for anyone from North America or Europe to make a profit. Is it worth learning web design? - Yes, up to a point. If you have a business, either traditional or online, and need a website you could consider designing it yourself. However, website design requires a specialist body of knowledge that you would have to spend many months acquiring. You need to ask yourself if this is a wise investment of your time, or if your energy would be better employed on developing your business in other ways and outsource your website design. It will be useful if you know how to update and make small site modifications yourself, but that is a much sma

Tips For Writing Website Content

 Online businesses need to reflect the concept that "Content is King" in the design, marketing, and writing of their web sites to truly be successful.  At Swift Media UK, we always ask these 3 questions to online business professionals to see if they really understand the concept of "Content is King." We find that if they cannot answer these 3 questions immediately, then that gives us a clearer idea of how prepared the client is to be online.  Why should I visit your web site (without spending any money)? The #1 reason people visit web sites is for information. Thus, if you provide information for people such as free marketing tips, a how-to section, or tips for buying your product or service, you have given a benefit for visiting your site. The tips for buying your product or service are particularly beneficial because you are helping your potential customers make the best decision they can. It shows that you are thinking of your customers ("Let me help you ma

Tips On Landing Outsourcing Jobs In Web Design

 For those who are competent in the area of web design, chances are that there is a huge market out there just waiting for you to come in and make your mark. There are many companies and individuals who are looking to add their own sites to the net but lack the confidence or abilities or the time to do so themselves. In this case, they will be looking to outsource their work and you have a chance at filling the gap. As you start your business, there are a few areas to consider in order to make your business successful. First of all, consider any feedback you have received in terms of your previous work and abilities. If, for instance, you have been specifically trained in a college or university program for web design, and have received grades that are high, the odds are you are better at this job than most of the people out there. Take confidence from that fact, and move accordingly when it comes time to establish your prices. Identify potential market places. The first place you may

Tips on Starting a Powerpoint Presentation

 When making your powerpoint presentation, plan it in such a way that the vital information can be put on the slides, in printed form as a handout and is explainable to the viewers. This is because a person tends to store information for a longer time if they hear it three or more times. Be as clear and concise as possible in your presentation. Work on your points until you get exactly what you want the audience to get from your presentation. Now, to start on the making of the powerpoint presentation. To quickly start a powerpoint presentation, you have to click any powerpoint presentation file (.ppt) and select the Show icon from the shortcut menu it displays. Another alternative to starting the powerpoint presentation is to save the presentation as a slide show by selecting the File, Save As icons, and then selecting powerpoint show from the Save As Type box. If you save the powerpoint presentation to your desktop, you just have to double click on that particular file icon for it to

Tips to build an attractive search engine friendly website

 A good Website is something related to user experience. This experience is the "effect" (the wow factor) your site has on visitors, and good effect means something, which becomes memorable in the visitor's mind. To make it memorable we require good content, graphics and user-friendly navigation. A Website experience is great when it is useful, desirable and impact. So here are some points for consideration before designing Website Goal and target - Goal of the Website (site's purpose) and who is the target audience? Context - Layout, design (user-friendly layout) and color schemes. Content - Text, pictures, sound, and video (must be useful information which achieves goals and interest to your audience). Community - How can the site enable user-to-user communication ?  Customization - Site's ability to tailor itself to different users to allow users to personalize the site. Communication - How the site talks to the visitor, site to user or two-way communications.

Tips To Create A Good Looking Website.

 Creating a website is something anyone can do today with the advent of many application or website generators available today. But, creating a appreciable and good looking website needs a lot of thought process and skills. The following would help: 1. Think of a theme or idea for the website.  What does your site speak about or what do you want the site to speak about? Put yourself in the shoes of the visitor and think why you should visit this particular site and not one of the numerous others? Always try to offer something extra that a visitor needs or wants. After you close your thought process on this, proceed to point no. 2.  2. Now that you have the idea ready, what else do you need?  An idea itself is not enough to create the website. Give a thought to web design. Design is a process of visualizing the idea by finalizing the layout, colors and more importantly the content. Colors and their combinations are very essential, since if you end up using the wrong ones, the visitor ma

Tips to making your own web site for free

 Website making is something that does not happen overnight. It needs lots of planning, research and good layout and design before starting to build the site. Previously, it was required to learn HTML (hypertext markup language) to make your website. However nowadays, there are so many options on the website to create free web pages, that this is not necessary. You can create your own web pages using a WYSIWG (What You See Is What You Get) editor like Microsoft’s Front Page. With this software, you can write your web page like you would any document and then drag and drop images easily. Some practice may be needed, but by buying some templates, you can create a professional website for free.  If you dint intend to hire a person for the graphic designing of the website, you can do it on your own. You can make your website colorful by either designing the graphics on your own or by using some of the free templates found on the Internet. You just have to download these templates

To Join or not to Join Myspace

 To Join or not to Join Myspace There are so many reasons why you have to join myspace.com and there also so many reasons why you would think twice in joining such website. Although there’s no proper debate whether you have to join or not, there are people that will advice you not to join these social networking sites while there are others who doesn’t see the problem in joining them.  One of the reasons why you shouldn’t join these types of websites is security. This is especially applicable for those that are not of legal age yet. There are sexual predators that cloak themselves with very sympathetic ideas to anyone who has a problem. Kids who sometimes get frustrated at school and family tend to rant on things in the blogs of their myspace webpage. There they start giving clues about themselves. And predators will have the chance to take a look at a more personal level of other people and they will try to connect to what they feel. They start to bond and then horrors will just start

Today is the Right Time for a Career in Graphic Design

 Graphic design is a field that is rising in possibilities for artistically creative minds. With new websites popping up by the thousands daily, it makes sense that now is the perfect time to be a graphic designer. All it takes is a little artistic flair and a willingness to invest the time into learning the coding required to turn your design talents towards a more technical endeavor. If you have considered a career in graphic design or this is something you might find interesting now that you’ve heard about it, perhaps you would consider taking an online course or two to familiarize yourself with some of the more popular software in the field of graphic design. Once you’ve learned a little you may want to get your feet wet by designing a site of your own or a few other sites for friends and family and using those as your portfolio. Once you have a couple of websites to show as examples of your work, you can submit bids on the many bidding sites around that are continuously asking for

Top 10 Design Issues According To Web Marketing!

 When it comes to designing your site, there are 2 ways you can ultimately go.  a) Designing for yourself and no one else,  b) Designing to fit web marketing and customer attracting methods. Here are the top 10 issues you should always consider: 1) Flash vs. HTML vs. ASP vs. PHP: The type of code you use for your site may have a huge impact. - Flash is not yet ready to fully intergrate within web marketing. Although technology is advancing, search engines aren't moving quickly enough to include this style of coding in their rankings. - ASP, if your site is completely data base driven, make sure that your code is written into the page, not being pulled from tables every time. Also, make sure to pre-plan your meta tags within the data base. Too many data bases out there never implement a meta tag strategy. - PHP/Java : These are both safe programming methods, just remember to keep it clean and simple. Don't forget to test your programming. - HTML : Probably always going to be th

Top 10 Ways Websites Makes Me Suffer

 I believe some people create and publish websites for the sole purpose of tormenting their visitors. Browsing various websites and navigating the Web can often be like trying to read on an airplane while a kid kicks the back of your seat and the baby next to you alternates between screaming, crying and drooling on you. There are some excellent websites out there to be sure, but there are also a lot of dreadful ones too.  The latter are the bane of so many people’s existence, especially those who use the Web regularly.  The Net continues to grow in popularity and importance for consumers and businesses alike. Therefore, the quality of sites needs to keep pace. Creating and maintaining high-quality websites is more important now than ever. Higher quality equals more revenue. The following lists the top ten ways that a website misses the boat and contributes to hair loss and nervous breakdowns. Notice the common thread that runs throughout each of these. Namely, a bad website neglects to

Top Questions Your Web Design Firm Should Be Asking You

 Before any business owner develops a web site, they usually have something in mind regarding the esthetics, layout and overall budget they have for the project.  While all of these are certainly an important part of building a web site, there are many more things to consider as well.  If you are working with a professional web development firm, other questions need to be answered before you can have a site developed that will accurately represent your interests on the net. One of the first questions they should be asking you is what your intentions are for the site.  Are you selling products or services or giving out information?  Is the site for entertainment purposes primarily or is it a business venture?  If you are selling products or services, who constitutes your target demographic?  Once that has been established, a good web design firm will want to know how large you intend for the site to be.  Will the site experience growth over time as pages are added for new products or se

Top Tips for Web Design

 Content is King. The most important thing to remember about popular web sites is that they are always rich in content. Stick to your subject. Don't try to be all things to all people. Keep your goal in mind. Creating a web site is challenging and fun. The temptation to put as many bells and whistles as you can on a page is almost overwhelming. But unless your site is involved with bells and whistles, don't do it! The purpose of designing a site carefully is not to make it look cool, or win awards. It's to accomplish the intended goal of the site. It's a good idea to write down the goal of your the site before starting any design work. It will help you make design designs for the site as a whole.  First impressions count! Think about the message you are sending to your customer. The first page of your web site should be a concise description of the website. Don't make this page too busy - entice visitors to dig deeper into your site through the use of inviting text

Tungsten Design and Creative Services

 Tungsten Design, a sole-proprietorship owned and operated by Thomas Maiaroto Jr. was registered in December of 2005 in the state of Pennsylvania and started business in January 2006. The company will offer graphic design services to clients from all over, but is based in New Hope, Bucks County, PA. Tungsten Design is able to handle clients from remote location thanks to Thomas Maiaroto's online project management software. This software, "Galileo," does more than allow clients to see their project come together. "Galileo" is also responsible for client relationship management, scheduling, prospecting, and more. It runs the business from a management point of view. This saves time and eliminates the need to hire a manager for the business. This is extremely good considering the business is new, of course, and every minute that can be dedicated elsewhere greatly helps the company.  "Galileo" is a fork off various other PHP scripts found on the internet

Types in Logo Design

 Text-Based Logo Design The mainly extensively used of all logo types; the Text-Based design focuses on text and style but can include other elements as well. A Text-Based design may be best suited for corporations whose name successfully portray what they do (TCS Couriers, Home Freight) devoid of graphical essentials to communicate that message, a literal explanation of the words is often necessary. (For example, all of us know it very well that Wal-Mart is a very big mart because its logo design actually explains it all.)  A Text-Based design is often text only with exclusive typographic behavior (e.g. Microsoft, Yahoo). Most frequently however, the business name is included mutually with easy graphic elements to create a clean, simple individuality. The depiction of the word in essence turns out to be a representation of the business.  Prefer a Text-Based design when:  •    Communication funds are inadequate and should be paying attention on name recognition.  •    Your name is logi

Types of Web Site Features

 video, forums, web sites, newsletters, articles, games, music, news, entertainment Article Body: As web platforms and software grow at exponential rates, site owners are faced with a plethora of potential features. So, what is out there? Web site features are limited only by imagination. Here is a brief categorization of some of the major fields of web site features, including stores, auctions, forums, articles, directories, news, and entertainment.  Stores Online stores can be used to sell products on web sites and also easily interact as a point of sale service.  Catalogs Catalog type ecommerce sites provide listings of categorized products that can be purchased for a fixed amount. Usually a shopping cart is employed which allows visitors to select multiple items for purchase. Auctions Auctions like EBay allow visitors to bid on items, whereas the highest bidder wins. These auctions have a time limit and also sometimes have a buy now button. A buy now button is a button that allows

Unstoppable Pop Ups

 Do you remember unstoppable pop up?  Ever figure it out? Or perhaps you spent hard earned money to purchase the program.  Perhaps you don't have the program, but would like to know how it works. Read on.  We will give it to you not for $97.95, not $67.95, not $24.95, not even $1.95 but Free!! First, however, there are a few things you need to know and understand. Properly used the popup can dispense data, bring you extra visitors, collect e-mail addresses, and increase your revenue without being perceived as intrusive.  On the other hand, abuse it and loose visitors as quickly as the pop up launches... visitors who will in all probability never return. King Solomon said, "there is nothing new under the sun".  What do you think has changed since Solomon's reign? This neat effect has been important to websites and internet marketers since commerce and the public discovered the world wide web.  There are at least two ways to accomplish the unstoppable popup.  How do I k

Updating Your Web Site Efficiently

 Many new webmasters, and even seasoned web designers, create web sites that are very inefficient in regard to updates. Updating your site keeps visitors coming back day in and day out, while at the same time giving search engines plenty to index. Yet if the task of updating your web site is not an efficient one, hundreds and thousands of hours can be lost. Using simple solutions, such as content management systems, the efficiency of updating a web site can be improved dramatically. The Trap of a "Simple" Web Site When I first started learning web design, I learned enough to make a simple web page. "Cool! I made a web page!" I thought. Indeed. Then I proceeded to make an entire web site, several hundred pages deep. "Cool! I made a web site! “Then came time to update the site.” This is what I call the trap of a "simple web site." An inexperienced webmaster makes a web site using HTML with no CMS (Content Management System), no Style Sheets, no includes

Usability testing with children

 Usability testing with children is similar in many respects to usability testing with adults. In order to get the most out of the sessions, and ensure the child is comfortable and happy, there are a few differences that you need to be aware of.  Stress of new people and surroundings  Children are far more likely than adults to find encountering new places and people stressful. You should always remember this, so try to find as many ways as possible to relax the child. Some things you could do are:  - Allow a significant period of time - at least 10 minutes - to meet the child. This is critical in putting them at ease before beginning the session. Some easy things to talk about might be computer games, cartoons, sports or school. Trying to make all the equipment used during the session match that which the child uses at home/school (phone up their parents/teachers beforehand to check).  - Try to be as comforting and reassuring as possible. It's especially important to make it clear