Web Design

The 5 Biggest Mistakes Almost All web designers Make

Huge Mistake #1: Creating a Web Site with Flash — Did you know in a recent study, top internet marketers discovered that having a web site created with Flash, actually DECREASED the response from prospects and customers by as much as three-hundred-and-seventy percent?
Here’s why: Your prospects and customers are most likely visiting your web site using all types of different computers, connection speeds and internet configuration settings…
What may look GREAT to one visitor, may not even appear for another! You could very easily have shelled out hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have a web site created using the Flash technology, only to find out that some of your visitors will never see it! (not to mention the loading times can cause your visitor to close your site, never to return again.)
Huge Mistake #2: The “Internet Catalog” Approach — You see this everywhere. Good, honest and hardworking businessmen and women get online to sell their products or services, and have a site created for them that contains a link to just about everything they offer on one page. Their thinking goes along the lines of, “…well, I don’t want to leave anyone out. If they come to my site, I want to make sure I have what they’re looking for…” — This way of thinking could not be further from the truth.
Here’s why: There’s an ancient rule that goes back to the very beginning of direct-marketing on the internet, taught by the richest, most legendary and well-respected internet marketers of all time…
“When you give your prospects too many choices, they become confused and aren’t sure what to do next. Confused people never buy anything.”
Huge Mistake #3: Optimizing Your Sales Site for the Search Engines — You’ll see this taught in nearly every “internet marketing” course, manual or eBook out there… “You must optimize every page of your web site for the search engines!” — In fact, this false teaching is accepted as ‘gospel truth’ so often, that most web designers will offer to do this for you at no, or little extra cost…
What they DON’T understand is that certain words and phrases must be either re-worded (to make it “keyword rich”) or taken out completely, just to be looked upon highly by the mighty search engines — and this could KILL your sales, literally overnight.
Here’s why: When you or a hired web designer optimize your SALES page (i.e. any web page designed to sell your products and services) to get a higher listing in the search engines, you’re going to have to sacrifice the pulling-power of your sales copy (i.e. written sales material) just to get those higher listings. Sure, this can bring you more traffic — but what good is all the traffic in the world, if your visitors arrive at your web site and aren’t compelled enough to read why they should order your product?
For years, it has been taught that you should always try to find a “balance” of SEO (Search-Engine-Optimization) mixed with promotional copy designed to sell your products and services…
WRONG AGAIN! — The truth is that you should NEVER optimize your sales page for the Search Engines. Instead, you should create tiny “entry pages” for each keyword related to your product or service, (highly optimized for the Search Engines) and have them link to your main sales site! (we can show you exactly how to do this quickly and easily and get *massive* targeted traffic from the Search Engines - without ever *touching* your sales site!)
Huge Mistake #4: Having a “Graphics-Based” Web Site — Sure, graphics can certainly help us to visualize a particular situation or circumstance, product or service… But did you know that having a graphically-driven web site can actually DISTRACT your visitor away from your sales message?
After all, your sales message (or “web copy”) is THE #1 most important factor in a web site that makes money. If your visitors are paying more attention to your “professional graphics” than your sales message… you’ve just lost another sale.
Here’s why: You’ve got approximately seven seconds from the time your visitor arrives at your site, to the time they decide whether to buy your product, get more information or LEAVE. If you’ve got a graphically-intensive website, your web site will most likely still be loading past your seven-second time limit.
That’s a “customer-killer” in and of itself - however, the real reason lies within the fact that the bigger, brighter and more beautiful your graphics are, the more they will distract your visitor from your sales message. And if your visitor is distracted even for one second, it could mean the difference between getting a sale, and losing a customer.
Huge Mistake #5: Designing a Web Site with ZERO Marketing Experience — Most web designers have no idea how to make money on the internet, with anything other than their design services. It’s not their fault - they simply have no or very little marketing and sales experience. After all, they’re just web site designers…
However, having your web site designed by someone with ZERO internet marketing experience is like buying a street-car without an engine… it won’t go anywhere, and it’ll just waste your time and money!
About The Author

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Do-It-Yourself or Hire a Professional Designer

Remember your vision for your company and the brand or statement you want to make when any of your current or potential customers come in contact with you. You have to impress them in all the ways you connect with them.
DIY (Do-It-Yourself)
* Knowledge is Power
I highly recommend reading and learning about graphic/web design. It’s a good idea in a long-term sense whether you do design projects yourself now or hire in the future. You will be able to communicate more effectively to your graphic professionals when your business is ready to outsource. By learning design techniques, it wil help you organize how to present your image to your target market. The most important lesson to remember is if you start your design project, don’t forget about Quality. I may not call myself a copywriter, but I do write my own content and persuasive marketing materials… But I feel fairly confident about my copy because I have taken steps to learn about writing copy that sells and you can do the same for design. Read books. Take classes. Learn the software.
* It’s an affordable route Nothing is more affordable that pulling up your sleeves and doing it yourself especially if you don’t have a budget to spare on outsourcing.
* It gives you instant gratification
It’s nice to have control and once your learn the tricks of the trade, you can pat yourself on the back for a job well-done.
Hiring a Professional
* How much time do you have?
Designing your marketing materials (website, business card, stationary, ezine, postcards, etc.) is not just about learning about the graphic design software and, in the case of web design… learning HTML. Your designer will know how to harness color theory and how to organize your content & information to readable chunks, allow your viewers to focus on the important benefits, evoke a certain feeling or thought, and add supporting graphics that clearly and effectively communicate your message.
* Don’t you want to concentrate on business? When you are a small business, you probably play the role of sales, customer service, accounting and need to concentrate on strategies to build business. Hiring lets you make the decisions to take your business to the next step, communicate your wants/needs but then hand it off to someone who can effectively and productively implement the project.
* You do care about quality, right? You get what you pay for. A quality designer will only want the best for you and your business. They live off long-term relationships and want great testimonials from you.
* Don’t think “service provider”. Think long-term partnerships.

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How to Create an Enjoyable Web Page Design

Novice and professional designers alike you may probably be skilled enough of any one or all of the techniques in creating a Web page and designing them. However, not all designs, even those made by authorities in the field, prove to be enjoyable and entertaining enough for the users. This is a fact that we hope does not irk some of our design enthusiasts and discourage them from honing their skills.
In terms of honing your skills in web design, here are several pointers that will give you a chance to make enjoyable designs on a web site. These elements should be kept in mind to make it easier for your customers to interact with your web page, get satisfied with what they’re looking for and thoroughly have an enjoyable experience. A logo is required it’s high time for your business to acquire a logo. The logo is a means to define the look, feel and direction of your business. The concept of your logo will eventually transfer over to your web page design.
The purpose is required and you must understand it you must identify the objective of creating a Web page. Various companies have various reasons for putting up a Web site, you should have a major purpose, too. And you must be consistent with it in your Web pages.
The goal should be identified evaluate each page and align it with the goal you have for it. You might have an ultimate goal of having clients contact you and inquire about your services. If that is so, then you must create your Web page in a logical sequence wherein you will provide for instruction for your clients to contact you.
A navigation system that’s not confusing your navigation system must be consistent throughout your site. It would not help you gain more visitors if your recent visitors get helplessly confused in the middle of your site and decide to close the window. The information may be good, but visitors don’t want to waste time thinking where to click next and how to make certain pop up windows appear.
Fast loading of your pages is a needed as much as possible - your corporate identity is reflected in the graphics and navigation inside your Web page. But they must be optimized for fast loading. Loading a page in 20 seconds or more is too long already for Web surfers.
Having readable pages are important Avoid dark colored backgrounds and heavily patterned pages in your site. This tends to make your text confusing and hard to ready. Most visitors do not find it enjoyable to spend time in a Web site that they have difficulty deciphering. This also goes with small sized texts and very large texts where text that is too large can make it appear as if you are screaming at your viewers.
Technical jargons are a no-no avoid the use of technical jargons that will just be ignored by readers. Make your users understand you and you will be able to connect with your target audience.
Create templates for consistency all the elements in your site is guaranteed to be consistent if you provide a template. Having the navigation system and all common elements in the same place throughout your site is a great help. It makes it easier for your visitors to find information, and enjoy their experience. Having a template for you to work from makes creating new pages easier.
Use CSS style sheets to have your users be instructed easily on how to get the contents of your page use the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). There are several typographical information that you’ll found in CSS such as fonts, font size, colors, and spacing.
Frames are not advisable in dividing the Web page into multiple windows, some designers use frames as a technique. The reasons for not using them tend to outweigh the reasons to use them since several browsers still do not support frame sites. Search engine optimization is affected then. It is best to create non-frames site first and then see if frames adds any functionality that your visitors would miss.
These elements are basic principles that any designer must live by. By remembering them, you will find even more reasons to enjoy brandishing your skills in web design and make users enjoy your Web pages, too. -30-
Lala C. Ballatan is a 26 year-old Communication Arts graduate, with a major in Journalism. Right after graduating last 1999, she worked for one year as a clerk then became a Research, Publication and Documentation Program Director at a non-government organization, which focuses on the rights, interests and welfare of workers for about four years.
Book reading has always been her greatest passion — mysteries, horrors, psycho-thrillers, historical documentaries and classics. She got hooked into it way back when she was but a shy kid.
Her writing prowess began as early as she was 10 years old in girlish diaries. With writing, she felt freedom to express her viewpoints and assert it, to bring out all concerns — imagined and observed, to bear witness.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit www.ucreative.com

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The Newbie’s Guide to Small Business Web Design

You’ve got a concept for a business, are excited about putting it out on the Internet, know a little bit about computers and the Internet, but know nothing about building a web site, or web design.
You can still be highly successful and save money by doing the job yourself so long as you’ve got the willingness to learn and the time to spend on the project. It can be fun … and it should be.
The contents of this article will greatly improve your knowledge of web design without causing you to feel overwhelmed. Keep this article as a reference point, check off each part as you go through the process of development, and, in due time, you will have an effective web site for marketing the information, product, or service you wish to provide to your customers.
Domain Name
Keep it short and relevant to your business. Do not get frustrated trying to lock down a domain name by settling on anything to get you web space. You will soon realize that every word on your web site has relevancy to its success. Register for no less than two years. Serious businesses don’t renew yearly. You have to show that you’re going to be sticking around.
Web Hosting
Don’t mess around with small time web hosting. Affiliate yourself with a reputable company that provides top-notch service, as the rewards with regards to security and support are worth the extra dollar.
Web Site Construction
The basis by which people choose to build their web site is at their discretion. Microsoft FrontPage is a worthy choice for those of you who are new to web development and starting from scratch. Instead of reading books to learn about web design and development, you may be much better off using Google, MSN, or Yahoo to find the answers to your questions. Use “quotations” around your question in a search bar to get more specific answers.
Layout
Building your web site on a template is a fine way to start, but you may want to learn how to build from nothing. The mistakes that you may make along the way will prove invaluable. It is strongly recommended that you go with Tables instead of Frames, and if you don’t have a clue what either means, just do a little reading about the two on the Internet before you start building.
Resolution
It would be a safe bet to keep your web site at no more than 750 pixels wide, regardless of the fact that more and more people are going to 1024×768. If your site is geared towards older folk, then you can count on the majority being at 800×600 for easier reading. You don’t want to alienate your visitors by having them scroll to see the whole page. Be sure to check that your web site pages show up the same in all browsers.
The Intro
Never ever put “Under Construction” or any other type of phrase that says that you are incomplete on your web site. Your site is young … it is never incomplete. Try to refrain from saying “Welcome to”. You should think of your web space as being real estate. The space you use up with unnecessary text is a waste of advertising.
The Text
Keywords, their place on a web page, whether they are bolded or not, and the number of times each word appears on a web page are factors that determine how high you end up in search results.
HTML Tags
Before I say anything further, don’t get freaked out by HTML code. It not as hard as it looks. Again, do a little reading on the Internet … this time about Meta Tags and Keywords. You will have to make sure that your Title, Description, and Keyword Meta Tags are bang on with the text on each web page you build. You can use many free Tag Analyzers found on the Internet to check relevancies.
Graphics
Graphics increase load time and looks. There’s a fine line between too little and too much. Use customers, not friends and family to gauge what is appropriate for the way your web site will look.
Random Tips
You may need to read a little to learn how to implement some of these tips, but nonetheless, they are here for your consideration to improve the placement of your web site in search results:
1) Make sure your TITLE is right below the HEAD in the HTML code. 2)Use one or two keywords in an ALT Tag to describe your images. 3) Get links pointing at you from sites sharing similar content.

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Creating A Quality Web Site Design!

In this article, I will attempt to cover the basics of creating a great quality web design template for your site. Now it’s a known fact that the layout or “eye candy” as I put it will determine whether your visitors will stay more than 15 seconds or they will just become another statistic.
That’s right, if you don’t catch your visitors attention right away, statistics shows us that your visitors will come and go within 15 seconds or less.
That doesn’t leave you with a lot of time to grab someone’s attention!
Some of you may be asking yourself:
Well why does this happen????
See when you think about it, 15 seconds to the “browsing eye” is like an eternity. In other words, it takes about 15 seconds for the average person to browse your main page and determine whether they will explore your site further!
So with that being said;
How do we grab your visitors attention????
Every new client of mine is asked to perform the same tasks. I ask them to explore their competitor’s web sites and look for specific triggers that would make them want to click on or buy right away. More times than none, my clients will notice specific “Headlines” or “Graphics” that really peek their interest. In doing this, you’ll have 1st hand knowledge on what you expect your visitors will see and possibly expect themselves.
Step 2, I’ll ask my clients to do one more process just like the previous one. I’ll ask them to make a list of all the “eye candy” that really caught their attention and write me a little note as to why it caught their attention. In doing this, it will give your web designer a 1st hand knowledge on what to implement within your site!!!
With these great tasks, you’ve made your job and the job of your web designer a lot easier to target your audience.
Sites that sell “Web Site Templates” :
You may have seen some sites that sell your the right for a specific “Template Style”. There are 100’s of resources out there. I need to clarify something for you, these templates are targeted at web designers only!!! Reason being, the files that you receive will no doubt require some expensive and time consuming software just to open them.
Now being a designer, I’m not about to “knock” pre-made templates but there’s a couple of things you may want to consider:
1) Although the templates you may encounter are very impressive, you will be sharing your layout template with 100’s, maybe 1000’s of other sites. The reason why they are so cheat is because those “specific templates” are sold and re-sold as much as possible!
2) I’ve noticed that many template examples out there on the web are extremely “Graphic Driven”. This will result in “slow loading times”. I’m sure we’ve all come across a site that seemed to take FOREVER to load!! How long did you actually wait for the site to load????
The best way to get a template is to have someone professional design your web site layout for you! This will ensure that your template is uniquely designed for your business. It will be easier for you to make changes in the future. Typically, a template may cost you between $0-$500 depending on the intensity and added features!
Now, we’ve talked about “Slow loading pages”. I’ve found a good “norm” to stick with when it comes to size and speed: Web sites are compiled of 2 elements:
1) Graphics & Layouts
2) Programming & Pages
Both of them require memory from your computer when downloading them. If one or the other is too large then this may result in negative results for your visitors.
Here’s a good norm to stick with, either you or your web designer should stick with these specs:
1) Graphic Design Layout: Should be no more than: 30-50K in size
2) Programming Pages: Shouldn’t be more than: 10-30k in size
Giving your entire web page no more than 40k-80k in size. Anything drastically more will result in the loss of many visitors from slow downloading pages.
Animation: Last but not least, making “some” aspects of you page stand out by adding small size animations. PLEASE NOTE: DO NOT overkill your site with graphics and animation!!! I can’t stress this enough, your visitors will most likely get a head ache from it and won’t be coming back very soon.
Instead, try targeting specific promotions or services you wish to attract your visitors to right away! Many sites exchange “animated banners” with other sites to exchange traffic. I personally NEVER take part in adding ANY banners on my site. I honestly feel that banners only take away from the design, not add to it! A typical “Banner Dimensions” is 468px x 60px. There are many other sizes!
What I will usually take part in, if any, is smaller, more unique banners that are geared to complimenting an article or text with it. This is much more effective because study shows us that “Content (text)” accompanied by a “graphic image” is more likely to be read by our visitors than just text on its own.
That about wraps it up to having an effective web site template. Please look for my “continued” issues related to this article.
About The Author
Martin R. Lemieux
President
Smartads Information Centre
Advertising, Marketing Resources & web design
www.smartads.info
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Webmaster Awards & web design Resources
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Top 10 Webmaster Challenges

Webmasters deal with a myriad of complex design challenges every day. This article will discuss the top ten challenges and provide solutions and tips for solving each problem.
1. Browser Compatibility You must design your Web site so that it is viewable on both browsers: Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). Netscape Navigator is very strict when it comes to HTML tag completion, but IE isn’t. You need to view your site first using Macromedia Dreamweaver before publishing to the Web. Make sure you’ve run the command convert to ensure your site is version 3.0 browser compatible. If you’re using Netobjects Fusion to create the layout of your site, make sure that all layer objects are converted into tables. This is highly recommended if you want to reach a broader and wider audience.
Online resources:
A) Dr. HTML, located at www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/
B) Web Site Garage to check your links, located at websitegarage.com
2. Graphics Optimization
Web graphics play an essential part in your Web design, because it conveys the emotion and impact of your site. Always make sure that all of your graphics are in .gif and .jpg format. Unless your site deals with photography, minimize the use of the .jpg format. You can use Macromedia Fireworks to minimize the file size, especially the slicer feature if you need to place a large photo on your site. Another option is the export preview of Macromedia Fireworks. This allows you to remove unwanted colors in your graphics, thus decreasing file size.
You can also do this online by using one of these online utilities:
A) GIF Optimizer by Media Builder, www.gifoptimizer.com
B) JPEG Cruncher and GIF Cruncher, www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html
C) Windows-based graphics optimizer, CyberView Image Lite (JPEG Compressor), www.cyberviewcd.com/cvimage/index.html
D) Advanced GIF Optimizer, www.gold-software.com/ago.html
E) Photo Crunch (JPEG Compressor), www.imroncorp.com/photo.htm
F) JPEG image compression FAQ, www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/
3. Keeping the Site Fresh
I think this is the bulk of a webmaster’s work, if you want your site frequently visited. You can keep your site fresh by really working on new content on a daily or regular basis and by making it interactive. As with content, you can make use of www.moreover.com, www.subportal.com, www.newshub.com, and other content syndication sites to provide the content for your site automatically. Let them do the hard work for you! If you place a tag, they will email you with new content. As for the interactivity, offer your visitors web-based email accounts, a message board with a chat room, a search engine crawler, and banner ad rotation. This is easy, and provided by Everyone.net. Searching your site is another way to easily provide information to your visitors. You can get a site search engine from www.picosearch.com and www.atomz.com.
4. Pushing Information to Your Visitors
A Web site is a “pull” promotion, but as a webmaster, you also need to be thinking about how you can “push” information to your visitors, users, or subscribers. You can publish an ezine on a weekly or monthly basis just to let your users be informed about the latest technology you’ve added to your site. As for the mailing list, you can get a free mailing list from www.egroups.com, www.topica.com, or you can choose a paid service such as www.aweber.com or www.getresponse.com. As for the content, you can get lots of articles from bbs.weblord2000.com, or try one or more of my articles that can be found on the same Web site.
5. Driving Traffic
Webmasters shouldn’t forget to announce your Web site. Accomplishing this is easy for Web sites that already have a lot of traffic, but even sites that are starting out with 5 or 10 members can benefit from the viral marketing of online recommendation software. Services include www.Nabaza.com/refer.htm, www.evite.com, and www.ewomp.com.
6. Dealing with Spammers Unfortunately, the reality of the Internet is that people will spam and flame on a daily basis. Web-based email addresses like the ones set up by www.everyone.net are spam-proof. You can set up your account so that any emails sent without your address in the “to” box can be directed automatically to the trash or spam folder. However, flames and hate emails are a different field. You shouldn’t try to get even or retaliate. These people are not a joke. It might cost you your ISP or your e-life. Instead, check out www.spamcop.net. It does the nitty-gritty work of automatically reporting misbehaving people to their postmasters. Usually, it’s helpful to get the ISP, or at least the IP address of the suspected person.
7. Stickiness!
Webmasters are also faced with the challenge of keeping their site sticky. CBSMarketwatch.com is a good example of a sticky site. This stock/investment related site contains timely news and excellent company data. The vast amount of information results in a good number of page views per visitor. Plus, visitors return on a daily basis to get the latest-and-greatest market news and stock data. Lots of page views per visitor AND repeat visits. now that’s what you could call really sticky.
Here are some additional suggestions:
A) Make your site a portal of information. It encourages your visitors to return and stay. Hotsheet.com is one example of a one-page portal.
B) Add games to your site. You can get some here: www.uproar.co.uk or at www.pogo.com/affiliates.
C) Make your site interactive with a guest book, forum, tell-a-friend link, webring, customizable news, contests, polls, e-card, and free for all links. Bizland.com allows you to sign up for an account and place the code on your site.
D) Provide links to freebies, get-paid-to-surf sites, contests, incentives, jokes, quotes, mp3, and gnutella. Just don’t forget to opt in for at least their email address before they can actually download stuff from your site.
8. Find Your Web Host
It’s critical to find the right Web host. Although you may need to get your own server when your site gets one million page views per month, most sites that are starting out do not require the complex and expensive task of managing your own servers. There are many Web hosting providers that are willing to provide starting at 40gb of Web space. You can also look and compare different Web hosting providers on these sites: www.webhostdir.com, www.hostfinders.com, www.hostindex.com, www.hostsearch.com, and www.findahost.com. I always recommend the advanced search, which allows you to specify your budget and the specific features you will need.
9. Think Globally
Keep the site international in its appeal. Babelfish.altavista.com allows you to place snippets of code into your site that will automatically translate your English site to a different language, such as Spanish, Italian, German, or Polish. As webmasters, we must remember that we cannot filter countries on our site. We must be able to communicate with them.
10. Search Engine Submissions
Webmasters love to promote their sites on message boards, newsgroups, link exchanges, and even email, but they often forgot the best source of traffic. Submission sites like www.Nabaza.com/traffic.htm, www.Nabaza.com/submit.htm, and www.beseen.com can be used to submit your site for free. You don’t need to submit to all of them, only to the major ones, like Yahoo, AltaVista, Google, Hotbot, Infoseek/Go.com, Lycos, and Northern Light.
I hope that you have found these tips helpful. For more information, please visit my site www.MoreFreebies.info. Nabaza.com provides solutions to everyday webmastery task like search engine submissions, internet promotion, and sticking your visitors to your site. Become a member now for as low as U.S. $100.00 a year.
Nabaza.com specializes in building, designing, implementing, managing and maintaining corporate web site to boost sales of your company. Email william@nabaza.com for information on functional, dynamic webpage designing with affordable packages. Subscribe for free!
www.nabaza.com/sites.htm, www.nabaza.net, GET YOUR FREEBIES HERE

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Using CCS to Eliminate Tables

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets has opened up tremendous possibilities for improving web site designs, web page layouts and adding new features. The HTML code can be made shorter, cleaner and simpler by CSS resulting in faster loading of web pages, and making them more accessible to search engines. Here I am narrating my experience with only one part of CSS - using it to eliminate tables.
If you look at a traditionally designed web page, you are likely to find number of tables in the layout. Tables were earlier used only for displaying information in a tabular form. But web site designers soon started using tables for other applications such as showing images, graphics and other decorations.
My own web pages were earlier checkerboards of tables. Each web page was almost fully covered with tables and many tables were nested inside other tables. As I tried to add more features the design became more and more complicated resulting in longer loading times. It also took lot of time to “adjust” the tables on the page to make it acceptable.
It was not an easy task to redesign all the pages using CSS. But once I started, the improvements were more than I had bargained for. The design became simpler, the appearance improved and loading time came down considerably. The code looked real clean. Most of ‘td’ and ‘tr’ tags were gone.
My purpose of this exercise was not really to change the appearance but to make the design simpler. Now the tables which were earlier used only for design purpose have been eliminated. For eliminating tables first step is to decide which tables or more specifically which cells have to be removed. For applying CSS each cell of a table can be considered as a “box”. These boxes are given separate identities and description of each “box” goes into CSS code. The “boxes” can be given names such as box1, box2 etc. The description of the “box” can include size, its location on web page, background color and image if any, font details, padding, border details etc. The location of the “box” can be made “fixed” on the web page, or it can be floating in which case location can be defined with respect to another “box”.
If the location and dimensions of the boxes are properly worked out, they neatly fit into the web page giving it a clean look. Since the code associated with table designs are done away with, the content of the page attains more prominence in the code. This makes it easier for search engine spiders to locate the actual content of the page.
If you have several web pages with similar design, the CSS code with these and other details can be put in an external file. This will further shorten the code for each page. With CSS lot many improvements can be done in web page design and layout. CSS can also be used for search engine optimization of the page.
My experience with CSS has been great and I wonder why it is not used more often. My advice - convert to CSS based design.
Join the longest running internet business opportunity - because it works! www.sanjay-j.com/empowerism.html

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How to Create a Professional Web Site in 24 Hours

While creating a Web site may seem like a difficult, time-intensive and expensive process, it’s actually possible to have a professional site up and running in less than 24 hours for under $50 with little to no prior Web development experience.
And whether your business sells products or services, you can use a Web site to increase your revenue and reduce your start-up costs. While you’re at school, your Web site can take orders, answer common customer questions and introduce potential prospects to your business, among many other possibilities. For example, Ryan Allis, a 19-year-old entrepreneur now attending the University of North Carolina, was able to successfully create and market a Web site that sold a product that helps people with arthritis. As a result of his efforts, his company was able to generate more than $1 million in sales by the time Allis was seventeen years old.
If you’re interested in taking your company to the next level with a Web site, simply follow the three easy steps below:

Register a domain name. The first step in creating a Web site is choosing a Web address where your site visitors will be able to find you, such as yourbusinessname.com. ‘.com’ is the most common ending for a for-profit business, while ‘.org’ is the most common ending for a non-profit business. When choosing a domain name, it’s most common to use your business, product or service name or a variation of it as the address. You can register your domain name for under $10 per year at GoDaddy.com.
Register for Web hosting. Web hosting allows you to store your Web site on a server that’s accessible 24 hours a day by anybody who has an Internet connection. For an introductory Web site, web hosting can cost less than $10 per month. For a list of Web hosting companies, visit WebHostList.com.
Design the site. You have three options for how to design your site: Do it yourself, hire someone or purchase a template. Designing the site yourself will take the longest amount of time, but it’ll be the cheapest and give you a valuable skill you can use in the future. To learn more about creating your own site, visit WebMonkey.com.

Hiring someone else to create the site for you may cost the most money, but it will lead to a higher quality product in a shorter amount of time. Through sites like elance.com, you can hire professional web designers from other parts of the world such as Asia, who charge as little as $10 per hour.
Using professional Web site templates allows you to get online in the shortest amount of time, but it may lead to a product that doesn’t perfectly match the image of your company. Through companies such as Pimil.com, you can purchase Web site templates for as little as $36.
Once you’ve successfully completed these three steps and created your site, you have to keep in mind that you’ve only just begun and that your business won’t immediately bring in millions of dollars. To have a business that effectively uses a web site, it’s important to constantly improve upon it to meet the needs of your current and potential customers. In addition, it’s crucial to promote the Web address on your marketing materials and through marketing campaigns so other people can find it. Good luck!
Reprinted with permission from Entrepreneur.com. Copyright © 2005.

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5 Web Site Design Tips to Make Your Site More Attractive

The question that I most frequently hear from people is “How can I attract thousands of visitors to my site each month?” Well, driving high traffic to your site is important, but what’s even more important, is designing a web site that makes them stay.
After all, what’s the use of spending all your time and money on creating a unique product that many people want, building a 100-page site, winning top rankings on search engines, and spending $5,000 in advertising if visitors don’t stay once they arrive?
In this article, you’re going to learn 5 important web site design tips to make your site more attractive. So not only your web site will attract many visitors, but it will also motivate them to stay for a while, which is your only chance to let them know about your offers and turn them into newsletter subscribers or even paying customers.
#1. Your Site Should Be Fast Loading
One of the biggest problems you see on the Internet is that some websites are slow loading. There are many sites out there that take more than 20 seconds to load — a lifetime on the Internet. People just don’t have time and patience to wait that long.
The best way to make your site fast-loading is to use more text and fewer graphic. Wild graphics and animations are “traffic killers” so don’t use them unless you really need to. If it takes more than 10 seconds for your web pages to load, chances are you’re losing as much as half of your site’s traffic!
Don’t assume all visitors have fast connections. Many people still use slow connections like 36.6 kbps or 28.8 kbps, so design your web site the way everyone can view it quickly — not just the few who have high-speed connections.
To make sure your web site loads fast, view your site with slow connections. If it doesn’t load in 10 seconds, reduce the number and the size of graphics. WebGraphics Optimizer is a great software that helps you reduce graphic size while the quality doesn’t really change and it looks almost the same.
#2. Make Your Web Site Easy to Navigate
People should easily and quickly find what they’re looking for. Don’t make your visitors click on 10 links, scroll down each page, and click on the “back” button several times to finally find the page they’re looking for.
Statistics show that we lose up to 50% of visitors each time we make them click on a link. That’s why all the pages of your site shouldn’t be more than five clicks away from your home page. Make your visitors enjoy surfing your site. It should be easy for them to find the information that they want.
Also remember not everyone enters your web site from the home page, especially if they find your site through search engines. So make sure each page should have a title so they always know where they are at, and a link to the most important pages of your web site (e.g. home page, order page, contact page and so on).
Another way to make your site easy-to-navigate is using clear link texts. Visitors must know where each link will take them at a glance. For example, if you want to create a link to your order page, “Sale” is not a good name because it’s unclear and confusing. Use “Order” instead because it’s common.
The key is making it easy for them to find what they want, so make your site easy to navigate.
#3. Use Suitable Colors
Your copy is the most important part of your website, so it’s essential that you make it easy to read, and nothing is easier to read than black text on white background.
The easier it is to read your copy, the more effective it will be. If you use inappropriate colors that make your copy difficult to read, few people will bother reading it, and if no one reads your copy how are you going to make sales?
#4. Don’t Overuse Pop-ups
What’s a pop-up? It’s a window — usually a small window — that is opened when you click on a link and open or close a window. Unfortunately many webmasters go overboard with pop-ups which only results in annoying visitors.
They think if a pop-up appears and asks to order each time a visitor closes a window, he’s more likely to make a purchase… but they’re completely wrong. Not only will they not make any sales, but they’ll also lose a potential customer forever.
Don’t get me wrong! Using pop-ups can be an effective way to get a higher response to your offer. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t overuse and abuse them. They’re good marketing tools if you use them wisely.
Pop-ups are best used to offer something of high value to your site visitors… something that you know they’re very interested in. Make an offer that they can’t resist!
#5. Remember Your Purpose
Why are you creating your website? Do you want to sell your products and services? What do you expect from your site? Decide on your purpose before you start designing your site. This is extremely important.
Each part of your web site should lead to your purpose. All the links, graphics, titles, and the colors you choose should lead to what you want from your site.
Sometimes people are so wrapped up in being a web site owner that they forget their site is to sell. Instead of designing a sale-oriented website, all they’re trying to do is designing a “thing of beauty”. But there’s a problem here: beauty won’t sell.
It doesn’t matter if your visitors are impressed by professional Flash animations and graphics on your site. You should ask yourself: Does your web site sell or just impress people? Do people say,”Wow! How beautiful!” and then close the window and go to another site, whithout even noticing your salesletter at the bottom of the page?
Keep your purpose in mind all the time. If you expect your web site to sell, then design it the way it makes visitors interested in your offer and motivates them to buy.
About The Author: Ladan Lashkari is a respected Internet marketing expert, and the owner of www.FreeNewsletterIdeas.com/ where you’ll find free newsletter templates, creative newsletter ideas, honest reviews, and helpful resources to start your own highly profitable email marketing campaign.

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10 Easy Steps To A User Friendly Web site

As a busy search engine optimization consultant, I don’t have a lot of time to manage my web site. But recently I learnt the hard way about the fickle nature of web site visitors and the damage that having a user-unfriendly site can do to a business. Now I give my web site usability much more priority than ever before.
Here’s what happened. I had written a research report late last year and was selling it as a downloadable e-book via the site.