Your website is where your business resides -- it's the headquarters of your company! Given that, it is especially important to practice good design principles. One, you want to make sure your site reaches out to the maximum number of visitors. Two, if you sell products, you want your site to make as many sells to as many people as possible.
Make sure that the navigation on your website is clear and easy to use. The navigation menu should be uncluttered, be grouped in logical categories (logical to the user) and concise, so that visitors know how to navigate around your website without confusion or having to make too many clicks to find what they are seeking.
One thing you could consider is reducing the number of images on your website. If you have too many graphics, it can make it look cluttered and unprofessional. The graphics and photos that you use should be tasteful, add value to your image, and have a clean layout. Graphics and photos can also make your site load very slowly.
More often than not, the images on your site are probably not very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.
Keep your text paragraphs at a shorter length than you think you need. If a paragraph is too long, try splitting it into seperate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because people don't read huge blocks of text online. They tend to skim through to find the main points and move quickly on to the next thing. Keep it simple, keep it short!
Make sure your website complies to web standards at www.w3.org and make sure your coding and scripts are cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks horribly in Firefox and Opera, you may lose out on a lot of prospective visitors out of frustration or annoyance.
Unless you are using them for a very functional and sound reason, try to avoid using scripting languages on your site. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important information.
Use CSS to style your page content - CSS stylesheets save alot of work by styling all elements on your website in one place. If you want to make changes to the color, size, or type of font, or change the positioning, you only have to change it in your CSS stylesheet and the changes are applied to your whole site. Presto!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Turn Your Website into Cash Streams
With a well-planned and properly executed website design, you will be able to create a site that can generate multiple streams of revenue for you. In fact, may websites turn into online wasteland because they are not well planned and do not get much site visits. Gradually, you may even lose interest in keeping it updated - don't let it turn into a wasted cyberspace.
The whole point of putting effort into properly planning your site is so that you can optimize it for revenue. First, consider various ways in which you generate income from your site.
Create a Meaningful Information Architecture (aka Navigation Menu)
Divide your site into major blocks, ordered by themes, and start building new pages and subsections in those blocks. For example, you might have a "food" section, an "accomodation" section and an "entertainment" section for a tourism site.
Create and Publish Meaningful Content
In each of these sections, you can then write and publish relevant articles to attract people looking for relevant information.
Incorporate Ways to Generate Revenue
When you have a broader, better-defined scope of themes for your website, you can sell space on your pages to people interested in advertising on your page. You can also earn from programs like Google's Adsense and Yahoo! Search Marketing if people surf to those themed pages and click on the ads. For this very reason, the advertisement blocks on your pages need to be relevant to the content, so a themed page fits that criteria perfectly.
As Internet becomes more widespread, advertising on the Internet is bringing in more results than on magazines or offline media. Start tapping in on this lucrative stream of profit right away by sharing your knowledge and opinions with the world!
The whole point of putting effort into properly planning your site is so that you can optimize it for revenue. First, consider various ways in which you generate income from your site.
Create a Meaningful Information Architecture (aka Navigation Menu)
Divide your site into major blocks, ordered by themes, and start building new pages and subsections in those blocks. For example, you might have a "food" section, an "accomodation" section and an "entertainment" section for a tourism site.
Create and Publish Meaningful Content
In each of these sections, you can then write and publish relevant articles to attract people looking for relevant information.
Incorporate Ways to Generate Revenue
When you have a broader, better-defined scope of themes for your website, you can sell space on your pages to people interested in advertising on your page. You can also earn from programs like Google's Adsense and Yahoo! Search Marketing if people surf to those themed pages and click on the ads. For this very reason, the advertisement blocks on your pages need to be relevant to the content, so a themed page fits that criteria perfectly.
As Internet becomes more widespread, advertising on the Internet is bringing in more results than on magazines or offline media. Start tapping in on this lucrative stream of profit right away by sharing your knowledge and opinions with the world!
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Getting Started? Some Technical Considerations
Websites have become a necessity to almost everyone. Businesses, organizations, individuals, and even young adults have created a variety of websites for an even greater variety of reasons - to make money, to collaborate, to discuss interesting issues, to share their knowledge and talents, and to entertain.
Planning
It's the key to success in everything we do. You've decided you want a website. You need a website. So let's get started!
First things first. Before you create your website, let's think through a few things, such as the cost, maintenance, purpose, and web hosting.
Site Purpose
What's the purpose of your website? What content do you want to put on it? Think through how you'd like to see the content organized - what will your high-level navigation look like? The more planning you can do before you actually start developing, the better.
Hosting Provider
Your first task is to look for an affordable host - one that offers great customer service and a lot of features for your money. A web host provides you with space on their server, and the ability to manage your website through an administrative console.
If you are just starting out, you probably won't need a lot of storage space or features, and you can always upgrade, so I would suggest getting the entry level package. You can always upgrade to a more professional package as your needs grow.
A cheap hosting company may or may not be a reliable service, so it pays to do your research. However, in this day and age, you can find several reliable, entry-level hosting packages for just dollars a month. I'll post more blogs about how to search and select the right hosting provider soon.
Hosting Platform
While you're looking for a hosting package, you'll be offered a choice between Linux/Unix and Windows. It's time to make a decision - on which platform do you want to host your site?
What programming languages do you want to use (e.g. ASP, JSP, PHP, Ruby on Rails, etc.)? There are advantages and disadvantages to using a certain language over another. ASP is generally easier for people who don't have a technical background, but you're likely to find a lot more free tools and code you can use on your website if you go with PHP. JSP tends to be more complicated for newbies, but there are performance advantages to using it (which is really only important if you think your website will have huge audience and lots of complicated transactions).
Make your choice wisely! Once you start developing in a specific language, in order to move to a different platform, you might need to totally rewrite all of your code, and that would really bite.
If you are planning to just code in HTML and client-side scripts, then choosing your platform isn't that big of a deal, because you can easily move HTML pages from one platform to another without breaking your site. You'll only get locked in to a platform when you start using a database, feedback/contact forms, or other server-side coding.
Do you need a database? You might not need one when you're first starting out, but it is usually a good idea to get a package that offers at least one database. I'm sure you'll find ways to use it. We'll get to that point more in future posts!
Domain Names
You'll also need to get a domain name, sometimes called the URL. For example, www.sandyengland.com. The domain name ends with .com, .net, .org, etc. The most common extension is .com, but it can sometimes be tough to find a good name that hasn't already been taken. But there are tricks for that too (more to come!). Traditionally, only non-profits should be applying for domain names with the .org extension, and only hosting providers should procure domain names with .net.
Getting the right domain name for you website is one of the most important of all tasks, so take your time, do as much research as you need. Registering and keeping a domain name is prety inexpensive - you shouldn't have to pay more than $15 a year, and there are places where you can get them even cheaper. I remember when I first started out (in 1996), registering your domain name cost at least $70!
Hiring a Pro
Are you going to do the coding yourself, or do you want to hire a professional? For simple websites, we could always do the coding ourselves, or even use scripts readily available across the web, as it is relatively simple, and it's fun to learn. Ha ha. If you don't like sleeping!
When your website requires complex coding, such as creating elaborate functionality, hiring a developer is probably your best bet. Not just to help implement some cool and interesting designs, but to help make sure your website is secure - if you plan to have a database or use e-commerce in any way.
Planning
It's the key to success in everything we do. You've decided you want a website. You need a website. So let's get started!
First things first. Before you create your website, let's think through a few things, such as the cost, maintenance, purpose, and web hosting.
Site Purpose
What's the purpose of your website? What content do you want to put on it? Think through how you'd like to see the content organized - what will your high-level navigation look like? The more planning you can do before you actually start developing, the better.
Hosting Provider
Your first task is to look for an affordable host - one that offers great customer service and a lot of features for your money. A web host provides you with space on their server, and the ability to manage your website through an administrative console.
If you are just starting out, you probably won't need a lot of storage space or features, and you can always upgrade, so I would suggest getting the entry level package. You can always upgrade to a more professional package as your needs grow.
A cheap hosting company may or may not be a reliable service, so it pays to do your research. However, in this day and age, you can find several reliable, entry-level hosting packages for just dollars a month. I'll post more blogs about how to search and select the right hosting provider soon.
Hosting Platform
While you're looking for a hosting package, you'll be offered a choice between Linux/Unix and Windows. It's time to make a decision - on which platform do you want to host your site?
What programming languages do you want to use (e.g. ASP, JSP, PHP, Ruby on Rails, etc.)? There are advantages and disadvantages to using a certain language over another. ASP is generally easier for people who don't have a technical background, but you're likely to find a lot more free tools and code you can use on your website if you go with PHP. JSP tends to be more complicated for newbies, but there are performance advantages to using it (which is really only important if you think your website will have huge audience and lots of complicated transactions).
Make your choice wisely! Once you start developing in a specific language, in order to move to a different platform, you might need to totally rewrite all of your code, and that would really bite.
If you are planning to just code in HTML and client-side scripts, then choosing your platform isn't that big of a deal, because you can easily move HTML pages from one platform to another without breaking your site. You'll only get locked in to a platform when you start using a database, feedback/contact forms, or other server-side coding.
Do you need a database? You might not need one when you're first starting out, but it is usually a good idea to get a package that offers at least one database. I'm sure you'll find ways to use it. We'll get to that point more in future posts!
Domain Names
You'll also need to get a domain name, sometimes called the URL. For example, www.sandyengland.com. The domain name ends with .com, .net, .org, etc. The most common extension is .com, but it can sometimes be tough to find a good name that hasn't already been taken. But there are tricks for that too (more to come!). Traditionally, only non-profits should be applying for domain names with the .org extension, and only hosting providers should procure domain names with .net.
Getting the right domain name for you website is one of the most important of all tasks, so take your time, do as much research as you need. Registering and keeping a domain name is prety inexpensive - you shouldn't have to pay more than $15 a year, and there are places where you can get them even cheaper. I remember when I first started out (in 1996), registering your domain name cost at least $70!
Hiring a Pro
Are you going to do the coding yourself, or do you want to hire a professional? For simple websites, we could always do the coding ourselves, or even use scripts readily available across the web, as it is relatively simple, and it's fun to learn. Ha ha. If you don't like sleeping!
When your website requires complex coding, such as creating elaborate functionality, hiring a developer is probably your best bet. Not just to help implement some cool and interesting designs, but to help make sure your website is secure - if you plan to have a database or use e-commerce in any way.
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