Approach #1. No Website
* Pros - No payment for a domain name, no ISP fees, no worry about keeping it up-to-date or checking on statistics - i.e. no fuss or bother with the Internet.
* Cons - Embarrassment when people ask for your website address. Lack of credibility for your business in the minds and eyes of those who search for your site. Lack of the fun and pride that come with having a website.
Approach #2. A Free Website with Site Building Tools
* Pros - No big expenditure of funds. By following directions, you can have a decent website up and running within a short amount of time. The building tools and templates will help you with your decisions.
* Cons - Free sites often include advertisements which will detract from your own content. Free sites are obviously "free" so don't give the impression of a credible business presence. In addition, many are database driven, so won't be picked up by search engines.
Approach #3. A Homemade Website
* Pros - You will save money and learn a great deal about how the Internet works and doesn't work. You will feel a great deal of pride in your accomplishment and also be able to maintain your website on a regular basis.
* Cons - You will be amazed by the number of hours it will take to learn how to use any of the authoring tools. I know they say that FrontPage is easy - not if you want to have an extraordinary, non-amateurish looking and working website. Moreover, will you know if your website looks "homemade?"
Approach #4. A Family Member/Friend Made Website
* Pros - Again, you save money. A family member/friend has your best interest at heart. If they are a professional designer, you may be in for a treat and a website that will please you and your visitors.
* Cons - If, however, you are displeased, how will you tell this family member/friend without losing their love and/or friendship. Will they be willing to maintain the website? How comfortable will you be telling them what to do and not to do?
Approach #5. Novice Website by Some Do-Gooder
* Pros - Again you will be saving money. This may be a novice who has just completed a course and wants to create your website for his or her "portfolio." Or, it may be someone who is starting out and charging much less than the going rate. Or someone who feels that everyone should have a website (YES!), so will help you achieve that goal.
* Cons - Oftentimes, even though the novice means well, they just don't have enough experience with the wiles of the web. In addition, if it is someone you know well, how are you going to tell him or her that the site really looks and navigates like a novice put it together?
Approach #6. Professional Website by a Professional Designer
* Pros - You are paying for a professional website, so you can make sure that you get a professional website. Before hiring the designer, check out his or her prior work, ask questions and get all of the concerns answered up front. You will have a signed contract to guarantee that everything goes as expected. You will experience the fun and credibility that come with a website you are proud of.
* Cons - For a top professional designer, you will need to spend some money. Plan to set aside somewhere between $1,000 and $3,000 depending upon the size and complexity of the site. How many pages? Do you want a shopping cart? Interactive forms?
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Jumat, 08 Agustus 2008
Senin, 04 Agustus 2008
Your Website Design -- Four Tips to Remember when Using Graphics
TIP #1. Be sure to use the ALT parameter. The ALT parameter is the descriptive text that should be included with the image tag. The reasons are that often visitors have set their browsers to not display graphics, if a link is broken the visitor will only see a box with a red x, and those who are visually impaired will have no idea what is being included on the page (they now have programs that read the text to them as they surf, so they will hear the description in the ALT tags). In addition, the browsers of today show a box with the ALT text when one rolls their mouse over the image. This is a big help if you rely upon buttons for your navigation.
TIP #2. Don??t rely upon graphics for presenting your content. Many graphic designers who have come to the Internet from print work have been disappointed by the lack of having the usual variety of fonts they have enjoyed in the past. To circumvent this scarcity, they develop graphics using fonts of their choice to broadcast their message. The problem is that search engines judge a site and pages by the words that appear. They do not read the words on a graphic, so you will miss out on placement. My suggestion is to use the fonts available.
TIP #3. Use excellent photographs. I prefer to take my own. If that is impossible, ask for original prints to scan or high resolution digital images. After enhancing with the graphics program of your choice, use that program to do as much compressing of file size as possible without losing all of the detail. Most users today are in too much of a hurry to wait for lengthy downloads.
TIP #4. Make sure that the graphic images that you use for navigation are self-explanatory. I have visited many sites with clever icons that are actually links to other pages, but are confusing enough that one has no idea where he or she is going. Just remember that the easier the navigation, the longer your visitor will stay on your site and the longer the better!
Graphics are fun and definitely enhance your site. Just make sure that you or your designer/developer uses them with thought and care
TIP #2. Don??t rely upon graphics for presenting your content. Many graphic designers who have come to the Internet from print work have been disappointed by the lack of having the usual variety of fonts they have enjoyed in the past. To circumvent this scarcity, they develop graphics using fonts of their choice to broadcast their message. The problem is that search engines judge a site and pages by the words that appear. They do not read the words on a graphic, so you will miss out on placement. My suggestion is to use the fonts available.
TIP #3. Use excellent photographs. I prefer to take my own. If that is impossible, ask for original prints to scan or high resolution digital images. After enhancing with the graphics program of your choice, use that program to do as much compressing of file size as possible without losing all of the detail. Most users today are in too much of a hurry to wait for lengthy downloads.
TIP #4. Make sure that the graphic images that you use for navigation are self-explanatory. I have visited many sites with clever icons that are actually links to other pages, but are confusing enough that one has no idea where he or she is going. Just remember that the easier the navigation, the longer your visitor will stay on your site and the longer the better!
Graphics are fun and definitely enhance your site. Just make sure that you or your designer/developer uses them with thought and care
Minggu, 06 Juli 2008
Your Website is Beautiful - But Where Are Your Profits?
Most new e-business owners realize they need a website that looks professional. But how elaborate do you need to be? How much energy, creativity and money should you invest so that visitors gasp, ??Wow ?? what a beautiful website???
Experienced business owners know: Your goal is to create a website that sells, not a site that wins the electronic version of Miss Universe. Most of the time you??ll want to win sales contests ?? not beauty contests.
Remember the commercial about the beer and the dog? A man sends his dog into the kitchen to get him a beer. We hear sounds of a refrigerator opening and a can opener humming...and then we hear lapping sounds. Oh no! The dog is drinking the beer!
Great commercial, right? Except ... can you remember the brand of beer?
And of course we??ve all seen that big pink battery-powered rabbit. But many viewers can??t remember the sponsor??s brand.
(1) Emphasize your marketing message.
Recently I heard a speaking professional say, ??My speaking wardrobe is designed to avoid calling attention to me. When the audience is thinking, ??What a beautiful suit!?? or ??What a mess!?? they??re not listening to my message.??
Your website works the same way. Stay focused on the content.
(2) Use graphics sparingly.
Graphics take awhile to load. And what sells your product? Not graphics ?? copy.
Research shows visitors seek information. So use graphics to convey specific messages. A fitness site could show a before-and-after. And real estate sites can show examples of real houses.
(3) Use meaningful graphics.
One award-winning site featured a menu on an elaborately drawn 3-ring notebook. The words were hard to read and frankly I??m not sure I remember what the site was all about. A 3-ring binder could be a calendar, a student notebook, or ...
But let??s say you want to target a business audience. You??d show pinstripes and briefcases. Sure, your target market wears business casual and carries canvas. But they??ll pick up the symbolism, especially if you??re trying to differentiate yourself from a leisure or family market.
(4) Skip flash and frames (usually).
You probably know this already. Search engines don??t like frames and your visitors will get impatient waiting for flash to load.
If you??re a famous musician (like Coldplay) or author (like Lawrence Block) you can create an elaborate site and your fans will wait half an hour, if need be. They??ll expect something out of the ordinary.
And if you??re a web designer, you probably need to showcase some of your tricks.
But most of the time, I believe websites are like basketball games. Web copy is out on the court, putting points on the board. Readers look for smooth moves and sharp uniforms but they??re mostly paying attention to the action.
Graphics remain on the side, cheering the team. But let??s face it: most of us don??t come to a game to watch the pep squad.
(5) Create a great headline for each page.
Research shows, over and over, that readers respond first to your headline. If they??re intrigued, they??ll go on to read your copy.
Readers look first for headlines that communicate, ??I share your pain!?? They??ve got problems and they??re surfing for solutions. And they don??t have much time.
Bottom line: Focus on creating and communicating a great marketing message. Frame your message so you come across as professional ?? but keep your website focused on learning how you can provide solutions to their challenges.
Experienced business owners know: Your goal is to create a website that sells, not a site that wins the electronic version of Miss Universe. Most of the time you??ll want to win sales contests ?? not beauty contests.
Remember the commercial about the beer and the dog? A man sends his dog into the kitchen to get him a beer. We hear sounds of a refrigerator opening and a can opener humming...and then we hear lapping sounds. Oh no! The dog is drinking the beer!
Great commercial, right? Except ... can you remember the brand of beer?
And of course we??ve all seen that big pink battery-powered rabbit. But many viewers can??t remember the sponsor??s brand.
(1) Emphasize your marketing message.
Recently I heard a speaking professional say, ??My speaking wardrobe is designed to avoid calling attention to me. When the audience is thinking, ??What a beautiful suit!?? or ??What a mess!?? they??re not listening to my message.??
Your website works the same way. Stay focused on the content.
(2) Use graphics sparingly.
Graphics take awhile to load. And what sells your product? Not graphics ?? copy.
Research shows visitors seek information. So use graphics to convey specific messages. A fitness site could show a before-and-after. And real estate sites can show examples of real houses.
(3) Use meaningful graphics.
One award-winning site featured a menu on an elaborately drawn 3-ring notebook. The words were hard to read and frankly I??m not sure I remember what the site was all about. A 3-ring binder could be a calendar, a student notebook, or ...
But let??s say you want to target a business audience. You??d show pinstripes and briefcases. Sure, your target market wears business casual and carries canvas. But they??ll pick up the symbolism, especially if you??re trying to differentiate yourself from a leisure or family market.
(4) Skip flash and frames (usually).
You probably know this already. Search engines don??t like frames and your visitors will get impatient waiting for flash to load.
If you??re a famous musician (like Coldplay) or author (like Lawrence Block) you can create an elaborate site and your fans will wait half an hour, if need be. They??ll expect something out of the ordinary.
And if you??re a web designer, you probably need to showcase some of your tricks.
But most of the time, I believe websites are like basketball games. Web copy is out on the court, putting points on the board. Readers look for smooth moves and sharp uniforms but they??re mostly paying attention to the action.
Graphics remain on the side, cheering the team. But let??s face it: most of us don??t come to a game to watch the pep squad.
(5) Create a great headline for each page.
Research shows, over and over, that readers respond first to your headline. If they??re intrigued, they??ll go on to read your copy.
Readers look first for headlines that communicate, ??I share your pain!?? They??ve got problems and they??re surfing for solutions. And they don??t have much time.
Bottom line: Focus on creating and communicating a great marketing message. Frame your message so you come across as professional ?? but keep your website focused on learning how you can provide solutions to their challenges.
Rabu, 02 Juli 2008
Your Website Takes Just 1/20th Of A Second
Read time: 3 minutes. In this small article:
1. The Issue
2. The Business implications
3. How can you change it
1. The Issue
This article explores the importance of design in the Internet world. A recent blog post on Signal vs Noise pointed out the article at Reuters which said that a website has around 1/20th of a second to make an impression that will stay with the user for the rest of their visit and all other visits.
You should take this on board. What impression does your website make on people? Have you ever asked your clients/customers what they think of your site? What was their first impressions of the site and why? Great content, functionality and added value are all huge aspects of Internet Development, but your site design can and will turn people away within a second or less. You need to address this issue.
2. The Business implications
The real business issue you need to consider here is your reputation. Your website is just like your receptionist: it can be the first thing that a client or user sees of your company. Can you afford to make a bad impression. Bad design is like having a rude receptionist.
You can lose customers and clients by having a badly designed website. That's the business issue.
3. How can you change it
So the next question is, how?
After having read this article it got me thinking about how you can solve this problem, anything people can do to make their first impression count.
Gitte Lindgaard, a psychology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa said:
"When we looked at the Web sites that we tested, there is really nothing there that tells us what leads to dislike or to like."
So, there are no principles that we can put here that can quickly change your sites design to make a better impression. The only advice I can give is to hire a professional design agency. Whilst this is still no guarantee of a design that makes a great impression, it is what they are hired to do: they are the experts.
However there are some basic principles of design though that aid a good site design (though as we already know, they don't MAKE a great design):
* No unnecessary animated GIFs like 'under construction' logos for pages
* No blinking text
* No background music
* No clashing colours or text on colours where the constrast that results is so bad that the text is unreadable.
* Use of appropriate, readable fonts. For instance Arial or Verdana. Text should not be too small or too big. Adjustable text.
* Generally the use of a page background is discouraged unless it's very subtle or aids the content. A bad example would be here.
* Different pages have different design: use consistent design.
I could go on and on and on I'm sure. There are many bad examples of websites on the net and you don't have to look too hard to find them. However your site does not have to be one of them.
If you're going to do it, do it properly.
1. The Issue
2. The Business implications
3. How can you change it
1. The Issue
This article explores the importance of design in the Internet world. A recent blog post on Signal vs Noise pointed out the article at Reuters which said that a website has around 1/20th of a second to make an impression that will stay with the user for the rest of their visit and all other visits.
You should take this on board. What impression does your website make on people? Have you ever asked your clients/customers what they think of your site? What was their first impressions of the site and why? Great content, functionality and added value are all huge aspects of Internet Development, but your site design can and will turn people away within a second or less. You need to address this issue.
2. The Business implications
The real business issue you need to consider here is your reputation. Your website is just like your receptionist: it can be the first thing that a client or user sees of your company. Can you afford to make a bad impression. Bad design is like having a rude receptionist.
You can lose customers and clients by having a badly designed website. That's the business issue.
3. How can you change it
So the next question is, how?
After having read this article it got me thinking about how you can solve this problem, anything people can do to make their first impression count.
Gitte Lindgaard, a psychology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa said:
"When we looked at the Web sites that we tested, there is really nothing there that tells us what leads to dislike or to like."
So, there are no principles that we can put here that can quickly change your sites design to make a better impression. The only advice I can give is to hire a professional design agency. Whilst this is still no guarantee of a design that makes a great impression, it is what they are hired to do: they are the experts.
However there are some basic principles of design though that aid a good site design (though as we already know, they don't MAKE a great design):
* No unnecessary animated GIFs like 'under construction' logos for pages
* No blinking text
* No background music
* No clashing colours or text on colours where the constrast that results is so bad that the text is unreadable.
* Use of appropriate, readable fonts. For instance Arial or Verdana. Text should not be too small or too big. Adjustable text.
* Generally the use of a page background is discouraged unless it's very subtle or aids the content. A bad example would be here.
* Different pages have different design: use consistent design.
I could go on and on and on I'm sure. There are many bad examples of websites on the net and you don't have to look too hard to find them. However your site does not have to be one of them.
If you're going to do it, do it properly.
Minggu, 15 Juni 2008
Web Designing Tips
Easy That??s how you??d like life to be, right? Especially when you??re creating a website on your own. But that doesn??t mean you want the site to look severe and just functional. you want it to be pretty , smart and also respond and move when you interact with it, while saying all that you want to say to its visitors . There are little tips and Features incorporated into software just for people like you.
Love what Flash can do but don??t know how to use it ? Macromedia thought of you and built a feature into Dream weaver that lets you create cool animated Flash buttons just by entering parameters. Want to have button respond to a mouse-over but have no idea or patience to create one with graphics software? You can make a quick and easy mouse-over button right from within FrontPage. What do you do if you need to optimize 150 images within an hour? No need to panic, image ready can help you out with a little droplet. Check out the different tips that make life easier or better for you as a Web designer.
?? Animated Flash Button & Macromedia Dream weaver:
Dream weaver lets you create some custom vector graphics from within the software. You can make Flash and embed them into your Web pages. There are different kinds of style that you can choose for these from the available set-play back type of buttons .Arrow shaped button, shopping cart button And so on, or make some of your own.
Making a smart interactive button is simple in Dream weaver, select insert-interactive Image-Flash Button. Form the window that opens select different button style by looking at the preview image below. Customize the button the way you want it by adding the name of the button, the Font color and font size , then specify the URL that the button has to link to . The button is saved with SWF extension you can preview the button in your browser to see if it looks the way you want.
?? Easy Mouse-Over Buttons :
Mouse-over and Front Page? Oh Yes. The software has quit a few convenient features up its sleeve, one of which is ??Hover buttons.?? Granted, these buttons don??t have snazzy graphics they look like typical button blocks, but they react to mouse-over and you can archive it very simply. Here??s how.
Select Insert ??Web component. in the window that opens , select Dynamic Effect in the component type and select the Hover Button effect on the right . Type in the text that should appear on the button, choose a font for the text, specify the URL to link to on clicking, and select the size and color of the button. In the drop-down menu for Effect, Glow is the default selection. Try it ?? you can select the color of the glow-check the button in preview mode-the button light up when you move your mouse over it. There are several other effects available that are worth checking out, especially the bevels quite neat!
?? Cool Effects With DHTML :
DHTML or Dynamic HTML offers some cool effects that could make your Web pages stand out click? Or your page to load with a transition Effect? DHTML will do this for you along with other little tricks. After you??ve built your Web page, from the menu bar, select Format-Dynamic HTML Effect. A tool bar appears in the work area. Choose an event from the first drop down list. This could be on ??click?? double-click.?? Mouse over or page load. Depending on the event selected here, the next Drop-Down list offers the possible effect that can be achieved , This could be a change in the color and style of the font if it is text, a border added around it , or in case of an image , you can replace the image with another one by a swap .
Most of the effect toggle Meaning if there was a font change on click, another click will change the font back to what it was before. However, some effects are one-time like the disappearing act of an image or button .you select ??fly out?? from the effects list for this . On ??page load?? you could have the selected text drop in word by word, or hop in, spiral in, zoom out, and so on. This is especially useful for advertisements or parts of the page that you want to draw the user??s attention to.
?? Animation In Reverse :
You??ve made an animation using image Ready-may be a tween of position, opacity or effects or a manually placed and manipulated animation backwards? No need to re-tween or manually place the frames backwards; simply click on the little arrow in the animated palette and select Reverse Frames. You can also create a rubber band effect by copying the forward sequence (small arrow > copy Frames), pasting it at the end of sequence (small arrow > Paste Frames > ??Paste after selection ??) and then, by selecting the newly pasted sequence and applying Reverse Frames on this.
?? All It Takes Is A Droplet :
Want to optimize several images with the same settings? Create a ??droplet ??and save time.
Open the optimize palette in Image Ready with your image open. Set the optimization to what you want-file type (JPG, GIF or PNG), quality (low, medium, high), lousiness, dither and so on while previewing the result in the ??optimized?? tab of the main in the Optimize palette. This creates what is called a ??droplet?? that contains your optimization settings. Save this droplet anywhere you want, say on your desktop.
Now drag the folder containing the images to be optimized onto this droplet. All the images in the folder will get optimized the way you specified. This may take a while depending on the number and size of the images in the folder. You can also drop images one at a time onto the droplet.
?? Precise Hot Spots :
Want to link different parts of an image to various URLs? You can do this by slicing the image and assigning links to the relevant slices, but the disadvantage of this is the lack of precision: slice is necessarily rectangular. Also, slices are pieces of the image.
Say you??re working on a Web page for children about the different parts of ancient castles. You would like the parts-dungeons; moat, guard towers, and so on-to have precise rollovers and links so that the information is conveyed correctly. Rather than slices such an images and allot links, use image maps, select the polygon Image Map tool in Image Ready and outline the part you want to talk about precisely . Even circular image maps work fairly well in some areas. You can adjust points of the map edge after finishing the shape, too .in the image map palette, you can specify the URL to link to along with ALT text. To preview your work, save Optimized as a HTML file and check it in a browser.
?? Optimize Your Web Graphics Easily :
Despite the cable Internet connections and high-speed modems, Web graphics are still limited speed-wise. The sites that load fastest and work most efficient have well-optimized graphics .GIF images are generally good for line drawings and illustrations while JPG ones are best suited for photographs. Besides file format, there are various factor that affect the optimized image like the ??lousiness??-the amount of data in the image that you??re willing to sacrifice for smaller file size-the number of colors you need minimum, whether you can have dithering or not, so on .
In Photoshop, to try out different optimization settings, click Save for Web . A window opens up showing the current image along with various options and menus on the right . in the image window itself, you can see two tabs: 2-up tab to see two versions-the original and the optimized-for comparison along with time needed to load the image according to various modem speeds . The 4-upshows you 3 versions against the original. These previews are useful and convenient, rather than having to manually save the image repeatedly in different ways and comparing each of them.
?? Making A Banner Ad:
We??re all familiar with banner ads that we see all over the Web: a strip with an image and text that changes into another and another conveying some information. Clicking on this ad takes you to the site that the company is advertising for. You don??t have to use GIF Builder or any other graphics software to animate such an ad. You can make it easily using Front Page. Select Insert-Web component-banner ad manger. In the window that opens, specify the size of the ad, the transition effect, the number of seconds to display each image, the URL to link the ad to and add the images you??ve prepared. That??s it.
This feature could also be used you want to share a few photographs coiled also be used when you want to share a few photographs or images but don??t want the images to be save-able on the cline??s side; right-click will not work on these images. Although the images may be found in the cache, at least they won??t be able to be copied directly.
About The Author
Pawan Bangar,
Technical Director,
Birbals, (Hbirbals,Seobirbals,Ebirbals,Ibirbals)
#1047,Sector 42-b,
Chandigarh.
Cell:+91-98153-52253
email:
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