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Website Design And Promotion

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1. First, figure out what you want to do and make a plan for it. This may involves some brain storming. Then, translate your ideas and plans onto paper by drawing a diagram or a flowchart so that you can visualize it. Then, ACT on it.

2. Keep your design simple, clear, consistent and user friendly.

3. A simple design layout makes it easier for you to build your website. The end result will be a website which your visitors will find easy to navigate and easy get whatever information they want.

4. Your content should be simple, complete and direct to the point. It should make clear the intention of your web pages, cover the subject matter thoroughly and convey the messages direct to your visitors.

5. If your design look complicated - redesign and simplify it. Complicated design layout will not only make it harder for you to build your web pages, it may also confuses your visitors if your site is full of complicated mess of information.

6. Be consistent throughout in your design approach. The background, color usage and text format should be carefully chosen and the screen layout for all your pages visibly consistent.

7. Create a simple logo to identity your website. Have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website. Make a copyright statement at the bottom of you web pages.

8. Have a clear color scheme based on the theme of your website. Choose carefully a set of colors you use for your background, text, border, tables and cells etc. The color scheme expresses the characters of your website and makes it unique and attractive.

9. Identify who are your target visitors and how you would make your presentation. Decide the tone of language usage and the approach that will best suit your visitors. Whether your language usage should be casual and simple or formal and technical? Whether you should use pictorial or language oriented approach in your website.

10. For ease of reading, the length of a text lines should not exceed certain width within the computer screen. To limit the length of a line of text, use indent text or use a table with the pre-set width.

11. Long blocks of text passages can be tedious and strenuous to read. Try to use short sentences, short paragraphs and bulleted or numbered list form to break them up.

12. The width of you web pages should preferably not exceed that of the computer screen. People viewing your site usually don't mind scrolling up and down the screen; but will be annoyed when they have to scroll left and right.

13. Font size: use larger size font; Bear in mind that some of your visitors may have poor eyesight; some may have partial impaired vision and some ordinary people who just can't stand reading tiny script on the computer screen.

14. The text color should contrast well with the background color to be easily read. Likewise, Background image or texture chosen should contrast well with the text color, so that it is easy to read on screen.

15. It looks great on the screen and soothing to the eyes. But it is not recommended to use white text on a dark background. When somebody wants to print out your page for reference, it won't print because the background will not be printed; while the white text is printed on white paper, you see nothing.

16. The images you put in a web page are not there just for decoration. They should be relevant and necessary to use as visual to help to convey the message, or serve to break a long and monotonous text messages.

17. Limit the size of an image you insert in a web page. Large image takes longer time to display, and most visitors don't like to wait too long to view a certain image.

18. Keep the size of a web page small so that it will open up fast - preferably less than 10 seconds. If the page is too long, have too many items to load and slow to display, you should consider breaking it into smaller pages and link them up.

19. Contents such as video, audio, flash animations etc. are huge in size. They will slow down the display of the page. If it takes too long for to load a page, the viewers might give up and leave. They also use up more of your bandwidth.

20. Ensure that the visitors get around navigating your website with ease. They should be able to find what they are looking for in quickly and get there. Use a menu or image map, a site map, arrows, links and buttons to provide direction to your visitors.

21. Make sure the pages are interlinked for easy navigation. Links should be well organized, strategically placed and easy to detect by using appropriate colors. Use anchor links to facilitate navigation on the same page. Always check for any broken links and fix them.

22. Load all the important and essential information in the first page that the visitors see. Give a quick introduction to your website with brief header, bookmarked lists, short summaries, etc. This will quickly let them know whether your page is what they are looking for.

23. Is your website screen layout look neat and tidy? Ask someone to have a look at it and get her feedback. You will be surprised!

24. The contents inside a table should have a little space between the borders. Set a padding around the table or set indent to your content.

25. Don't simply add every neat gimmick and animated images you can find just because you think they are cool. In reality they are distracting and confusing.

26. Decide whether to use or not to use pop-up windows. They are great for catching the attention of the viewers; but can be distracting and annoying as well. Some viewers would dismiss pop-up as ads and close it immediately. Pop-up also will not work if the viewers have installed a pop-up blocker.

27. Encourage visitors to contact you by providing a Contact Us page with your email link. It is even better to have an opt-in box that serves to collect visitors' contact and data.

28. Study other's website design and set up. See how they layout and organize their header, links, menu, buttons, images and etc. Then choose, adopt and modify and whichever design to suit your needs.

29. Use website templates if you don't have any designing flair. It's easy and saves you time and effort.

30. Make a back-up copy for all your web pages. It will save you a lot of trouble in the event that you have to rebuild your websites.

Well, some website design guidelines and tips - It's all common sense.

Website Design And Promotion

In the last article, we gave some thought as to what the company wants to do with its online presence. This article discusses what kind of name the online business will have, or "What kind of 'dot' do I need."

The Company

The Great American Widget Company is a manufacturer of widgets, that common household item that many find indespensible. Until now, however, Great American has been a 'brick and mortar' business. With the founder's son just out of college, he is looking forward to expanding the company's business on the Internet.

.com

.net

.org

.biz

.us

.tv

What's with all the dots! What kind of a 'dot' do I need?

Good question! First, let me say that if you're in business and wish to advertise your products or services on the Net, you must have your own domain name and a good hosting provider. Keep your domain name as simple and focused as possible.

A marketing maxim that if you're advertising to the general public, is that it is vitally important to present a simple, memorable message. Web addresses are no exception to this. A well-chosen domain name can be absolutely essential to your enterprise on the Internet. Some of the words used here may be new to you and sound "technical", but don't worry about it - just think of it as background material. And, as you get more familiar with the web, it all comes together.

Okay, that said, let's talk about the different types of domain names, and "Just what is a domain name?"

In simple terms, a domain name is a human-language equivalent of an address on the Internet. The text for the name is called the URL, or Uniform Resource Locator. The URL for the ABC news organization is abc.com.

The name actually represents a number, or more correctly a series of numbers, roughly comparable to a telephone number. Like a telephone number, an Internet address is unique and no two are the same. And, like a telephone number, it serves to connect "callers" to one specific place on the Net.

There are advantages to using names instead of just the numbers alone. The most obvious is that people can more easily recognize and remember a meaningful word than a long string of numerals. The website abc.com is located at 199.181.132.250, which is the IP address for the site. That number is called an IP Address, meaning Internet Protocol address. Internet Protocol is a standard for network communications, which is used throughout Net.

Another, major advantage is that a domain can be moved to a new machine, where it will have a new number, but the name will remain the same. The DNS (Domain Name System) records are simply altered to reflect the change, and access to the domain continues unchanged.

An Internet domain may be the "home" for any number of things: web sites, mailboxes, files for downloading, even entire computer networks. You see domain names as part of practically every Internet address. In the e-mail address info @ US-Email-Service.com (a mailbox), the domain name is US-Email-Service.com. In the Web address http://www.yahoo.com (a web page), the domain name is Yahoo.com.

Occasionally, you will see the numeric address instead of the domain name. http://209.59.173.179/ is a perfectly serviceable address and it has the same function as http://US-Email-Service.com.

It is sometimes useful to match up a domain name with its IP Address, or vice-versa. This is commonly done with a utility called "dnslookup". There are many dnslookup "gateways" scattered around the Web.

Now we'll examine the name itself. Domain names have at least two parts, separated by a dot or period.

The part after the dot is called the Top Level Domain (TLD). The Top Level Domain serves to broadly categorize the name as to its type or purpose. Common TLDs include .com (commercial), .org (organization), .edu (educational institutions), .net (networks), .gov (U.S. government) and .mil (U.S. military).

Today, however, you can be a .net even if you are not a network. (MyCompany.net Sounds big and important, doesn't it?)

There are also hundreds of country TLDs, such as .us (USA), .fr (France), .de (Germany), etc. These are in more general use outside the US.

Additional "generic" TLDs (gTLDs) have been proposed and will probably come into general use by sometime in 1988. Domain names ending in .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info, .nom and possibly many others will become widespread on the Net. All this is due to the exponential growth of the Internet and the continued quest for meaningful names.

Addresses ending in .com are by far the most common at present; they're generally intended to be commercial in nature, although at present the .com TLD actually serves as a catch-all for virtually all domain names that don't fit the other, more specific TLDs.

The part of the domain name before the dot is the Second Level Domain (SLD). If you're registering a name, you have considerable freedom of choice in what this will be. So long as the name you choose does not already exist under the same TLD, and is not obviously a famous trademark owned by someone else, its registration is generally allowed. An SLD can contain up to 24 characters: letters, numbers and dashes are allowed.

Databases of domain records are maintained by InterNIC, the primary name registry on the Internet in the US, and by a variety of similar agencies throughout the world. Accessed through a utility program called WHOIS, these databases are easily accessed from throughout the Net. There are a number of sites that permit you to look up DNS information, the most common of which is www.whois.net.

Incidentally, you may do well to remember that your own domain registration will become a publicly-available WHOIS record. For instance, perhaps you have a phone number or e-mail address you'd rather not share with literally the entire world... The company that registers your domain name will usually offer a means to keep your information private.

If you are thinking about getting a domain name of your own, use the link below and see if it is available for you. Or you can try different combinations. And when you find the right one, you can register it right away so your neighbor doesn't get "your" name! You can check out names you like at

https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/rhp/default.asp?prog_id=251616&ci=1767&isc=wwbb42&se=%2B

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About Author

Both Mary Magdalene Chia & Richard Hill are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Mary Magdalene Chia has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet. . Mary Magdalene Chia's top article generates over 880 views. to your Favourites.

Richard Hill has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet. . Richard Hill's top article generates over 880 views. to your Favourites.

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