Web Development Articles

Web design industry future
 by: Richard F. Antille

While the number of internet users continue to grow, the number of businesses using the internet as a tool has taken an exponential turn. The web is now recognized as being a real source of revenue and a competitive market where large and small companies sell their products. What does this mean for the web design/development industry?

New comers are attracted by the growth potential of this industry, the strength of its positive trend and its size. We see more and more competition among small web development/design companies while bigger and larger companies are entering this market offering a complete range of services. Those same companies have a strong financial basis, can afford massive advertising campaigns and develop tools that would take months or years to develop otherwise.

Does this mean the end of freelancers and small companies? To a certain extent, Yes! This industry is still growing and still requires a lot of available resources but large corporations have understood the potential of that market and are quickly adapting their tools and products to respond to a more and more professional demand. There is no doubt that it will become increasingly difficult to compete in such a market and that many freelancers and small ‘one man’ companies will close their shop.

You’ve decided to start up your own website. You’ve weighed all of your options, and have come to the conclusion that you want to purchase web space for your site. Good job; you’re one step closer to having your name on the world wide web.

You’ve looked at different hosting companies, comparing all of the plans and packages they have to offer, and have chosen the perfect one for you. You’ve filled in all of the important information pertaining to you and your site, and have come to the screen where you’re asked to come up with a domain name for your site.

Now what? What are you supposed to put in the box? Do you choose a .com or .net? .org, .biz, .info–what are you supposed to do? So you decide to move on and choose that later. Maybe one will sound better with the domain name you’re about to choose.

What next? If your website’s titled “My Super-Duper-Brand-Spanking-New Site”, are you going to have a domain name like “mysuperduperbrandspankingnewsite.com”? No. That would be ridiculous to type and even harder to remember. You want something that is catchy and easy to remember. Something that’ll stand out, but is still relevant to the content of your site.

Keyword Research - A Better Way
 by: Steve Gillman

Keyword research is a necessity for doing business online. The best site in the world needs to have decent keywords, or it won’t be found. If fishing enthusiasts are searching for “fishing,” they’ll never find your site on “angling.” However, maybe you can’t compete with “fishing” either. Too many quality sites are already in the search engine results. How do you find keywords that will get you that traffic?

Optimization experts advise comparing demand to supply to find good keywords for your web pages. My experience, though, is that many of my pages with “good ratio” keywords never show up in search engine results, while others that I shouldn’t be able to compete with, are right there on the first page of results. This is because it isn’t just quantity, but the quality of the competition that matters. Supply/demand ratios just don’t give the information necessary.

Better Keyword Research

A web host reseller account is a web hosting account that allows you to create hosting packages to sell to your clients. You can also host multiple sites of your own using the disk space allotted to the one hosting account.

Typical features of web host reseller accounts:

They come with a reseller-level control panel that allows you to create your own packages.

You can allocate disk space and bandwidth to each site on the account and change the space and bandwidth specifications if the site’s needs change.

Most reseller accounts provide the option for private nameservers (also called private label, personalized nameservers, or virtual nameservers). For example, if your reseller account is with SomeName Hosting and your company name is ExampleName Services, your clients will enter ns1.examplename.com and ns2.examplename.com for the nameservers for their domains.

With a web host reseller account, you handle account setup, billing, and (usually) support for your clients. Your web host provider maintains the servers and answers your support questions.

While a few starter reseller hosting packages are as small as 500 MB, most reseller providers offer packages starting at 1 GB or larger. A range of packages is usually available, a few going as high as 30 GB of disk space.

Maria’s new lifestyle: Short story about the benefits shopping on the Net has given to a dedicated artist.

I’ve got this strange friend; her name is Maria. Maria’s always been a little weird but now things have gotten unworldly altogether. You see, Maria’s an artist; she’s into sculpture in particular, of which she specializes in the manipulation of Perspex with a blowtorch. Lately I haven’t seen too much of her as she’s hooked up the Internet. Actually not many people at all have seen her recently; she says she’s working on a big project.

Now that she’s got the Internet she reckons she can focus a lot more on her work without distractions. She doesn’t ‘waste’ time doing grocery shopping anymore. Now she orders all her food and household items. She says if she’s extremely busy, her weekly list is saved into the computer, and she just clicks on ‘order’ and the usual stuff is delivered to her door every week. No more driving, parking, searching for stuff, standing in line, dealing with bored and under slept cashiers. I’m starting to think it’s not such a bad idea. Maria is pretty proud. She’s now organizing for a local greengrocer to deliver her fruit and vegetables too.

Back to basics. Forget funky design, good copywriting is the key to a clear and intuitive website.

Are you losing business because of your website? More and more customers are logging on to the Web to decide where to spend their money because it is quick and convenient, and they can jump from site to site instead of walking from store to store.

Web savvy customers don’t need to be patient, studies have shown that you need to engage a potential customer very quickly by giving them easy, fast access to the information they need. Otherwise they will simply move on to the next site.

Appealing design and speedy functionality are important but they don’t ensure that your site is well structured (intuitive) or well written (clear).

Write First

The real message on most websites is in the writing, and so it makes sense that the writing should determine the structure. Unfortunately, this is not the usual case. Most businesses choose the structure and design of their site first and then try and fit the writing around that structure. This flies in the face of commonsense. When you speak to someone, you structure your speech around your message, you don’t decide on a structure then change the message to suit. So you need to plan what you want to say before you create the site. Maybe even write the whole thing first and then use the message to determine the structure.

Web Site Design Color For You
 by: Maricon Williams

Color is an attitude. It can make you strong, weak, wild, wanting, passionate and complete. Colors can influence our behavior, feelings and psyche. In fact, colors are oftentimes used as treatment to psychotics and other mentally incapacitated persons.

However, when it comes to web designing, many designers overlook the enigmatic power of colors. It can bring life to any image, text or graphics. It can create the atmosphere needed in order to capture the viewer’s decision and loyalty. These are the reasons why colors should be on our topmost list of things that need to be considered in mounting a web site. You don’t want a drab looking site, do you? It will appear, melancholic, chaotic, plain and boring. Thus, colors must be chosen in order to complement the site’s ambiance, feelings and purpose.

Website Redesign- Planning As Easy As 123!
 by: Maricon Williams

In the past, businesses and other entities are busy mounting their own website but now, the hype is all about redesigning them. This change has shifted the interface of web design services to a different level and the focus is now on redesigns.

Website redesigning is involves a slight distinction and considerations between mounting and developing new sites. Say for instance, those that have existing sites have more or less enough knowledge on what sites and site formulas work. They have already a grasp about what they consider as assets in their site’s form and function. Recognizing these assets can pretty well contribute to a more prosperous redesigned site.

Other businesses may take a few months to decide in favor of a redesign but mind you, planning a redesign can be as easy as 123! It’s unbelievable but it’s true. Here are the three basic redesign planning tips:

Most web designers and web design companies will try to convince you that if you want your business to have the best site possible that you MUST have a flash site. Flash, for those of you who are newbies, is a software program that can create really cool special effects and animations. You can either have flash elements embedded in your website or you can have your entire website done in flash.

Now I will be the first to tell you that Flash can make a site look pretty cool, but if you are actually trying to make some money from your online business that using flash is a BIG no-no. Here’s why.

1. Too Much Time
It takes way too much time to download an all flash website. Even though broadband and DSL users are growing there are still too many people that are still on dial up to rely on using an all flash site.

Your potential customers will get ticked off at waiting an hour to download your beautiful website and will leave to go to the next one.

What Makes A Research-Friendly Site?
 by: Maricon Williams

Nowadays, the most popular source of research works is the Internet. In fact it has already shrunk the world into bytes. All the information, data, facts, truths as well as the confusing principles and ideas are pushed into the World Wide Web for the users to have access and knowledge of their existence.

Research is an important part of our existence. Without it bright ideas will never luster, innovations will lose its existence and progress will only be true in our dreams. Research is our driving force. It makes us knowledgeable and when we are knowledgeable we clamor for more knowledge and be the best in our industry.

Research therefore, is a continuous aspect in our lives. We have to satisfy one urge in order to alleviate to another prospect. Thus, we must make our site Research-friendly so as to accommodate everybody’s need for research. But how do we do it?

First, there must be CONDITIONING of the mind. Know your target market. As a site especially catering to the research needs, you must provide the visitors the perspective most convenient to them. Give them easy options and let them adjust to your process quickly and effortlessly.