Web Designing Tips To Keep Your Visitor On Board by Naman Jain

 

The biggest problem that most websites face is with their bounce rates. Websites that are unpopular or do not have enough material to attract the user's attention are known to have a high bounce rate. Most search engine optimizers who are also responsible to study the performance of the websites, are busy understanding how the bounce rate of the websites can be controlled and the return ration of the visitors can be improved. Here are some such examples that will help you understand the importance of web designing in this process and how people can take assistance of their web designing company to accomplish this task.

The biggest mistake that people commit is to create a lot of hype about their website in the site itself. It is high time they understand that this is not the right place for hype creation. People who have already landed on your website are now looking for some matter, they are wanting to learn something from your website, hence make sure that you have some informative stuff added in there, so that the user is satisfied to visit your website. In the same way it is also important to keep adding newer stuffs to your website content so that the re-visitors have something to look forward to.

Most visitors enter your website through the search engines. The websites are ranked in the search engine through the keywords, if a particular keyword is ranking in the search engine, it should also be present in your website pages, so that the user finds certain relevancy. Here is where the web designing company also plays a role. While they are designing the page, they must make sure that all these important keywords are also present in the title tags, meta tags and alt tags of the web pages, so that the ranking procedure is made easier.

In order to make websites creative and exceptional, web masters make the mistake of making their website complicated from the user's point of view. The instructions provided to the web designing companies are such, that the web designers land up making a undoubtedly creative site, but be sure that it will be of no use to the user or the search engine. In order to make sure that the search engines are being able to crawl into your website and the end users are being able to freely move around in your site, make sure that your navigation is absolutely simple and easy. A good navigable site provides liberty to its users to move around freely in the site and to provide a lot of cross sectioning. This is a good way to catch the crawler's attention too.

These tips are essential requirements of web designing which are also helpful in ensures that your visitors are always on board and have enough to return to your site every now and then.

About the Author

Naman Jain is an Online marketing professional, Presently working with Rupiz Media, one of the leading online marketing company offering expert UK web development services and website designing solutions over the globe.

Increase Your Conversion Rates Using Minisite Design by semmy

 

What is a minisite? A minisite is a simple website that is designed to achieve the following:

(1) Make a sale through your sales letter (2) Get new subscribers by opting in through your landing page (3) Promote other advertising or affiliate links

Basically, your primary objective of having a minisite is to solicit a DIRECT response. Anything else that distracts the user from that response is a waste of time.

So how does one increase their conversion rates? After all, you only get one chance at getting that response and if the user closes the page, they are most likely gone forever so success is extremely critical.

Here are a number of ways to increase your website design:

- Improve your web copy

Having powerful copy is critical if you want to solicit the response. From an attention grabbing headline to a compelling story that will give the prospect a reason to signup/purchase, you want to keep your information tight and precise in order to complete your objective.

- Use videos to engage the prospect's senses in different ways

Nowadays, minisite isn't just all about words; you must engage your prospect's senses in a number of ways. Sights, sound, video, other forms of interaction... the more you engage your prospects, the better your chances for converting a sale or getting new leads. After all, not everyone is a 'reader', by using the right combination; you will be able to increase your conversion rates very quickly.

- Use compelling graphics to entice your user

This is one of the simplest and best options. Ironically, the cost of designing a minisite graphic is relatively cheaper than web copy because even for a dozen lines of text, a good copywriter will charge you a hefty fee. But with graphics, not only do you save money on production costs; you also captivate your user with a single glimpse.

Many people neglect the use of good graphics. They fail to understand that statistically speaking, you can literally increase the conversion rates of a web copy by 300% when they are used synergistically with compelling graphics, especially the header banner.

You will be able to come across as a professional by the way you brand yourself. By using compelling graphics, it will give you a tremendous boost to your credibility as well because there are so many scams and hypes on the Internet.

People do, after all, judge a book by its cover and since you only get one shot at it, you had better make full use of your resources. You need to stand out from the rest of the crowd so getting good graphics is definitely a worthwhile investment.

Article Summary:

Minisites are designed for direct response. If you want to increase your conversion rates exponentially, you must invest in good graphics.

About the Author

Semmy is an expert in minisite graphics creation. Grab a truckload of powerful Minisite Designs at http://copyandpasteminisite.com/.

Designing Websites from a Customer Perspective by Billy Nudgell

 

The internet is dominated by websites built by technical people. Many look great and often have some pretty flashy features but do they stand the real test the customers?

I am often amazed at the lengths people will go to when looking to impress with their new website. Many websites are now build in Flash or have a flash introduction. Flash websites look really great, that I have to admit, but often they just don’t work for the user. If you are like me then you probably hit the 'skip intro' every time you land on an introduction page. Why?

Most of us have little time and are using what precious little time we do have to find what we already know we want. An impressive flash introduction doesn't help because it is more about advertising or showing off some technical bells and whistles. That doesn't impress me; I just want to get to the information that I am looking for: "skip intro". What about you? What do you do when you land on one of these pages?

Website design is more art than science in my view, It is about stepping into the website visitors shoes and asking yourself, how usable is this for my customer? Can they find what they are looking for quickly? How many steps do they need to take to get to their information?

Of course the first step in this process has to be analysing the typical end users needs. What exactly is the problem they are trying to solve and how can we direct them to the information they need? How much information do they need? How do we know that our language is correct (for example communicating with a teenager requires different language to that used to communicate effectively with retirees). I know that this is an extreme example, but serves to illustrate the point. There have been many studies done into the way website users scan for information and the patterns that their eyes typically follow. I recommend that anyone considering website design familiarise themselves with these studies.

I want to emphasise a quick point. Note that I said that website visitors scan the web. That’s right. Studies have shown that people tend not to read a web page as much as scan for the information they need. Typically this happens in an "F" pattern, scanning across the top of the page first, then down the left and across the middle of the page.

About the Author

Billy writes about website design from a usability perspective. This is an important part of any online strategy.

5 Ways To Create A Good Layout On MySpace by Gary Zivkovich

 

MySpace is one of the biggest online community website to communicate and gather people to from the different part of the world.

It allow different group of people with different interest to communicate and share their experience. The one more advantage with the registering with MySpace is users are free to prepare their own layout.

You can create good and creative MyScape layouts to attract many people to watch your page. There are many people prepare the blog too.

MySpace provides various tools to prepare an attractive blog, user are free to choose the image as background into the blog. Attractive layout of the blog also reflects your personality too.

The users are free to imagine the layout and make it so by using the different tools. MySpace provides two basic layouts, one is girly layout and another is retro layout. If user do not wish to use these two layouts than user can select their own layout.

Here are the key tips to create attractive layout using MySpace tools

1. You must have to imagine your MySpace page layout because MySpace page layout can representing you in the world community.

2. You can decide in which medium you design your layout. If you know HTML than it is much easier to make the layout.

3. If you know CSS than it is easier to update your page once in a month.

4. Using different images every month to make your MySpace page more attractive.

5. You must have to update details on the page and put some good quotes too.

About the Author

Gary Zivkovich is a writer for Free Myspace Layouts , the premier website to find Free Layouts, Myspace layouts, Free Myspace layouts, Free My Space Layouts, Layouts For Myspace, Myspace Codes and many more.

Quality website design for users by Alberd Cruz

 

There are certain well-researched guidelines that, if scrupulously followed, will help search engines find, index, and highly rank your site. There are also certain guidelines which help you avoid illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the search engine index or otherwise penalized. If a site is penalized, it may no longer show up in results on search engines.

First and foremost, make web pages with users in mind and do not make pages for search engines. Never attempt to deceive the users by presenting content to search engines that are different from what you display to users. This type of fraudulence is called which is commonly referred to as "cloaking." Do not employ clever tricks to unlawfully gain search engine rankings. Completely avoid participating in link schemes that are merely designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web, as your own ranking may as well be affected by those links.

Since the visitor of the page is the only person who clicks the mouse and therefore the only ultimate authority, user-friendly design is the lone standard approach for successful and profit-oriented web design. Any feature not useful to the visitor need not exist in youe site. To create a quality website, you must understand how users interact with web-sites, how they think and what are the usual patterns of users' behavior. Visitors have a tendency to casually glance at each page, study some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or appears somewhat the thing they are looking for. You may not believe there are large parts of the page the visitors do not even look at.

Please note content is more important than all the aesthetic designs that support it. If a page provides users with high-quality content, they are willing to compromise onthe design of the site. This is the reason why some not well designed web-sites but with high-quality content attract heavy traffic. Create a site with rich informative content and write web pages that clearly and accurately describe your product and services. Try to figure out the words users would most likely to type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.

There are certain golden rules to be followed if you want to have a quality website. Avoid all hidden texts or hidden links. Never resort to cloaking or frewadulent means. Try not to be clever loading the pages with irrelevant keywords. Avoid creating multiple pages, sub-domains or domains that merely duplicates the content. Again, do not provide doorway pages with search engines in mind. Honestly provide unique and strictly relevant content and you will see users will start visiting your site first.

No visitor has the time to waste on a site that offers incomplete, inaccurate, outdated, or disorganized information. Quality Assurance is of paramount importance in the website development process. A broken link or a misspelled word may be seemingly trivial but to the visitor they can greatly undermine the credibility of your website. After the site is built, it should be put through a rigorous post-production quality check. Finally, there should be a provision for ongoing user feedback which can help apply the correctives.

About the Author

Alberdecruz is a Copywriter of http://www.webzoneus.com. He has written many articles in various topics. For more information visit: http://www.webzoneus.com. Contact him at alberdecruzseo@gmail.com.

A comparison: building a website in 1994 vs. 2008 by Mark Crotts

 

Building a website in 1994, was no easy matter. The best programs available let you select your codes from a list. Anyone remember Hotdog? That was the first program I tried when writing a website. Basically you could choose tags from a list, then you would add your text. This program was hugely popular! Everybody loved it. It basically was one step up from editing your site in a plain text editor.

I joined Homestead hosting with a trial account the other day ... within minutes I had a site up. Its editor is so easy to use, a complete newbie could get a site up with minimal effort. The hardest part for me was getting the builder program to run on my PC! Once I had that working, it was a walk in the park. I didn't even have to read the tutorials.

I have to say, I really like the way it is now. I'm about to learn Dreamweaver. Maybe I'll write an in depth article on the learning process.

Mark Crotts http://www.athomereviews.info

About the Author

I work from home doing various jobs. Lately I decided to build a web page. It was the first time I had done this in several years. The site is http://www.athomereviews.info

Optimize Joomla - Lesson 1 by Greg Rickaby

 

During the next few days I will outline and highlight several ways to optimize Joomla. Let's face it, you are here because you Googled "optimize Joomla" and are looking for quick tips on how to make Joomla load fast for your viewers.

The advice I'm about to give is based on years of personal experience working on both ends of the spectrum - managing shared hosting servers with hundreds of Joomla websites, to actual design and maintenance of Joomla websites. To optimize Joomla, there are two ends of the spectrum:

* Server Side (Server Hardware) * Client Side (Joomla Core)

Joomla itself, comes in two applications:

1. Joomla 1.0+ 2. Joomla 1.5+

Since Joomla 1.5 is still very new, I will concentrate on how to optimize Joomla 1.0 AND since most of you are not Level 2 Hosting Technicians...I will write the first few pages of this lesson just for Client Side. As we advance through the tutorial, I will explain more in depth the how to optimize Server Side hardware.

Let's begin: Optimize the Client Side

Joomla was a fork of Mambo, (open-source content management system) which means someone was not completely happy with Mambo. Being open-source, you can take the source code and go do your own thing - a large group of folks did and alas, Joomla! was created. Since it was a fork, Joomla 1.0 still ran on Mambo's very un-efficient engine. To gain the desired speed results there are virtually unlimited ways to hack and tweak. I will not go to in-depth during the initial lesson because most of you again are just web designers, not server technicians.

Here are 4 ways to optimize your Joomla website in about 10 minutes:

1. Turn on GZIP compression 2. Enable Cache 3. Install PageCache 2.0 4. Disable any unnecessary mambots

Optimize Step One and Two: Turn on GZIP Compression and Enable Page Cache

Click "Site" --> "Global Configuration" --> "Server"

optimize

Check (or tick) the "Yes" button next to "GZIP Page Compression"

optimize

Next, while still in Global Configuration...

Click on the "Cache" Tab -->"Click "Yes".

optimize

Now click "Save" or "Apply"

optimize

Some will argue, (and they are right) that under certain circumstances, GZIP can actually slow your website down. This is true if:

1. You are on a shared host that still is running on a Pentium III while it dishes out thousands of other websites. (e.g.; Godaddy) 2. Your homepage is already clean and efficient with little code.

Q. How does GZIP compression work?

A. I'm not here to write a lesson on it, but in a nutshell...the server "zips up" the HTML code and text (not images) and sends them to your browser. Which then "unzips" the HTML code/text and continues to download images until finally your website is displayed. I stress: GZIP ONLY compresses code and text. For example, your homepage might have 200Kb of code...GZIP could compress that down to 20Kb!

Q. Why is this bad - and how could it slow down my Joomla website?

A. Compressing code requires the server processor and memory to perform extra steps (up to a factor of 4) before dishing out the page. Hence, if your on a shared server with an old Pentium III you'd see better results by leaving GZIP turned off.

Q. What is Cache, and how does it help me?

A. Do you have any Post-It notes on or around your desk? Most of us do, we write quick notes to help us remember something. Think of caching as a sticky note for the server. Rather than having to "remember" everything about the page, it takes a note for quick access later...thus making your website load faster.

Optimize Step Three: Install PageCache 2.0

PageCache 2.0 is a Joomla component that takes the stock page cache engine that is already in place and tricks it out. With many customizable features like file or database caching you can really optimize Joomla.

Download PageCache 2.0 Component

Install PageCache 2.0 "Installers" --> "Component" --> "Upload File & Install"

optimize

Navigate to: "Components --> "Page Cache" --> "Config" Now, enable PageCache 2.0 optimize

There is the option to cache either files or database. I choose file because my database is small, but my pages are full of code and other scripts. Yours might be different, but choose which one is right for you. Once you've enabled PageCache 2.0, you visit your site and caching will begin on the server side.

The proof is in the pudding! One of my sites gets around 500 unique users a day. With PageCache 2.0 turned on the page loads, on average, a .5-1 second(s) faster than with it turned off. This may not seem like much, but it adds up. Over the last 15 days I've saved over 26 minutes for my users - very impressive! (See Image Below)

optimize

Optimize Step Four: Disable any non-essential mambots

Mambots are scripts that enable components, like PageCache 2.0, to operate. Each time you reload any Joomla page it requires each mambot (or script) to run on the server side. By disabling unused mambots you are giving Joomla one thing less to-do each time a page is loaded.

You can see from the image below a few that I have turned off. Be careful! Turning off certain mambots will cause your site to stop working! Just do it one by one until you find a happy medium.

optimize

That is it for today's lesson: "Optimize Joomla in 10 minutes or less", I will continue this tomorrow with more technical detail. I hope you found this useful, now get to it and optimize your Joomla website!

About the Author

Greg Rickaby has 10 years web design experience and has spent the last 3 years working exclusively with both Joomla! and Wordpress. He currently is a website consultant and freelance designer.

Top 5 Design Principles Behind Web 2.0 Templates by Dave Collado

 

Many of the best examples of web 2.0 have some elements that make them, well, Web 2.0 style. Yet Web 2.0 is an oft-overlooked design style, and even more often misunderstood especially in terms of value and implementation. Making a site interactive and yet still comprehensive is not an easy thing to do.

Wikipedia describes Web 2.0 as "a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users". While this is an accurate description of the term, nothing says Web 2.0 more than central layout, big text, strong colors, round corners and an intuitive navigation.

Web 2.0 templates are a lesson in Web 2.0 style - it's as simple as that! Their beauty comes from an intuitive use of layouts, rounded corners, bigger text and brighter color surfaces, which give them a polished Web 2.0 style.

Centralized layouts: As apposed to jamming everything in one place (e.g. left-orientated scalable layouts), Web 2.0 templates centralized layouts bring simplicity into focus by positioning the content in the center of the page. It's not overwhelming, there's less information to process and the right allocation of large fonts and white space presents a better more amicable experience.

Navigation: The ease of navigation needn't be compromised. The Web 2.0 template style of navigation is typically horizontal, utilizes large fonts and is always clear and concise.

Brighter color surfaces: The old Web 1.0 always felt a little drab, part of the reason for that was the almost total lack of color. Web 2.0 templates are typically characterized by color. The colors are bright, fluorescent like, cherry colors - blue, orange, lime-green and a myriad of rich surfaces and reflections harmoniously twined with white space to deliver an open and friendly feeling.

Bigger fonts: Another component of Web 2.0 templates are clear large fonts. Large font can help place the eye on the things you feel should stand out. Large fonts are perfectly acceptable on the web, as long as you employed them judiciously.

Rounded corners: Boxes with rounded corners aren't anything new; the only difference with Web 2.0 is that they're now standards-compliant. The trick is Web 2.0 templates use CSS to implement the illusion of curves, instead of the old fashion method that involved slicing the top and bottom of a rounded rectangle, a table with three rows and a lot of time on your hands.

Web 2.0 falls right into the category of design where many people think it's easy, yet an understanding of layout and white space and, even more, an understanding of communication, is vital. All of the elements (centralized layouts, strong colors, round corners, big text) readily attributed to Web 2.0 templates are carefully crafted by professionals who are passionate about design. On that note, we entreat you to consider the convenience and practicality of obtaining template customization. The result is a unique product that works intuitively to help the user (your customer) find anything on the site.

The templates shown here are but a few samples...Example Template No. 18579, Example Template No. 18117, Example Template No. 15360, Example Template No. 18099, Example Template No. 16962.

About the Author

Dave Collado is the Senior Design Consultant at www.foamers.net who provides website template customization, Web 2.0 template customization, inspiration, resources and much more.

Which Logo Item is the Best One for you? by Chris Miller

 

There are a large number of logo items to choose. A logo item is a personal extension of the business or promotion that it advertises, so choose an item accordingly. If your business offers financial advice, then an umbrella is symbolic of security that your company can provide. Here are a few examples of logo items:

Logo-imprinted USB flash drives are typically removable, rewritable, and much shorter than a floppy disk (1-4 inches), and weigh less than 2 ounces (56 g). Logo USB memory sticks will serve a use for nearly everyone who owns either a digital camera or a computer. Storage capacities will vary from 64 MB to 32 GB, or more. Some are capable of up to 1 million write or erase cycles and have up to 10-year data retention, connected by USB 1.1 or USB 2.0, or both.

Umbrellas are devices that are needed by everyone. Whether an individual is preventing exposure to harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun, or simply staying dry from the onslaught of a downpour, the umbrella is a logo item that is here to stay. There are two important factors to determine in order to achieve optimal exposure from an investment in advertising with umbrellas: What is the targeted clientele that primarily supports your business and how much will be allotted for the investment of the personalized umbrellas? In turn, these two factors will determine which type of umbrella suits the needs of your promotion. There are many types of umbrellas to choose: golf (for clubs, players), telescopic, walking, storm proof, and umbrella hats. There are even umbrellas that are produced for a pet (primarily dogs).

The personalized computer mouse is a beneficial logo item that is appreciated by the recipient, and at the same time, carries the message of the promoter. Though it is a functional and much appreciated gift, the evolution of the mouse has come a long way. The personalized mice are wireless, compact, and multi-functional. Though the technology is advanced, the price tag isn’t as drastic as it may seem. Most of the branded mice can be purchased for nearly the same price as the mouse pads.

These are just a few of the items that are available for use as a logo item. Whichever logo item that is chosen, whether it is a personalized umbrella, a branded computer mouse, or a log-imprinted USB flash stick, choose a logo item that suits the needs of properly promoting your business.

Chris Miller is the owner of www.promopunch.com which specializes in custom imprinted products for promotions, marketing, giveaways, corporate gifts and tradeshows.

To learn more, visit www.promopunch.com and contact Chris for expert advice and support with your current marketing campaign.

About the Author

Chris Miller is the owner of www.promopunch.com which specializes in custom imprinted products for promotions, marketing, giveaways, corporate gifts and tradeshows.

Ecommerce Website for Online Stores by sanjeev pandey

 

Today, people have grown busier, much more busier than we could have imagined of. They don't have enough time for themselves and they certainly won't have time for you. But, if you are into a business, you will have to make them come to you to avail your services/products. And Internet can facilitate the same. The potential of Internet marketing is amazing. You can buy/sell just through your fingertips. All it takes is a single Click.

Hence, for a successful business, be it small or large , you need eCommerce web design solution, which can be extremely helpful in the long run.

Before starting with Online Business, it is essential to know who your target audience are and what you customers would generally look for. Then comes the need for a good website. In Web design market, customers generally look for 3 key product features for their websites:

They are:

* Custom Made Web Design * Cost Effectiveness * Easy and Reliable to Use

Today creating an ecommerce website has become so very easy, that, a web designer choose from pre-existing design templates that are already available on the Internet. Pick the template and theme of desired store and make changes in them according to your needs. Apart from basic design elements, this theme consists of elements like font faces, sizes and colors.

After choosing theme, you can have different web pages on your site. Configure all the pages individually and continue with a unified web design. After finalizing basic web design requirements for an online store, you might need a professional web designer. He can help you to with your site maintenance and structure it in accordance with prevailing norms and trends.

The success of ecommerce web site design depends on the ability to attract search engine spiders so that the site's pages are crawled and indexed. Being a businessman, one should be innovative and open to new ideas and have the guts to expand his online business. Add and optimize your web site pages individually. Being a business owner, you should adapt your ecommerce website business according to fast changing online business trends.

CartEdge eCcommerce website design solutions allow you to set up your own eCommerce website to suit your business needs and personal preferences, supported by our vast feature set and wide assortment of themes. Lets you sell your products online with the help of advanced shopping cart software.

About the Author

Source: http://www.cartedge.com/ecommerce-website-for-online-store.cfm

Seven key points for an effective logo design by John Mahoney

 

Any corporate house knows for good the importance of logos. They go a long way in creating a distinct identity for the company. Three of the most important factors that regulate the good will of the company are memorablity, credibility, and visibility. The right kind of logo, that features the right kind of features, boosts all three of these in a unique way. This naturally entails an increased volume of business for the house. Now, what do we mean by phrases such as 'right kind of logo', or 'right kind of features'? Actually, there are nine key concepts for us to maintain while we opt for logo design. Once maintained, they will have a direct positive impact on the business volume of the company. Let us explore them.

Consistency forms one of the most crucial factors for logo design. It is true that you need to be very innovative while trying for some unique logo design. Still, you need to maintain consistency in regards the materials or taglines that you use. This will enable people to recall easily who you actually are and identify with all the good things that you have so far done or offered them.

You are opting for the logo design with your clients in your mind. Right? In that case, you can call your logo to be successful only when your logo, on its part, always remains at the vanguard of the mind of your potential customers. It is the best way to make them think about you immediately when they need products/services that your company offers.

While you opt for the logo design, it pays well to take some out and think about the content of the logo. By content, I want to hint at the meaningfulness of the logo. You need to opt for a logo design that will best reflect the demarcating features of your company. A logo sans this corporate message is futile at best.

The logo design that you opt for should be unique in its own way. Quiet obviously, a unique logo will help you go that extra mile to stand tall in the crowd. Uniqueness of your logo, and in turn your company, is all the more crucial in this age of cutthroat competition. Quite often it is noticed that most business industries dealing with similar sorts of businesses opt for similar types of symbols and logos. In that case, think of something different.

As you think of logo design, always seek able professional assistance. Several elements such as printing, graphics, material on which the logo is printed, etc. collectively express your innovative idea in form of the logo. A professional touch in all these elements can go a long way in deciding the overall impression of the logo.

Although there is nothing as absolutely eternal, there are certain things that can make your logo appear timeless. Thus, it will attract such potential customers who always think in terms of the years and decades ahead. You logo design should have that appeal of timelessness in it.

Colors form another crucial factor for logo design. Give a serious though on the color contrasts so that all sorts of people, irrespective of the condition of their vision, can see and 'read' the logo well.

About the Author

John Mahoney is a freelance author who writes about various technology related subjects including Logo Design . For more information about John visit his website: www.techstore.ie

Web development: How to create an RSS web feed? by Grace Alexa

 

RSS feed is the latest trend in web development. RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication.

In web 1.0 era, most challenging problem faced by a Web developer was to keep in sync with the information updates because it consumed more time than new websites. Now in web 2.0 era keeping in sync with the updates of news headlines, blog entries, and pod casts are easily done with the help of RSS Feeds. The prime purpose of these RSS feeds is to inform you about the information updates, so they may either carry the summary of the information updated on the associated page or they may carry full text.

RSS content is read by using the software called “RSS reader, or aggregator”. RSS feeds as told are the latest trend in website development, so they are still in their formative years. It is only recently that search engines started to pay importance to RSS feeds. So it’s high time that you start to experiment with RSS development along with web development or other web application development. RSS is not a fully developed platform it has some flaws. Online marketers who have integrated these RSS feed to boost their website development process are still incapable of understanding who are the viewers of their feeds and how are they perceiving it. The application development for RSS tools is still under development stage. It is believed that these tools will assist web marketers in understanding terminologies in relation to feeds because now they are doing it by tracking the clicks.

Tips to create your own RSS feeds during web development

1. Install an RSS editor. Go for any freeware, easy to use application. 2. Next step of RSS feeds development during web development is: Start with a new file and edit it with channel properties to give the basic information about your feed. Complete with the optional tabs on the channel properties which will prove to be helpful in adding new items in a stream line way. 3. Save the file with .xml extension. Start adding new items using the “Add item” feature. It is important to add a link to the full version of item on website. 4. Use the description box to enter the content of the website. Any of the common html tags can be used like the ones used during website development or web application development. 5. After finishing with the description box now you can apply this to whole RSS feed by clicking on “Apply”. You can then customise the Feed by adding individual items from time to time. 6. Once finished with this process then publish your site as normally you do with websites.

Adding the whole text to the feeds will increase the bandwidth. So only summary should be added to the keep the bandwidth in check. On adding new items older ones should be deleted to decrease the bandwidth usage. Other reason to limit yourself to summary is to encourage people to visit you and learn about you more. So leap a next step in your website development by adding RSS feed.

About the Author

Sigma InfoTech is an Australian based Web Design firm specialising in Website Developer, Website Development, Application Development, Website design Australia. Write editor to webmastergrace@gmail.com your comments and suggestions will be highly appreciated.

What A Drupal Designer Can Do For You by S. ReevesMorris

 

There is a lot that a Drupal web designer can do for you and your website. A Drupal designer gives you all the additional expertise and access to the best the popular content management system has to offer.
The Cost Of Free Programming
The Drupal CMS may be free, but if you do not have the time or skill to devote to it, you may cost yourself more in the long run. Even those who do know how to implement installations to run a Drupal site often defer to the expertise of a true Drupal expert.There is more that a Drupal designer can offer that can't be achieved with a simple cut and paste.
What many people fail to consider when building a Drupal site without securing the services of professionals are the finer points of web design.They look to function, without always attending to the finer nuances of form and aesthetics, or to navigability and search engine optimization, all integral parts of a complete website design. In the end, business and/or function is often lost because the visitors that do get to the Drupal site (if they do…) have a hard time using the site in the way it was intended. Frustration quickly leads to loss of visitors, participation, and conversions.
Do More With A Drupal Web Designer
When you work with a professional Drupal designer on Drupal site development, you build in a system of reliability and guarantee�"guarantee that you have done what it takes to build the site right from the bottom up, and the guarantee of reliability that only comes with professional support. By working with an expert Drupal web designer, you attend to more difficult aspects of website design like:
•Graphic design; while you may technically have the knowledge to change Drupal site designs, you may lack the skills and 'eye' of a professional designer. The graphic design and aesthetics of a site are very important to create a fresh, appealing, yet still functional and user-friendly website. Work with a designer who is also an expert Drupal web designer and you will have the best of both worlds.
•Ecommerce and security; your chosen Drupal expert will offer additional knowledge and expertise that will ensure the usability of your site for ecommerce, and ensure that security protocols are in place to make Drupal ecommerce safe for you and your clientele.
•Drupal web hosting services; because Drupal and it modules require more space; an effective design requires that your Drupal web hosting needs have been attended to.Many Drupal designers offer this as an additional service. When you manage Drupal web hosting services through your designer, you can be sure they will secure the space and reliability that you need to keep your website always on.
•Drupal customization; the flexibility of Drupal relies on customizing your website with the many available modules and on customizing the code for your own personal benefit. While many people can manage building a basic Drupal site, customizing a site for maximum performance is something beyond the novice site builder. For a customized website, you'll need the help of someone with advanced programming knowledge.
You can build a basic Drupal site with limited function without programming experience in many cases. But when the functionality, personality, and reliability of your website matters, it is well worth your investment to do it right and secure the services of a valuable Drupal designer.

About the Author

Author bio:-This article was written by Steve Morris. Mr. Morris runs New Media, a drupal web design Company located in downtown Denver, Colorado . Newmediadenver offers Web design denver, drupal web development , Web development, Internet marketing.

Website Design: CSS Classes vs. Id's by Steffan McMurrin

 

As a beginner using CSS I had trouble understanding the difference between classes and ids. Both are used as an identifier of an element, and technically you can get the exact same affect using either. The difference is fairly simple, an id is unique, it is used for an individual element of a webpage. A class however is not unique; multiple elements in a webpage can share a class and 'inherit' (gain) that classes specifications.

Classes

If you're not at the point where you're planning these things in advance you'll know when to use a class instead of an id when you find yourself repeating yourself in your CSS code. For example let's say you have a few divs on your page and you want the text inside the page to be a certain size and font. Instead of doing "font-family:arial" 5 times for each paragraph, instead you can create a class. This would look something like:

p.class_name {font-family: "arial";}

Anywhere you have a p tag you say class="class_name" its font will use arial.

When you become a CSS master you'll plan all of these things ahead of time, but until that point just be aware of when you find yourself duplicating code in your CSS files for similar elements. Using classes is useful because not only does it reduce the amount of code you have to write, but it can keep your CSS files significantly smaller which can increase the load time of your pages.

IDs

So if classes are for common CSS specifications across multiple elements, when to use ids is pretty straight forward. Anytime you want to style a specific element you would use an ID. This is pretty common when you're doing absolute positioning, or nuances like bolding something or making it a different color etc. Ids are useful if you're in the habit of doing inline styles. Modern web-design dictates that you keep your relative programming languages separate, so inline styles are frowned upon, instead use an id.

To do the same thing as above, but make a specific paragraph have arial text we would use

#id_name{font-family: "arial";}

In the p tag we would then have id="id_name".

Difference in syntax

Class and Id have slightly different syntax, but they are fairly straight forward: a class is referenced by its HTML element i.e. img, p, hr, h, div, span, etc.. whereas an id is unique so it does not need to be associated to an HTML element and is specified with the #.

So given an html page where there are two p tags one with id="p_1" and a different p tag with class ="p_arial" the css would be:

p.p_arial {font-family: "arial";}

#p_1 { color: red; } /* makes the font color red */

Combining Classes and Ids

Now in this previous example we have two p tags one that uses a class to make the font Arial and one that uses an id that specifies red text. What if we wanted the p with the red text to also be Arial? This can be done by placing both the id="p_1" and the class="p_arial". This p tag will inherit the properties of both the class and the id. If there is a conflict between the class and the id, i.e. one says font-color:"blue" and the other say font-color:"red", the id will always override the class. This is called specificity, and an id is the most specific of any CSS selector.

It is possible to have multiple classes, this is done by leaving a white space between class names i.e. class="p_red p_black" if the CSS code is as follows:

p.p_red{color: "red";}

p.p_black{color: "black";}

The last class will override the first class. So the paragraphs font color will end up being black in this example.

One last way to specify elements

Besides specifying by Id and Class CSS can tell a document that all of an HTML element should be styled a certain way. This is the most general way to specify styles and is overridden by both classes and ids. This is done by specifying in the css file the HTML element tag name. This should make sense because it's like you are specifying a class without a class. So to make all of the paragraphs in a document use Arial font type you would use:

p {font-family: "arial";}

Another example is if you want to change the font size, family, color etc.. in an entire document you can reference the body tag:

Body{color:black; font-family: "arial"; font-size:.6em;}

Review

There are three methods to style elements in CSS using an element, using a class, and using an ID. An Id overrides Classes and Classes override HTML elements. Using classes rather than Ids can minimize file size and speed up web page load times. Ids should be used to style/position individual HTML elements.

Once you have a pretty good understanding of these concepts you should be able to plan your web pages in advance before you start coding the HTML. Being able to create all of your classes beforehand will speed up your development process as you'll see how things are suppose to look from the beginning rather than trying to make it look the way you want as you go along.

About the Author

I'm a beginning web developer that likes to make light weight money making websites w/a minimal annoyance to the viewer from adds. Check out my contextual affiliate product placement at my latest creation http://finditdaily.com.

Please provide any comments and feedback to webdevwriter@gmail.com. Thanks!

Keep Your Website Up To Date With A Flash RSS Reader by Flashloaded

 

A Flash RSS reader can keep your website completely up to date with the latest news on your niche, and also keep the search engines happy with continually updated content: and yes, Google can now read and index Flash pages.

Really Simple Syndication, or the ability to broadcast up to date news feeds on your websites has grown massively in popularity, and if you have a website then you may possibly have considered including a feed on your own web page. However, unless you're using a Flash RSS reader then you may well find yourself either facing a complex problem as far as embedding a live feed into your own site is concerned, or missing out on the valuable advantages of having regular, up to date information on your site in the search engine stakes.

There are very many websites now offering live RSS feeds, and for almost any subject you choose to think of, there are almost certainly a number of live feeds available for this. Whether the updates are to the minute, from global news and media corporations, or weekly updates from private individuals publishing entries every few days, having up to date information on your site that changes regularly is a real advantage.

Visitors like to see a website that looks as though it is still cared for, and hasn't been abandoned. With a live RSS feed on the site, then this immediately gives the impression that the site is relevant and current, even if you yourself haven't done a thing to it for weeks. The RSS reader will automatically collect any updated articles from the sources you chose, and feed them straight through to your website without you having to do a thing.

However, there are some issues with doing this. Basically, as far as incorporating an RSS feeder into your site is concerned, you have three possible choices - either JavaScript, PHP or a Flash RSS reader.

One of the most commonly found ways of embedding an RSS reader into a website is using JavaScript, and this has often been suggested as the best way for beginners. However, besides being fairly complicated to achieve, there is a hugely significant downside to this. A JavaScript reader, unlike a Flash RSS reader, doesn't actually bring the content directly into the HTML of the website. Basically what this means is that when search engines, such as Google, scan the content of the web page, it completely misses out the RSS feed.

This means that your hard work in trying to get your website continually updated and refreshed makes no difference to the search engines who will ignore the relevant stories and remain completely oblivious the fact that you have a live feed at all. The alternative to this has often been to use PHP, but this is very hard to achieve, and unless you're pretty good at programming then it is something of a nightmare to do.

However, there are now a number of very good Flash RSS reader gadgets available, and these manage to achieve a fantastic job, combining the ease and simplicity of including a JavaScript reader into your page, with the advantages of having the actual contents of the RSS feed appearing in the code for a search engine to find. Until recently search engines like Google were unable to recognise or read Flash files, but this has now changed. Search engines can now read Flash files, and if you have a Flash RSS reader on your site, this will be picked up, noticed, read, and will ultimately help to make your website appear as one that is regularly updated and therefore worth ranking higher up the search results list.

A Flash RSS reader is simplicity to install and embed within your webpage - really no harder than including an image on your web page. They're very customizable too, allowing you to choose the sources of the feed, and also choosing the design and appearance of the reader, although you'll probably want to keep this clean and simple. There are often other features as well, many of which are simply not available using the PHP based readers. These features include, for example, the option of scrolling all feeds automatically, cycling through just the headings, embedding links within the feeds and allowing the user to increase or decrease the speed of scrolling, pause or even go backwards through the stories displayed.

When you consider than within five minutes of getting hold of a Flash RSS reader you could have live, rolling, up to date news stories relevant to your website being broadcast, and that every day this will update without you having to do a thing, the benefits are huge. Not only will search engines see your website as being more up to date and relevant, but your visitors will recognise the fact that your site is providing current information, and therefore providing a useful and informative service.

Coupled with the fact that RSS feeds are free, and embedding a Flash RSS reader takes just a couple of minutes, it could well turn out to be the single biggest way of boosting your website's status that you manage to achieve in a long while

About the Author

For more information on how to use a Flash RSS Reader, check out Flash RSS Reader where you will find out how to keep your web page content constantly refreshed.

What Are The Right Tools To Build Your Own Website? by Michael Lemm

 

Just what is IN Site Build It!?

Site Build It! is so much more than Web hosting, or site building or blogging or online marketing tools. They usually summarize it all in this single sentence ..... "SBI! is the only, all-in-one, site-brainstorming-and-building-and-hosting-and-marketing, step-by-step system of software tools that delivers thriving, profitable business ..... and more."

Quite a mouthful! But that's what it is. It still amazes me that no other company has figured out that people need a clear process and ALL the tools needed to execute it.

The HUGE difference, of course, is all the tools. All of them. Integrated, which means "all under the same roof." And that means they all work together, effortlessly.

Take a look ..... Tools From SBI

This goes beyond merely answering the question ...... "What do you get when you purchase SBI!?"

You need reassurance that this is the right choice. You're likely asking questions such as .....

"Does SBI! have what I need? How does it compare with..."

Well, "Tools" gives you the answers. It's all there...

o The Preparation Process

o Building and Hosting

o Traffic Building

o Trust Building

o Monetization

o Guidance and Support

It compels you to click on each section and "get involved" with the CTPM process. And it makes a strong case that nothing else comes close to this degree of total REAL focus and the EXECUTION of success for your website.

The "Get Rich Quick" money-grabbers are everywhere. Folks can easily get lost in the online noise and think there's a short cut to Internet success. But it ain't so! A real business requires a real plan .... and a proven process .... and the right tools to succeed.

So... exactly what IS included with SBI!? Take a look. You'll see that this is NOT just another sitebuilder. As a matter of fact, I guarantee you'll be totally amazed. Most people have no idea how complete SBI! really is."

Again, see for yourself ..... What Site Build It Can Do For You

About the Author

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications and also authors Best MLM Resources .... with the latest MLM tips, ideas, tools, resources, news, and insights.

Share Your Visions With A Flash Photoflow Slideshow by Flashloaded

 

If you want share photographs, a Flash Photoflow slideshow is the ideal way in which to do it. Wanting to share photographs is a natural thing, and it seems that whenever we visit friends there will always be a photo album brought out for display, or today it could be a mobile phone handed over for viewing stored images. For websites, a photo slideshow is a way of sharing photographs with a much wider audience, and if you enjoy sharing your photographic explorations with the world, or simply have a lot of friends, then this is an ideal solution.

As far as showing photographs off on a website is concerned, there are a number of possible alternatives, and the most commonly used is the thumbnail gallery. In this case, usually all, or a large selection of the pictures, are resized to a very small scale, and lined up in a large table. The visitor can then squint at each thumbnail, hazard a guess as to what it might be of, and then click the image to see it full scale.

As soon as they have clicked the image of course, what happens is that they are transferred to a separate page which displays this one image full size, and at this point the gallery of thumbnails has been left behind. If the photograph is of a high quality, interesting and captures the enthusiasm of the visitor, then they might be motivated enough to click the back button on their browser, wait for the thumbnail gallery to load up again, and then choose another to have a look at.

The problem with this type of method of showing photos is that, in the first instance, none of the images are displayed very clearly, so you're fighting a losing battle as far as interest is concerned already, then by taking the visitor away from the gallery having clicked on an image, you've now risked losing them entirely. What are the chances they'll be bothered to go back to your gallery and try another picture?

A Flash Photofow slideshow on the other hand solves these problems beautifully. There are many ways in which it can be implemented, but for example, imagine your visitor arriving at your gallery section and seeing an almost full size image. It's clear, they can see it fully and properly, with no distortion and no real reduction in size or quality. But after a few seconds, they see the image change, and another has taken its place. This second image is just as good quality, full size, and can be enjoyed. Because the image has changed, the visitor's interest has been kept for longer. Rather than showing unrecognisably small thumbnails, we have amazed the visitor with a full scale high quality picture.

Not only does this help to keep their enthusiasm, but it manages to achieve something else too, behind the scenes. Because whilst they were enjoying looking at the first picture or two, we were busy in the background downloading all of the other pictures in the gallery. Now that we have them all preloaded, the full gallery of pictures is available.

Once the visitor realises that the image has changed, and will keep on changing because this is a Flash slideshow, they can start exploring the slideshow themselves. Because all the pictures have been downloaded in advance, they can flip between photos quite easily. Perhaps a scroll bar has appeared at the bottom of the screen, and using this they can speed up, slow down or reverse the play of the slideshow. Or they may just choose to sit back and watch the show.

If you're sharing images with a family or group of friends, then a Flash photo slideshow is a perfect way of doing it, because everyone can gather round the screen and just let the pictures roll through the whole gallery. This is in contrast to a thumbnail gallery where everyone is squeezing in close to the screen to try to make out the pictures, with fingers prodding and poking suggesting the person with the mouse clicks on this one, or that one. A photo slideshow creates an effective means of presenting images clearly, and ensuring all images get a fair chance of being seen and enjoyed.

If you're using Flash to create your photo slideshow then even better, as this is capable of providing a very intuitive and effective interface, and able to preload all the images easily. It's also capable of including some other clever stuff, such as flipping images over each other to create the impression of flicking through an album, or wandering up and down a corridor or pictures hanging as works of art, or even a three dimensional feel to the whole show. Without doubt, an interactive Flash Photoflow slideshow will definitely improve the quality and accessibility of your audience, and ensure casual visitors stay longer and see more of what you have to offer.

About the Author

For more information on how to use a Flash page flipper, check out Flash Photoflow where you will out how to display your images in a professional manner.

WEB DEVELOPMENT AND WEB DESIGN by RajAndrews

 

Website development can be a time consuming process. However, web design can come out constructive and creative if done effectively. Website design requires certain skill sets and observations that yield guaranteed results. Certain things to keep in mind during website development are as follows:

• CSS utility for text upto 12px can be best suited for reading purposes.

• Bullets can increase visibility and interest in your web content. Remember, web development can be effective only through creativity.
• Like bullets, boxes, paragraphs, sidebars, etc enhance visibility of the website. Clusters increase quality traffic.

• A logo on your website can result in branding and individuality.

• The content is supreme and sticking to the point is an absolute need.

• Make navigation easy through minimal flashes, images and graphics. Easy uploading ensures easy accessibility.
• Images must be used judiciously and some space must be saved for the description around them.

These are the key essentials for web design/ website design. Web development calls for basic knowledge of technical aspects like designing and content aspects. Graphic designing must be done after all the pros and cons are looked into. Several times, excessive images or animations increase the upload time for the web pages. This can seriously shoo-away traffic. The opportunity cost will go to your competitor. Website design must be judiciously used and web development must be optimum. In case your website becomes well known and you get many advertisement requests on your website, do not let the website design deteriorate with excessive advertisements.
A sitemap on the website provided during website design can be of immense help. The sitemap can ensure that the links are clearly mentioned on your website. This will also help you in case of search engine optimization crawlers.
Colours are an important aspect of website design. Web development stands incomplete without the use of the required colours. Best matched colours can generate use interest into your website. The first impression is obtained through colours and font quality.
When you sell products, the registration must be minimum and easily available to the user. Email id, contact number, address and credit card details can be enough at times depending on the product as a part of web design. Many times users move away due to a marathon registration process. Only those details required must be present.Otherwise, users will only be tempted to move to another website. Also place your website name on every business card, advertisement, mailer, brochure, etc. Web development is only the first aspect. Marketing is certainly challenging too. Website development includes participation in communities and groups on social networking sites, blogs, etc to advertise your products and maximize your reach.
Web development must enable user participation and engagement through interesting surveys, prizes, contests, newsletters, feedback columns, 'ask us' columns, etc in order to ascertain quality traffic on your website. The website design professional must also check from time to time if the links on your website are functioning or not.

 

About the Author

Raj Andrews is a senior experienced web developer with Apex Global Solutions specializing in Los Angeles Custom Website design, ECommerce web development LA, Content Management System, Web Site Maintenance, Logo Development, Company Brochure Design, California Marketing Agency.

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Some web design solutions commonly used by sas_discountwebdesign1

 

The web design industry has improved to become a very important segment of the web nowadays. More and more people are looking forward to use the Internet as a promotion tool to expand or showcase their businesses. This said, not every business will become successful on the Internet. If you take a close look, most of the websites which have good web design structures and features make more money.

This is simple to understand. People like a good service and an easy to use, error free system. Good web design solutions enable such websites to attain their goals effectively, hence becoming successful. Different web design features play different roles to determine how people perceive them. As such, it is imperative to have a fine navigational menu. If your website has a lot of pages, it is crucial that you use good web design techniques to produce a navigation which is very structured. In other words, your web design solutions have to enable the visitor to find the pages he wants very quickly.

Moreover, the title of your website is as well significant. While working on your web design, make sure that the title of your website informs people at a glance what it is all about. Also, the good use of colour is what makes a website look more professional. Good web design will be at once noticeable if you have used the exact colour combinations rather than many colours on the same page. Using many colours on the same page is as well a bad web design practice as it takes the focus off vital web design elements or even the content.

Furthermore, maintaining consistency all over your website can be a wise thing to do. One of the ways to do this is to use CSS web design solutions. With the help of CSS web design solutions, you will be able to achieve consistency. Knowing how to manipulate CSS effectively will allow you to update your website easily. Thanks to CSS web design solutions, your website will become SEO friendly, hence allowing search engine crawlers to index it regularly. Besides, CSS web design will provide better accessibility to your visitors.

In addition to, another means of maintaining consistency is to keep all hyperlinks, navigational menus and backgrounds the same on every pages of your website. Such web design techniques will keep your visitors focused on your website. This will stop them from having the impression that they have gone to another website upon clicking on a link. Using web design templates are also a fine way to give consistency to your website. Web design templates are relatively easy to handle and modify. Web authoring programs such as Microsoft FrontPage and Dreamweaver should easily enable you to alter web design templates. So, be sure to use your web design templates the right way.

While building your web design keep an eye on compatibility issues which may arise. Test your web design on different browsers throughout your building process to eliminate compatibility problems in the future.

About the Author

Sanjou is the web design articles author at one of the leading web design company in the UK.
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Create Web Content Anywhere With A Flash Text Editor by Paul Norman

 

Maintaining a website can be a fairly time consuming task, and it's not always possible to achieve all that you need to do whilst you are happily sat at home at your own computer. Sometimes a flash of inspiration, something that needs to be updated or even just a blog update every so often. If you haven't come across one already, then you're in for a surprise, because a Flash text editor is one of those tools that, once you've tried it, you'll wonder why on earth you didn't use it before.

Whilst you are at home you probably have your HTML editor open, allowing you to create web content fairly easily. Maybe it includes a WYSIWYG editor, otherwise known as a 'What You See Is What You Get', meaning that you can create content for your website visually, so you see what the finished page will look like, delving in to the code if you need to.

The problem is that this software is expensive, and whilst you may have invested in it for your home computer, if you're out at work, college or at the library, you’re not going to have access to the same software. This can mean that your site becomes untouched, and if there's a problem, or an important update or news story, you can't do anything about it.

A Flash text editor is a fairly small widget which is embedded into a page on your website, and allows you to create web content in a WYSIWYG format. It will include a toolbar that allows you to edit the text in much the same way that your software at home does, with fonts, styles, paragraph formatting, bullet lists and colours all being full editable.

Additionally, the toolbar is likely to include tools for uploading and inserting images or hyperlinks, so that not only does the web content text look good, but images are included and links to other pages, addresses or bookmarks too. Effectively you are able to create fully functional, well designed web content, from within your own website. Typically, these Flash text editor tools go one further and with a click of the button convert the whole content you have created into HTML.

This means that you can now simply upload this HTML content as a page, or section of a page within your website, and you have now instantly created web content without the use of any extra software! The beauty of such a tool is not just that you can create web content from wherever you happen to be, but if you run a website in conjunction with a team or group of other people, everyone can use the same tool and contribute content, meaning that your website grows more quickly, and more often, at no additional cost.

Imagine being at work, and spending a few minutes during your lunch time updating your website, or at college adding a feature, news story or entry to your site during a free lesson. Maybe you travel, and prefer to use library computers to keep things up to date, or pop into offices or friends' houses. As long as you have access to the internet, and your website, you'll have all the tools you need to create well produced, well formatted and clearly encoded web content.

There are many websites that allow users and visitors to create content and contribute to the site too, and in most cases this involves a straightforward text box for them to write in. If you're running a forum or tutorial or information based website, this plain text tends to be fairly unhelpful. Instead, providing full HTML support through the use of a publically available Flash text editor means that your users can create content that looks good, is clear and well organised, and much more helpful. Being able to emphasise words or sections, create bullet lists and embed images means that the content of your site will capture people's interest, and get the information or meaning across far more effectively.

The advantage of using a Flash text editor rather than an alternative, such as Java, is that almost nobody will need to download an extra plug-in or add-on to make it work. Nor will they need to adjust or lower their security settings, as is often the case with java based content. Flash is a universally accessible medium, and a Flash text editor will be as accessible to your users as any other web content.

You may even find that using a Flash text editor becomes quicker and easier to use than an expensive, feature bloated software package, and that all the standard features you actually need are available right there at your fingertips. Once you've uploaded it to your website, and created a link to it, that’s it - job done! Just provide the link to those people who need it, and watch your website grow rapidly and creatively in far less time, at far less costs.

About the Author

For more information on how to use a Flash text editor to make your website more interactive, check out Flash Text Editor where you will also find may other attractive Flash components for your site.

Flash Photosplash: Delight them with A Random Layout of Scattered Photos by Flashloaded

 

By using Flash Photosplash you can generate a random layout of photographs that is far more appealing to most people than something more ordered. People tend to like chaos amongst the order, and that is what a Flash script like Photosplash can achieve for you.

When it comes to showing people photographs, or even looking at them yourself, trawling through a photo album from one cover to the next can become a bit of a daunting task. Far more enjoyable is the delight of discovering an image amongst a box of photos that have been randomly mixed in together. A random layout of scattered photos included on a website might very well tie in to this natural enjoyment as far as looking for images in a chance way is concerned.

You may well have done it yourself - looking through an old drawer or cupboard an coming across a photo album and a box of unsorted pictures. You might enjoy flicking briefly through the album, but the box of randomly mixed images all thrown in together looks so much more appealing. There is the suspicion that you're less likely to know what you're going to find in the mixed box than in the album, and tipping this box out on to the floor results in a random layout of scattered photos that draws you in. Straight away you start scanning the images and looking for clues as to which might take your interest.

We have a natural desire to look for patterns within random layouts, and a photo album where everything is sorted and organised simply gives the impression that someone has done your thinking, scanning and organising for you. As a result, we slightly disconnect from it. A random scattering of images on the other hand draws us in because we like the feeling that we are in control of sorting through the pictures, never quite knowing what we're going to find.

On a website, this idea is usually ignored, or rather, not implemented because it can prove so difficult and time consuming to achieve. But imagine if you could throw your gallery images into a random heap on the web site and let your visitors sort through them? A random layout of images, with scattered photos all over the screen lets your visitors feel that they could very well find anything. They sense the control they have over the sorting through of pictures, and the sense of excitement as they look for clues to images they might enjoy seeing.

Of course, it's all very well just having scattered photos appearing on the web page, but visitors will still need to see them. There are tools, particularly using Flash, that help you to achieve this effect, and this allows you to take the idea of a random layout and inject a little organisation into it. This means that as the images are spread out across the page in a random formation, visitors see a slightly reduced version of each full size image, but by clicking on a picture, or a part of a picture that may be partially hidden, the picture will pop to the front, straighten up, and enlarge to the full size, full quality picture.

It's even possible to program the images so that they can be clicked and dragged, allowing your visitors to shuffle through the pictures, looking underneath some, and finding ones to look at full size. There's no doubt that this kind of random layout is appealing, and visitors enjoy the sense of control, and the slightly unknown. The order has been lost, and the pattern rejected, as the visitors are given the chance to sort through your random collection.

People enjoy looking at clouds, and seeing pictures or shapes amongst the random swirling mass of water vapour. It's a natural curiosity and ability to make order from chaos, to see patterns in random shapes. A page of scattered photos offered in a seemingly random layout appeals in the same way, and people enjoy not only looking for the patterns and clues, sorting through the pictures never knowing quite what they'll find, but anything which is interactive on a website immediately has the advantage of drawing the visitor in, and keeping them for longer.

The way that a scattered set of photos all piled on top of each other looks also gives the impression of greater depth to the site, challenging the flat, two dimensional view, and this also helps to life the web page off the flat screen and out into the world of the visitor. All of these tactics are subtle, but psychologically sound ways of engaging with visitors. By engaging with them, you're more likely to earn loyalty, links and custom.

So next time you're planning a static, dull and predictable gallery of images, consider instead the idea of a random layout to give the visitor the chance to control your site, and provide scattered photos to intrigue them and provide something unique. If you're using Flash Photosplash then it is likely to be a flexible solution, allowing you to easily update the images from time to time without having to worry about doing lots of work each time.

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For more information on how to use a Flash text editor to make your website more interactive, check out Flash PhotoSplash where you will also find may other attractive Flash components for your site.