Got Vermont Web Design & Web Hosting?
We’ve been in the website design business for 13 years now and boy, have things changed a lot since the early days! Back in the mid-1990’s, a new website could be built using a text editor and simple HTML and enjoy placement within Yahoo (the big search engine back in the pre-Google days) within just a few days. Because the web was relatively new, it wasn’t very difficult to come up on page one in Yahoo for most anything.
Believe it or not, I once had a client who quickly got first page results on Yahoo but was afraid of his own success and wanted out.
Free SEO Search Engine Optimization Tools
One of the first things you should do when planning your website is to do a bit of research. Analyzing keywords and putting together a strategic marketing plan is a crucial first step towards the construction of a search engine friendly website. SEO (or search engine optimization) is not all that difficult but does require an investment of time. Basically, the more you put into it, the better your results will be.
Why Graphic Design is Not Web Design
People often confuse web design with graphic design and mistakenly think the two are the same. Actually, there is a very big difference in terms of how the work is created. A graphic designer is most familiar with print media design. Magazines, books, brochures, signs and so forth. When they attempt to design a website, they start at the middle of the process which is the design layout with colors and images. Using layers, they are able to simulate navigation buttons that change color on mouseover, etc. Once their work is done, the better graphic designers pass it along to an actual web designer who must try his or her best to translate the design over to the web as best as possible. The process is exactly like someone giving you a magazine cover and saying “make this into a website”. Not the most efficient way of designing a website but most of the time acceptable results are yielded.
Free Web Graphic Editors for your Web Photos & Images
One of the most common situations I encounter with people uploading images to their websites is that they do not know how to optimize their images. With digital cameras these days, it’s easy to plug into the USB port and transfer files over to your computer, quickly and easily.
The problem is that most people take the photos at a very high resolution so the files sizes can range from 1 to 5MB’s in size. These are NOT suitable to be uploading for your website pages. First, you need to reduce the file sizes and perhaps crop, sharpen or brighten the images. This is where most people get lost in the woods. And no, you can’t do this type of editing in Microsoft’s Paint program, as I have been asked many times.
Ok, so here’s a few free web graphic editors to get you started. Simply download, install and read the directions for use:
- Serif PhotoPlus 6 is an excellent image editor with a variety of features that are comparable to some high-end graphics editors. It even comes with a tool panel surprisingly similar to Paint Shop Pro.
- Gimp 2.4 has a number of high-end editing features with tutorials.
- PhotoFiltre is another great choice for PC users. Although you can’t work with layers (a la Photoshop) there are quite a few other features to keep you satisfied.
Who Really Owns Your Domain Name?
One of the most frequent problems I have encountered as a web professional concerns the ownership of domain names (www.yourname.com).
In most cases, everyone naturally assumes that they own the domain because someone else such as a web design agency, friend or employee registered it on their behalf. That’s where trouble begins. Technically, the registrar is the owner of the domain. Usually, that’s the person who registered the domain. If the registrar is not you, with contact address, billing info matching up to your credentials you do not own the domain name. Sometimes, people are well intentioned but you risk losing your domain name through forgotten renewals or even a friendship turning sour.
Do it Yourself Websites
The infomercials and other ads make it look so very easy to build your own website. These are also the same marketing people who tell you how easy it is to remodel your kitchen yourself, etc. Truth be told, anyone can do just about anything if they have the interest and motivation. Unfortunately, most people want the end product but are a bit short on the “interest and motivation” part.
Flip Mino
The Flip Mino is a tiny little camcorder that is about the same size as a cell phone. I picked one up for creating YouTube videos and I have to say it works quite well. The video quality is better than I expected and the Flip Mino can hold an hour of video and audio. You can easily shoot a video and save it to your computer and/or upload to YouTube and other web video services or even send via e-mail. The Flip Mino is so small, you can bring it anywhere. I brought it along to the Elton John concert recently and nobody gave me a hard time about using it. If I would have had a full size camcorder, I probably would have been told not to use it. Because the Mino is so small, it blended in easily with everyone using cell phones to to snap quick videos. The price is right at around $150.