HTML Tips - Easy Ways to Make Your Website Sizzle

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HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is the first building block of the Web. Learn everything you need to know with these resources.

Beginner's Guide to HTML

From Webdeveloper.com, an introductory tutorial that walks you through the creation of your first Web site.

Dmitry Kirsanov's Top Ten Web Design Tips

A collection of tutorials, Web page design and layout, and general advice distilled from Dmitry's experience as a Web site designer. Though written some years back, his advice is still on-point and insightful.

HTML: An Interactive Tutorial for Beginners

Tutorial designed mainly for beginners who know little about how a Web page is made. Teaches all basic HTML tags with plenty of examples. HTML code box allows user to try out their new skills and view them as they learn them. It is very easy to learn and comprehend.

Idocs Guide to HTML

A very complete guide to HTML. Includes explanations and examples. Wonderful tutorials on frames and tables.

So You Want to Make a Web Page?

Tutorial aimed at "all wet behinda ears" Newbies. Includes Table Tutor, Forms Tutor and Frames Tutor. Also has a downloadable zip version for fast offline reference.

WDVL's Introduction to Web Design

From one of our sister sites, this thorough course ranges from the basics of HTML to advanced formatting topics. Also, don't miss WDVL's Intro to HTML.

Writing HTML the easy way

A tutorial to creating your own home page from the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction. Designed to help instructors create HTML learning resources.
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Easy Web Design For Affiliate Marketers - You Don't Have to Be an HTML Guru!

For many people eager to get into the affiliate marketing business, the construction and uploading of a website is a daunting prospect. Like much of information technology, web design utilizes a language of its own, much of it jargon, and those who don't understand it often feel intimidated. But it doesn't have to be that way!

Static or CMS?

Websites fall into one of two basic categories:

1. Those constructed of pages of HTML code linked together, or static websites, where a designer has to create a design for the site and a developer or programmer has to write the code to make it work. This is the traditional way, and is still perfectly acceptable for small sites, but it does require some knowledge and access to a server.
2. Content Management Systems (CMS) in which pages are generated dynamically from data stored in a database. It sounds complicated, and to be honest it is, but the great advantage for the user is that the interface is generally no more difficult to use than the average word processor. And a CMS has major benefits over a static website too:

* it can be edited via an ordinary browser
* it can be edited from anywhere in the world
* it can be edited by anyone with an appropriate login
* it needs no technical knowledge to operate
* Pages and menus are updated automatically
* it is incredibly versatile
* your website can be up and running in minutes

Open source software

The open source movement has been gaining strength in recent years and now offers a huge range of software available to the general public, most of it free of charge. This includes popular business programs like Open Office, and web creation software like WordPress, CMS Made Simple, Drupal and Joomla!

Let us look at each in turn.

Joomla

Joomla's predecessor, Mambo, was one of the earliest open source CMS systems available. Mambo is still currently available, but due to a dispute between its various founding factions it is now completely unrelated to Joomla. Joomla, however, remains extremely popular, partly because of its huge range of extensions, its massive range of themes and the almost endless customising capability it offers.

WordPress

WordPress is another open source platform, originally developed for blogging but also very suitable for creating a Content Management System. Once again it has a huge range of templates, many of them free, widespread support, popular forums and a massive selection of add-ons and plug-ins.

CMS Made Simple

CMS MS is yet another open source offering, often favoured by web developers because of its very good SEO capability. It is possible to customise a CMS MS website with your own template, so for example you could replace an existing static website with a content management system but keep the appearance identical.

Drupal

Drupal is also an open source CMS platform and is often used by professional web developers as a method of quickly creating websites for clients. Like the others, it has a huge range of customisation features, great support and plenty of sophisticated add-ons like shopping carts.

So which do you choose?

For most affiliate marketers, the website needs to be rapid to construct and easy and quick to edit so that he or she can concentrate on their content rather than the nuts and bolts. There are many marketers offering ready-made affiliate websites, usually incorporating a hosting plan and including ready-made areas where affiliates adverts can be placed. The content for these sites is often taken from article directories, and some even include links to these directories so that all the marketer has to do is select the one they like. One slight issue with this approach is that these sites tend to be "cookie cutter" -- in other words identical to a great many others.

Another approach is to use WordPress and customise the site with a ready-made template. This can be incredibly quick to implement - I have created a site and had it live within a couple of hours with this method - and offers a means of creating a unique site where the content and the colour scheme can be customized to suit the subject.

A search in ClickBank should return a number of vendors selling custom landing pages which can be used either in a static website or as an additional page in a WordPress site.

Conclusion

I have used all of the above methods to create websites, both for my own use and for clients, and for the Affiliate Marketer I would seriously recommend using WordPress. It is quick and easy to install if you have access a web server - it can be done with literally in a few clicks of the mouse. Version 3.0 has just been launched and is a very comprehensive package. There are many, many add-ins and plug-ins available, including a fantastic plug-in for auto responders, and the design is so flexible that it can be made to fit any topic whatsoever.

And best of all, it's free!

Top 12 CSS Frameworks and How to Understand Them

Most designers would have heard of the term ‘CSS Frameworks’, for those who don’t know or aren’t sure, here is a brief description from: Wikipedia:

A CSS framework is a library that is meant to allow for easier, more standards-compliant styling of a webpage using the Cascading Style Sheets language. Just like programming and scripting language libraries, CSS frameworks package a number of ready-made options for designing and outlaying a webpage. .

Sounds great doesn’t it, something that is going to make designing and developing a website that little bit easier. It will take away the repeating of the same old boring stuff and if you write your framework correctly you will be guaranteed your code will meet W3C recommendations. That will leave you plenty of time to design your site, the fun side of the job!

There are a number of Frameworks you can freely download and use, you will need a fair bit of CSS knowledge, some patience and a fair bit of time to get yourself familiar with the layout. The page layout structure is pretty standard across almost all Frameworks, it could be: Header; Main Content; Sub Content; Local Nav; Main Nav; Footer. They also have simple layout structures: Vertical Nav; Horizontal Nav; One Column; Two Column… The variations on structure goes on and on… Any structure you want, basically.

What I am trying to say is that if you are a serious designer/developer you need to use a good Framework, something that in the long term is going to save you a lot frustrations and time. Maybe you will or already have written your own Framework. I have my own, well two actually. One purely for Wordpress and one for everything else. Not much difference in the two, but I do like to follow a particular method when designing for Wordpress, just my preference.

There is a lot more to CSS Frameworks than I have written here, but I am not going to bore you, download them and try them out. If you don’t like it don’t use, its not for everyone. As with everything else in the world there are a few critics of CSS Frameworks, the pros do outnumber the cons, its all about opinion.
As for me I love them, and I am very grateful to the writers of the following ten CSS Frameworks:
12 of the best CSS Frameworks

1.Elements CSS Frameworks (Source: Project Designs)

2.WYMstyle: a CSS framework (Source: Daniel Reszka)

3.YAML CSS Framework (Source: High Resolution)

4.YUI Grids CSS (Source: Yahoo)

5.Boilerplate CSS Framework

6.Blueprint CSS

7.Schema Web Design Framework
(Source: David Golding Design)

8.CleverCSS

9.Tripoli Beta CSS Framework
(Source: Monc)

10.ESWAT Web Project Framework
(Source: Philip Karpiak)

11.CwS CSS Framework
(Source: Content with Style)

12.My (not really mine) CSS Framework
(Source: That Standards Guy)

Link-Building Policy for Bing

It’s easy for everyone to get caught up in obsessing about how to optimise your site & build links for Google, when trying to market through search. That’s certainly a wise thing to do, considering Google totally dominates the search market. But, there are still other search engines that some people are using, so it is wise to make sure your site is performing to the best of its ability in those too!

Obviously the other two engines are Yahoo and Bing and whilst Yahoo is seemingly declining fast, Bing is actually gaining a market share. Furthermore, if the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo goes through, Bing search will be talking over Yahoo anyway. With the muscle of Microsoft behind Bing, you can be sure the search engine won’t be prepared to play second fiddle to Google for long!

However, unlike Google, we don’t hear much about what Bing wants out of a site for decent rankings, but Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some dos and don’ts of link-building for Bing. Not surprisingly, a lot of his advice for complying with Bing’s policies, does not differ too much from the advice that Google would give you. It is however, still always nice to hear what they think, just to clear up any possible confusion.

Like Google, Bing places great emphasis on quality links to determine its rankings. “Just don’t make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution,” says DeJarnette. “You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time.”

What You Should Do!

DeJarnette shared some tips for getting more quality links. The following are Bing’s tips for effective link building (paraphrased):
1. Develop your site as a business brand and brand it consistently
2. Find relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media folk, and make sure they’re aware of your site/content
3. Publish concise, informative press releases online
4. Publish expert articles to online article directories
5. Participate in relevant conversations on blogs/forums, referring back to your site’s content when applicable
6. Use social networks to connect to industry influencers (make sure you have links to your site in your profiles)
7. Create an email newsletter with notifications of new content
8. Launch a blog/forum on your site
9. Participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums
10. Strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry, while promoting your site

What You Should Not Do!

DeJarnette shared a list of things that you should avoid in your link building efforts, if it is a good Bing ranking that you are after. Here is what Bing says will get your site reviewed more closely by staff:
1. The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time
2. Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites
3. Using hidden links in your pages
4. Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known “bad neighborhoods” on the Web
5. Linking out to known web spam sites

“When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction,” says DeJarnette. “If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalised with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index.”

Most of the stuff DeJarnette shared is nothing any experienced search marketer is not already aware of, but it can be quite helpful when a search engine itself lays out what to do and not to do, to help webmasters get better rankings.

in reference to:

"Link-Building Policy for Bing"
- http://www.freshwebz.co.uk/blog/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Google Sidewiki entry by SEO Expert

Banners have been a major part of the World Wide Web world since its early days. Copywriters burn the midnight oil looking for new designs that will grab the visitor’s attention and compel him to click on their banner. This article discusses some of the most successful banner designs.

Teasing your curiosity

“Do Not Click Here”. How many of you have seen this slogan in a banner? What did you do when you first saw it? If you are like most people, when you first saw it, you clicked on it. What makes this simple sentence so powerful that it compels the visitor to click on it? The answer is curiosity !!!

Copywriters and web designers are always looking for ways to arouse the website visitor’s curiosity. As banner designers their goal is to attract the visitor to the banner, usually completely ignoring the other elements on the web page that are more important to the website owner. However, because the “Do Not Click Here” slogan tells us nothing about what is on the next page, it arouses the visitor’s curiosity and makes it almost impossible not to click on this banner to see what’s behind it.

Simple integrated design

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin first introduced their product, “Google”, to potential investors, they mentioned Adwords as a backup option in case they didn’t make any money. We all know how lucky they were that they eventually needed to use that backup plan. What made these “boring” ads such a great success?

Unlike other ads, Adwords neither arouse the visitor’s curiosity nor disturb the main flow of the web page. In fact, the opposite is true. Adwords are meant to look like part of the search results giving the user the feeling that those ads are there because he asked for them. No one has any doubt that this simple design helps Google to promote both their search engine and the Adwords advertising program.

Take part in the action

Banner designers wisely used interactive technologies like Flash to develop type of banners that invite the user to take part in the action. Drawing the user into the action can be accomplished in many creative ways. Some web designers use popular old games elements as part of the scene. You all know the famous game pacman. One of the banners that I like the most is the one where the user is allowed to let pacman “eat” few dollar signs. At the successful completion of this mission, a nice slogan is revealed asking him to open a saving account that will earn money with a fixed interest rate. The idea behind those interactive banners is simple: Let the user take part in the action and then at the right moment when his mind is less resistant, show him the sales message. Those interactive banners proved to be very efficient. Their biggest disadvantage is that most webmasters will not allow that kind of banner because it distracts too much from the web page content.

Back to Black and White

Website designers are always seeking to be different with their design ideas. One banner fashion trend that can be found lately is Black and White banners. Although research shows that blue and yellow are the most efficient color to use in a banner, Black and White banners have been seen a lot lately. It’s probably something that will eventually vanish, but the idea behind it is to be different and to make the user wonder what’s up and hopefully click on the banner to find out.

Get Out of the box

Have you heard about the mrfdesign.we.bs If not, check out this website before continuing to read this article. This website has proven that creative thinking not only can bring you money but also create a whole new trend. Right after the milliondollarhomepage.com got the internet community’s attention, many designers used this idea to deign a banner on which they sell a 10x10 pixel area. Like the original concept, this banner design had its impact. Advertisers are investing money on these ad spaces while at the same time visitors are curious enough time after time looking at those unorganized pixel banners to click on them.

What about the next trends

What the

in reference to: The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)

eCommerce Website Design

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eCommerce websites have their own unique character that is designed to lead the visitor to one simple task – make an online purchase. A web designer needs to consider a variety of online selling principles while designing an eCommerce website. In this article we will try to take a look at some of the major design aspects that you must have in an eCommerce website.

Many of you are probably already asking why eCommerce website design is different from any other website design. They all need to be attractive, well organized and use the right colors that fits the website spirit and so on. Your instincts are good. However a close look at some successful eCommerce websites will reveal the conceptual differences that are typical in a successful eCommerce website.

An eCommerce website needs to follow certain selling principles:

1. Give the user a pleasant experience during his online shopping.
2. Make certain you provide sufficient information on who owns the website and why they should be trusted.
3. The website must be easy to use. If it isn’t, the visitor will go to your competitor.


Those principles are not new. We all know those basics from our day to day experiences in the mall, shopping center and every other market place that is waiting for us to open up our wallets. The big challenge for a web designer is how to translate those conventional marketing techniques to the virtual world of the internet. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that in most supermarkets the bread stand is placed at the far end of the building, yet you can smell the fresh bread at the entrance (sometimes they even use a special air duct to carry the smells). That has been done deliberately. Marketers use our sense of smell to draw us through the store where we are exposed to all sorts of tempting goodies as we go to get our loaf of bread.

How do you draw an imaginarily path in a web page? A path designed to lead the visitor to do what you want him to do…make an online purchase. Unlike the supermarket our website has no smell. In a website the distance from one point to the other is pretty much the same, so the exit is always right there. In a website you can try to order the “shelf” in the way you think will best expose the visitor to many of your products, but there is always a chance that he will find a short cut to another page that can also be the way off your site.

As can be see, although putting your products on the web is much easier then renting space and opening a supermarket. However, selling your products on the web can be difficult.

A good eCommerce website design will lead the visitor to the right page in one click or two at the most. Sometime web designers will use techniques that would never be considered for non-eCommerce websites. Everyone has seen at least one sales letter website. On these web pages the only link is to the order form. Sales letters are not the most typical eCommerce website because they usually sell only one product. That allows the web designer the ability to exaggerate the one click principle and make it an advantage. All the facts about the product have been presented to the user is a smart way while every few lines he has the option to click on the order form. If he is not yet convinced he will have the option to continue to read more facts and testimonials about the products. Believe it or not, those sales letter websites are actually selling.

“What about online shops?” Online shops have to deal with more then one product. Of course, the greater number of products increases the complexity of the website. Sophisticated eCommerce websites use a variety of personalization technologies in an effort to determine the best selection of products to offer to the visitor. Personalization technologies are a major part of advanced eCommerce websites. However this topic is beyond the scope of this article. The cleverness of an eCommerce website’s personalization technology has a major influence on its design. The first to use such technology was Amazon.com who decided

in reference to: The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)

Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design

Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design
by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com

I was recently asked by a visitor to thesitewizard.com to take a look at her company's website, designed by a university student. I will not give the URL for that site, partly to protect the innocent, and partly because by the time you read this, it'll probably have been modified.

The site was heavy in its use of graphics with images adorning most parts of the page layout, to provide curved borders (to replace the sharp corners in enclosing boxes), different background images for different parts of the page, etc. It had a top navigation bar, driven entirely using JavaScript. The navigation bar mimicked the sort of menu bar you find in computer programs - there is a horizontal menu bar with different items listed. When you move your mouse over one of those items, the menu will automatically expand vertically. As you move the mouse cursor down the pop-up menu, the item beneath the pointer is highlighted. Click it, and you will be delivered to another page on the site.

In general, that site is typical of the kind of sites produced by newcomers to web design. It scores well in terms of prettiness and gadgetry (although only under one browser, it doesn't work well under other browsers), but fares dismally in terms of usability and search engine readiness. In fact, the reason my visitor wrote to me was because the website suffered a significant drop in the number of visitors after it was redesigned in its current form.

This article uses that site as a starting point for discussing some of the issues that a web designer needs to consider when creating a website that must exist and compete in the real world (as opposed to a site that is created merely to fulfill the course requirements of a school or university).
1. Appearance is Not the Most Important Issue

Over the years that I have dealt with newcomers to web design, it is my observation that they tend to focus excessively (and sometimes almost exclusively) on the appearance of a website. The site I mentioned earlier is a case in point: the designer tried hard to make the site look beautiful (and, if I may add, succeeded too - the site does indeed look pretty). However, as hard as it may be to believe (if you are a newcomer), appearance isn't the most important thing to look at when you are planning and creating your site.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that appearance is of no importance. Far from it. However, in this article, my intention is to address the excessive importance newcomers place on beauty. In fact, if you belong to the other extreme, discounting the value of the appearance of a website altogether, you might want to read my discussion of Two Common Web Design Myths at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/myths.shtml

Having said that, your site can still survive (or even thrive) if it is a plain-looking site like Google. This is not necessarily the case if you overlook the other important issues in web design.
2. Usability is Important for You to Achieve Your Purpose

All sites are created for a particular purpose. Some were created so that their owners can sell something. Others are information resources (like thesitewizard.com). Still others are designed to showcase their owner's talents (such as sites displaying the owner's resumes and portfolios).

The usability of your site is important to help you achieve that purpose. The basic question that you need to address when dealing with usability is: can your visitors easily access the information they need so that they can do the stuff that you want them to do? There are quite a number of things involved in this question.

1.
Information Availability

Is the information that your visitors need to make informed decisions available on your site? For example, before they can buy a product, they will want to know more about that product. A brief one-line summary about your product's features may work for your main page, but you will probably find that you get more buyers if you can p

in reference to: The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)