Web Design Discussion

I often get a call from a person or company that wants to build a web site for their business but doesn’t truly understand all the benefits of having one or what it will take to get one built. They sometimes think it will only take a few clicks of the computer keys and “voila” out pops a web site. They then expect it to be no more than a few hundred dolllars.

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The web site for your business is often the first interaction a visitor will have with your business. Here is a list of mistakes that many site owners make when building their web sites.

1. Long or hard to spell domain name

If you want your customers to find you quickly, choose a domain name that is short and easy to spell. Some site owners may try to include their main keywords in the domain name with the hope that this will help them rank well in the search engines.

It makes better sense to optimize your web site with keywords placed in the content and meta tags than in the domain name. Think of what will benefit your customers more than what will benefit the search engines.

2. Amateur design

First impressions make a big difference in deciding who to do business with. If your web site does not have a professional appearance you may lose your customers to your competitors. Be sure to use the latest design techniques ie CSS and HTML. Using old techniques such as tables and deprecated html tags may slow the loading and indexing of your web site by the
search engines. Thousands of new web sites are coming online everyday. Don’t let your competitors get ahead of you.

3. Unclear navigation structure

Make sure you can access any part of your web site within 3 clicks. If your page is buried deeper than this it will be hard for both visitors and search engines to find the information.

The links should be clickable. Try not to use javascript or image maps. Some users have javascript turned off so they won’t be able to navigate your web site. Image maps don’t make it obvious there is a link to click on. Try to use CSS navigation menus because they are fast, contain simple code and are search engine friendly.

Link text should provide a clear description of the link destination. For text links, use colored, or underlined text (don’t underline non-link text).

4. Avoid using a lot of flash

Most web site visitors want to quickly access information on your site without being distracted by objects flashing across the screen or blinking at them. Flash is a programming language that should only be used to enhance a web site whereas a static page cannot. I still see flash introductions that take forever to download and test my patience. Usually I click elsewhere.

5. Unclear content

Most visitors don’t want to spend a lot of time reading from a screen because it’s harder on the eyes than reading printed text. Writing large blocks of content creates a cluttered appearance and is hard to read. Web content should contain short paragraphs of a few sentences that are to the point so visitors can quickly view what you have to offer. Try to answer visitors questions and don’t use complicated language. This improves search engine visibility because you are using your visitors words not your own.

6. Unreadable text

Many web sites use very small font, or use a type font that is hard to read on a monitor screen. Use font such as verdana or arial for your main content and times roman or arial for the headings. The main content size should be 12 pixels or above.

Don’t use dark text on a dark background or light text on a light background. Use contrasting colors such as black text on a white background or white text on a black background.

6. Browser incompatibility

Many years ago most computer users only used Internet Explorer but now people use other browsers ie Firefox. Make sure your beautiful design can be viewed by all the main browsers. You don’t want to lose visitors because your web site doesn’t display correctly in their browser.

7. Screen resolution

Most new monitors these days have a screen resolution of 1078×768 pixels or above. However many computer users still have old monitors and computers with the resolution set to 800×600 pixels. Also people with poor eyesight will deliberately set their screen resolution to 800×600 so the text is enlarged.

Many web designers only design for high resolution monitors. This means you will lose the visitors whose screen monitors are set to a lower resolution.

Conclusion

Whenever you want to add new features to your web site ie flash, video etc, ask yourself if this will enhance your web site’s appearance and give you a better return on investment (ROI). For most web sites it would be far more beneficial to improve or add more content than to add these new features.

I mostly use drop down menus for large web sites that need
a more complex navigation menu compared to the standard
buttons at the top or side of web pages.

Benefits of a drop down menu

1. Easy access to all major categories and subcategories of
your web site.

2. Reduces the amount of links to display

3. Create as many subcategories as you like from one main
category.

4. Easy to organize your whole site.

5. Allows visitors to quickly view all links from one
location.

6. Able to use a variety of styles and colors.

7. Provides a professional appearance.

Resources for creating drop down menus

1. Sothink DHTML Menu
http://www.sothink.com/

- Sothink DHTML Menu creates JavaScript Cross Browser
Menus.

- Easily creates fully featured cross-browser drop down
menus in a visual edit mode.

- Generate stylish DHTML menus in minutes.

- Free Dreamweaver add-ins help you quickly design your
menu and integrate it with your existing web site.

- Generate search-engine-friendly drop down web menus, so
your web site can easily be indexed by the search engines.

- License allows you to create menus for unlimited
websites.

Price $79.00

Here’s an example of the Sothink DHTML Menu included in a
church web site I designed:

http://www.worldimpactcc.org/

It shows the flyout menu accessed from the left side of the
web page.

I recommend purchasing this software if you need to quickly
and easily create lots of web sites with drop down or
flyout menus. It only takes a few minutes to drop the menu
into your design instead of spending hours creating one
from scratch.

2. FreeStyle Menus v1.0 RC11
http://www.twinhelix.com/dhtml/fsmenu/

This is an XHTML compliant, CSS-formatted menu script,
designed to work with the current generation of
standards-based websites. The menu data is stored in the
HTML document itself (unlike other JavaScript menus) as
either nested lists or disparate DIV tags, and the script
manages the showing and hiding of these elements with
customisable timer delays.

This script is “donation-ware.

3. Suckerfish Dropdown
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns/

This is an alternative to the above DHTML dropdown menus
which include a large amount of javascript. The suckerfish
dropdown menu is a lightweight, accessible,
standards-compliant, and cross-browser-compatible.

Have you ever wanted to add music to your web site?
Do you want to add music to your powerpoint presentation?

It’s a very easy thing to do if you have Windows Media Player 10. If you have a PC running windows then you probably already have it installed in your computer by default. If not, you can simply upgrade your current Windows Media Player.

Definition of Ripping

Ripping means to copy music from a CD. When you rip a CD, you can either copy the entire CD or copy selected tracks, and these are created as files on your computer.

Ripping helps preserve your CDs because after they have been ripped, you no longer need to use them when you listen to that music on your computer. Simply start Windows Media Player, find the music in your library, and play it. You can also mix that music with other music in a playlist to extend your listening possibilities.

Steps to Rip Music from a CD to Your Computer

Requirements

Music CD
Windows Media Player 10 or above
CD drive

1. Open windows media player and connect to the Internet

2. Insert your audio CD into the CD drive, and then click Rip.

3. All songs are selected to be ripped if you have not previously ripped them.

4. Clear the check box next to each song, for songs you do not want to rip. You can use the check box at the top of the list to select or clear all check boxes.

5. Click Rip Music.

6. The first time you rip music, you are prompted to choose the format for the files being created. Click one of the following options:

a) Keep my current format settings. This option keeps your current file format and audio quality level settings and immediately starts ripping the songs you selected to your computer. By default, the Player uses the Windows Media Audio format, which optimizes the balance between file size and sound quality.

b) Change my current format settings. Select this option if you want to change the format, bit rate, storage folder, or other options. After you click an option, click OK. (To change the format or audio quality settings later, on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Rip Music tab.)

7. After the songs have been ripped, you can find and play them in your library.

Choosing a Format

By default, the Player uses the Windows Media Audio format, which optimizes the balance between file size and sound quality. You can also choose one of the following formats:

-Windows Media Audio (variable bit rate), which can reduce the file size but may also take longer to rip.

-Windows Media Audio Lossless, which provides the best audio quality but increases the file size.

-MP3 format, new in Windows Media Player 10, which provides more flexibility when choosing a format.

Freeware for ripping CDs

FreeRIP
http://www.mgshareware.com/frmmain.shtml

Save audio CD tracks to Wav, MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis or FLAC audio files

Exact Audio Copy
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Free audio grabber for audio CDs using standard CD and DVD-ROM drives

Resources

Quickly Rip CDs to Your Computer
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/howto/rip_how_to.aspx

DIY: How to rip a CD as MP3s
http://www.cnet.com.au/mp3players/musicsoftware/0,239029154,240057141,00.htm

How to rip a CD as a single MP3
http://www.cnet.com.au/mp3players/musicsoftware/0,239029154,240056800,00.htm

MIDI files are one of the easiest ways to add background music to your web site. They are very small and load fast.

Steps on how to add a MIDI file

1. Add these few lines of code to your html page.


<embed src="yourmusicfile.mid" autostart="true" loop="true" width="2" height="0">
</embed>
<noembed>
<bgsound src=”yourmusicfile.mp3″ loop=”infinite”>
</noembed>

This code is compatible with all versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera.

The width and height attribute used in the above code causes the player to be invisible.

If you do not want it to be invisible, you can specify your own dimensions to suit the design of your web site.

You can also use this code if you wish to use WAV or MP3 files.

2. Upload the MIDI file and your HTML web page to the server.

3. Turn on your speakers and check the sound.

That’s it!

Alternatives

For Opera and all Internet Explorer versions, the following code works:


<bgsound src="yourmusicfile.mid" loop="infinite">


For all versions of Netscape, and all versions of Internet Explorer you can use the following code:


<embed src="yourmusicfile.mid" autostart="true" loop="true"
width=”2″ height=”0″>
</embed>


How to Add a MIDI file to a Joomla Web Site

1. Create a new module.

2. Switch to “HTML view” in the “WYSIWYG” editor.

3. Add this code:


<embed src="yourmusicfile.mid" width="200" height="200" autostart=true loop=false volume=100 hidden=false>


If hidden is “true” you don’t need to set the width and height as it should be hidden.

4. Save the module.

Resource

Embedding sound in web pages

There are many different ways to add music to your web site. It largely depends on the type, size and quality of your music file.

Types of music files

1. MIDI files (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)

This is the easiest file to incorporate into your web site because of it’s small file size and loads quickly. The sound may not be of high quality compared to an mp3 file but for in most cases it will be sufficient.

One advantage of MIDI files is that most sound cards can play a MIDI file and a WAV file (see below) at the same time.

2. WAV files

WAV is a format for storing sound in files, which was developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM. WAV allows you to add professional recordings to your web site. A one minute WAV file can be as large as 1MB in size, while a 1 minute MIDI file can be less than 25K. Using software converters, it may be possible to resample WAV files to reduce their file size.

3. MP3 Files

MP3 files produce a high quality sound because they are highly compressed, don’t take long to load and have a small fie size. One problem with playing them is that you need to have an external player. If your visitor’s computer does not have a player he may have to download one from the Net. This means he will have to leave your web site. Many computer users are not proficient or afraid to download files (because of getting viruses) so they may decide to opt out and click elsewhere.

4) FLASH files

Flash files offer the most flexibility for adding sound to your web site because you can set the quality level. Flash file to be. Flash also allows you to loop short pieces of sound to create ‘continuous’ background music files that are small in size. Only imported WAV files can be looped in Flash, MP3 files will not loop cleanly. A couple of disadvantages for using flash files is that you need expensive software to create them and not all visitors have the flash player installed on their machines. To bypass this you can include the free flash player download within the code of your web site.

5) Pre-Made Flash Loops

These are files that are professionally recorded and can loop almost indefinitely. They are only about 20k in size so they load almost instantly and contain professional quality music. You can purchase packages of Flash Music Loops at http://www.flashmusictracks.com. They include all types of music ie classical, country, rock, jazz, hip hop, ambient, fusion, funk, ethnic. These pre-made flash loop files are also very small and will play immediately when a person visits your web site.

Conclusion

When deciding on the type of music for your web site, choose music that won’t offend anyone, loads quickly and won’t require an external player that needs to be downloaded.

Have you ever heard music playing when you visited a web site?
Did you have your speakers turned on and did you like the choice of music?

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Recently I was asked by a client if I could optimize their flash web site so they could get high rankings in the search engines. All pages of this web site were flash pages. This means no HTML pages except for a few links interspersed throughout the site.

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When adding video capability to your web site keep in mind that not all files work for all browsers and all types of computers. The best method is to use the Flash FLV video format because it works in most browsers and is compatible with both PC and MAC computers.

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Many site owners make the mistake of getting links from web sites not related to their own. They try to get as many links as possible from any person that wants to exchange links.

This is big mistake.

Your site will most likely lose its rankings and/or be banned from the search engines.

Why?

This is because search engines want to produce focused, relevant results to searches. It still doesn’t happen often enough because you still get results that are not related to your searches.

What is Link Optimization?

This means creating, finding links and content that have high value. If your web site has high quality content, other site owners will want to link to it automatically. If you have a new web site, you will want to find high quality sites that can link to yours. These are usually sites that have been on the Net for years, have high rankings and get a lot of traffic.

Link value

The quality of the links pointing to your site is superior to the number of links. However if you get a large number of high quality links from other sites that is better than just having a few.

Example:

An article on “link optimization” gets placed on a web site that has a PR (page rank) of 7 whereas your web site only has a PR value of 2. The PR7 site will get found faster, indexed faster, and receive better search engine exposure (higher rankings) than the PR2 web site.

Explanation

The link in the resource box of your article links back to your web site. The high ranking web site passes on its authority to your web site thus increasing your own “authority” and with time, your overall rankings.

A Note about Page Rank

Your site’s Page Rank can be viewed by observing the green line in the Google Toolbar. Sites that have a high PR(ie PR 6-10) will generally rank higher than sites less than PR6. Google claims PR is not significant anymore however the Google web site has a PR value of 10.

Search Engine Optimization Services

Herman Drost is a SEO specialist. He offers search engine optimization services that are based on the total number of pages to be optimized, competitiveness of the keywords targeted, actual SEO work required to optimize the site for those search terms, and the estimated time necessary to acquire a competitive search engine position.