| Top Web Hosting Provider of The Month: |
 |
| Visit Bluehost.com | Read Bluehost Review |
|
|
| >> Web Hosting Geeks // Web Hosting Articles // Web Design |
|
|
 |
Caveat Scriptor: Use the Advice of Those Who Know Before You Build a Site
~A man [woman] is a success if he [she] gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he [she] does what he [she] wants to do. Bob Dylan~ I'm smart. Wicked smart. Too smart for my own good. At the same time (as they said when I was as kid and as it still applies), I'm too big for my own britches. So I put those prissy pantalones to some good effort and I teach others how to write. I win a few awards, send a few hopefuls off to higher learning institutions where they in turn win their own awards and accolades. I do this till my seat gets burned one too many times by the politics of academia, and I go into freelance writing. I research for 1000s of hours, submit to literary contests and magazines, start working writing gigs, and keep researching. I build a web site. With what it costs to maintain an ISP and web hosting account and little else, I create this ambitious masterpiece, believing I am now a self-taught web host, writer, teacher, and confidant for academic writers, mental disability writers, and elder memoir writers. But as your confidant, I have to confess: as much as I'd like to think those 300 hours of study and application for usability, keyword-rich, to-the-letter-of-the-law of interstate/inter-country/internet navigation design and creation make me a self-taught smartass, I did little but the legwork by myself. Actually, five virtuosos of the web world made making a website possible: Jakob Nielsen After creating a really bad mess of a site overloaded with spinning, flashing, color blobs of coolness, I discovered www.useit.com/alertbox and Dr. Jakob Nielsen. His stellar advice, delivered in a no-nonsense tone, is backed by his many years of theoretical and practical work. After reading and studying articles such as the following, I completely reconstructed my site: Current Issues in Web Usability Misconceptions about Usability Ten Most Violated Homepage design Guidelines Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003 Usability for Senior Citizens Writing for the Web Ed Zivkovic As I was catching on to using the experts to build a user-friendly, usable site, I was catching on to the language that indicates the writer knows what he's talking about. This is the redeeming value of Ed Zivkovic's site, Tips for Work at Home Webmasters, at www.ezau.com. He uses candor and directness. He provides technical content in understandable terms. And defying the popular and trendy, he tells you directly and honestly what is crap, what is not crap, what is effective website technique and what is a waste of dough. Try some of these instrumental articles for starters: Domain Name and Web Hosting Hell R.I.G.H.T.S., www.rightsforartists.com As any artist/writer will attest, the work that goes into creation is an interminable challenge. But we do it because we like it, because we are good at it, and because we have to do it. We are compelled to create. But we do our own work, not the work (or art) of others. This site contains all of the legal and ethical guidelines for copyright; R.I.G.H.T.S., a coalition of contributing artists (rather than a corporation or organization, that is) thoroughly, relentlessly provides information, definitions, answers, and directions for copyrighting and protecting creative work. Firelily Designs Just as much about the science of such vital concerns as color design for web users with color vision deficiency as about aesthetics of web design, this site practices what it preaches-as it preaches, well, teaches, graphic design. I don't create my own web graphics. That would take me a year or two to master, when I have enough to do with getting words crafted into readable forms. But I found the advice on color at www.firelily.com fascinating and functionally useful. Angela Hoy, Writers Weekly There are writers newsletters aplenty. And then there's Writers Weekly. What does the site and the owner have to do with web design, specifically? They are proactive protectors of writers and creative people, in general. Hoy stands up for the rights of freelancers by refusing the requests of tightwads who solicit her to recommend writers to work for 3 bucks an hour on copy for them so they can make millions while the writers starve. Hoy encourages the ethics of hard work by way of informative how-tos. And Angela Hoy, with husband and co-owner, Richard Hoy, pours an acid tongue on the plague that is the scamming POD publisher or the conniving money-charging agent-in a section of her [their] site called "Whispers and Warnings." For the newbie, novice, wannabe freelancer, or even for the work at home woman or man creating a website she or he wants safe from scummy scammers, www.writersweekly.com is an advisory imperative. Robert Woodhead of Self Promotion.com Finding www.selfpromotion.com shaved centuries off of not only my design and development but my publishing and promoting the site. With uncluttered pages and cutting-edge (constantly updated) information, Woodhead (who even makes self-effacing jokes about his name) walks a web wannabe through every stage of the process, and then provides [shareware] support by helping you submit your site to hundreds of search engines and indexes that you need to have crawl your site for rankings-the latest (2004) must-have for any online business. Of course, if you were to look at my Favorite Files, at the 900+ categories, subcategories, and links, you would find that many others pulled my smart ass up by the seat of the pants. I name a few of these helpful gurus here, too: Andrew Starling's Top Ten Sites Compared, in the Web Developer's Virtual Library at www.wdvl.internet.com Jill Whalen's www.highrankings.com Jim Heath at www.viacorp.com Keith Instone's www.usableweb.com, 970 Links about Web Usability Kevin Lee's Free Keyword research Tools and Keywords revisited at Click Z Network, www.clickz.com The PSP Interactive Zone, www.pspiz.net www.smallbusiness.sbc.yahoo.com Assistant Professor Stan Ketterer's Design Fundamentals News Writing/ Newsletter coursework at www.cas.okstate.edu Stephanie Hetu at www.stephaniehetu.com Sumantra Roy's SEO course, Choosing the Correct Keywords for a Site, at www.thejunglemarketer.com Karen Zoldan of www.bridgemarketing.com As you might have figured out, I write this not to share any of my own personal technological truths-which are wanting. I write this not to embellish the careers of any affiliates. I don't have an affiliation with nor do I know the people in the Top Five-who do not need my small time embellishment or exposure. I write this not to create an entity I had no previous knowledge of creating-though how I do like to brag. I compose this guide to humble myself to the fact that I was flying by the seat of my pants in most cases-except where I was lucky enough to intuit some strategies (which are still in the making, so don't get an attitude when you visit my site and find it still needs work: I know it does). I compose this guide to honor those who put in way more than 300 piddly hours of research, study, and practice to find out what works to make it work even better. And I compose this guide to help you avoid even 300 (not so piddling when you are doing it yourself) hours of stitching and tearing out the stitches of the britches of a tailoring project. Smarty pants just had to do it the hard way. May your way be easier. N.H.-born prize-winning poet, creative nonfiction writer, memoirist, and award-winning Assoc. Prof. of English, Roxanne is also web content and freelance writer/founder of http://www.roxannewrites.com, a support site for academic, memoir, mental disability, and creative writers who need a nudge, a nod, or just ideas?of which Roxanne has 1,000s, so do stop in for a visit, as this sentence can't possibly get any longer??.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Marketing Basics for the Webmaster What is the relationship between Marketing and Web designing? How can a better understanding of Marketing help the web designer manage his business more profitably?What is marketing?The American Marketing Association defines Marketing as "the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals". On the other hand, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK defines Marketing as "the Management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customers' requirements profitably". Create Favorite Icon Favorite icon appears to the left of your link in either address bar or in favorites menu of your browser. It gives your website more personality, better visibility in favorites menu and is easy to create. Transforming A Site From Good To Excellent One of the challenges of moving a web site up from good to excellent is transforming it from just a bunch of web pages and graphics to an interactive experience. Another term for this is community - a place where people can come to communicate with others. Cool Web Design And Promotion Tips This article gives free tips on how to find a cheap website designer and free tips on website promotion services.Cheap website design services. Tips On Effectively Organizing Your Navigation Not all links are created equal.While all of your links may be important, you must sort and prioritize to come up with an effective navigation scheme. How To Improve The Professional Look And Feel Of Your Website Projecting a professional image is paramount to your website's success. It can make or break your online business. Website Design For Small Businesses There are many different website design companies, offering different facilities such as flash design, however what should a small business look for when seeking an internet prescence?When choosing which company you would like to build your website, there are many factors which you need to take into consideration.Firstly how much is the website going to cost to build and host. Do-It-Yourself or Hire a Professional Designer Remember your vision for your company and the brand or statement you want to make when any of your current or potential customers come in contact with you. You have to impress them in all the ways you connect with them. Bad Web Design: ActiveX ActiveX uses an interesting method for enforcing security .. What to Avoid to Make Your Website Design Effective The effective design is this one, which is maximum simplified, conformable to your users because they are your main purpose. This one, simply and clearly announcing what is your website about. Turn Benefits Into Sales with Streaming Media The "Wow" factor that accompanied the introduction of streaming media on the Web has long passed, and the technology now has to prove itself to marketers. Its' acceptance by advertisers, in conjunction with other rich media technologies, is on the upswing, but it's still not widely used to enhance commercial sites. Pop-Ups Still Work. At Least For The Time Being Do you remember playing with the jack-in-the-box toy as a child? You knew that if you kept winding it up, eventually jack was going to burst out of the top and startle you!Many of you found old jack-in-the-box an annoying toy and confined it to the toy box.. The Top 8 Website Sins Part One They say the eyes are the window to the soul. Your website then is the window to your business. 7 Benefits of HTML Validation You may not bother with html validation or writing simple and clean code when designing your web site. Later you may find your site is slow loading, appears incorrectly in the main browsers and does not rank well for the major search engines. Integrating Advertising into Your Web Design If you are going to be placing ads on your website, you'll want to put some thought into how you'll integrate them. Poor integration of ads into your website will cause visitors to click away fast. A Landing Page is Not an Order Page (and why it matters) To explain my point I need to first confuse the issue a bit (you'll see why): While a landing page is not an order page, it can, and in many cases should, contain the order form.So what is the difference? Is this just a question of semantics? Actually, there is a big difference and it can have a big effect on your conversion rate. What I Look For In a Website As my occupation is that of a proofreader, one of the first things I look for in a website is quality copy; to me it's important that the textual content is clear and concise with correct spelling and proper punctuation. Many websites I have looked at have sadly failed to follow this basic rule and the build emphasis has been centred on flashy eye-catching graphics, quite often at the expense of the copy. Secrets to Using Color on Your Website and Common Pitfalls to Avoid Colors have long been known to have psychological affects on mood and interpretation. So, when you are designing your website, you should keep in mind the influence color might have on your visitors. 10 Reasons Why You Need A Multilingual Website The internet continues to grow and has become the default point of call for businesses and individuals searching for goods, services or information. For businesses wishing to get that competitive advantage, a multilingual website now presents one of the most high impact means of expanding a client base and securing greater sales volumes. Get FASTER Download Times By Making BIGGER Web Pages! As a webmaster you already know how important it is that your web pages download fast. In a nutshell, if your pages are slow, then you're losing visitors.
|
|
|
|
|
| © 2004 - 2008 "Web Hosting Geeks" | Web Hosting Reviews | Customer Reviews | RealMetrics Reviews | Hosting Articles | Directory | Partners | Contacts Over 7000 articles: web hosting, web development, domain names, ecommerce, web design, site promotion, ppc advertising, seo, site promotion and many others. Web hosting reviews, ratings and awards are not based on any incentives or commissions. Names and trademarks are the properties of their respective owners. A direct link to Web Hosting Geeks (http://webhostinggeeks.com) must be provided in order to use any of the above information. Contact us for more info. Partners: Hosts by speed, Cheap Website Hosting, Free Website Hosting, Cheap Web Hosting, Top 10 Web Hosts, Top 10 Web Hosting Deals, Best Website Hosting, Free Web Hosting, Free Web Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting, Adult Web Hosting, Web Hosting Discussions, Dedicated Server Reviews, Best Web Hosting, Web Hosting Discounts, HostProfessor.com, rsuog, halyava, PHP Website Hosting Services, Web Hosting Reviews, Hosting Uptime, Best Web Hosting Reviews, Cheap Webhosting, Web Hosting, Flash Templates, CMS Templates, Web Hosting Reviews, Website Hosting Reviews, Web Hosting Providers, Best Web Hosting, Top Web Hosting, RSUOG Web Hosting |
