Common Reasons a Website is Unsuccessful
Published February 10th, 2008 in Marketing - 36 Comments
If you are planning or building a new website, you are obviously hoping for some type of success. Of course, success can mean any number of things, and each website’s success should be determined by the needs and desires of its owners and creators. Some websites exist strictly to provide information to visitors. Others aim to sell products. Some exist solely to provide information about the services of a business. As you can see, there is no one equation for success online, but there are a number of common causes for failure with a website. Here is a look at ten possible things that can keep you from achieving anything significant with a website.
Weekly Links – February 9th
Published February 9th, 2008 in Links - 10 Comments
Web Design & Development:
Beat Your Website Into Submission with .htaccess from Bits O’ NewMedia.
Presidential Candidate Web Design Review from Dustin Brewer.
Vertically Center Content with CSS from Vdot Media.
Color Schemes from Photographs
Published February 7th, 2008 in Tools - 7 Comments
Earlier this week I posted a gallery of colorful websites. Today I’d like to take a look at a few online tools that can help you to generate a color scheme for your website by taking the colors from a photograph. When designing a new website, color inspiration can come from just about anywhere. Photographs can often be an effective source of color inspiration, and if you find this to be the case for your designs, there are some tools that can help even more.
11 Ways to Gain Exposure as a Web Designer
Published February 6th, 2008 in Design - 44 Comments
As a web designer you may be faced with the challenge of getting your work and your abilities in front of others. If this is the case, here is a list of 11 different things you can do to get noticed.
1. Submit Your Designs to CSS Galleries
CSS galleries display high-quality designs, and you can submit yours to be considered for inclusion. The leading CSS Galleries (CSS Beauty, CSS Vault, CSS Drive, etc.) have huge audiences that will see your work if it is included. Additionally, there are a number of specialty galleries, such as Light on Dark, eduStyle, No Resolution, and The Horizontal Way.
25 Beautifully Colorful Websites
Published February 4th, 2008 in Galleries - 170 Comments
When designing a website, one of the most common challenges is to develop an effective color scheme. The 25 sites that are showcased here have, in my opinion, done a great job of incorporating color and creating an attractive appearance. Please feel free to mention which ones are your favorites in the comments.
This site features a large background image of a tree and a cloudy sky. The green of the tree and the grass look great with the blue sky.
Announcing the Launch of Traffikd
Published February 3rd, 2008 in Blogging - 14 Comments
I’m happy to announce that today I launched a new blog that focuses on internet marketing and social media marketing, Traffikd. The reason behind the new blog is a desire to write more about some different topics that aren’t covered as frequently here. I don’t anticipate that it will in any way affect the content or frequency of posting here, as this blog remains my priority. There will probably be about 3 or 4 posts per week at Traffikd, so if the topic interests you, I would love to have you as a subscriber (you can click here for the feed).
Weekly Links – February 2nd
Published February 2nd, 2008 in Links - 10 Comments
Web Design:
10 Principles of Effective Web Design from Smashing Magazine.
8 Web Design Mistakes that Developers Make from Wake Up Later.
How Much is too Much? A Guide to Client Control Over Website Content from Bits O’ NewMedia.
Understanding Minimalism in Web Design from Blogging Bits.
Cache Pages for Faster Loading Times from Brightscape.
Giving Your Website an SEO Check-Up
Published January 31st, 2008 in SEO - 60 Comments
Search Engine Optimization is a common concern/priority when building a new website. However, it sometimes receives little attention after the site has been up and running for a while. For website owners and bloggers alike, it can be worthwhile to do a routine check-up on the SEO health of your site periodically. Here are 10 things you can do to help identify potential improvements that can lead to higher rankings and more search engine traffic.
1. Find and Fix Dead Links
Finding dead links on a website can be time-consuming and annoying if you try to do it manually. Dead-Links.com is a free online tool that will crawl your website and search for dead links. Once you know where the dead links are, you can easily correct them.
10 Realities of Designing Websites for Clients
Published January 30th, 2008 in Design - 17 Comments
As a designer, working for clients is much different than designing a site for yourself. There are obviously pros and cons, but here are ten things that I have found to be true.
1. No Two Clients are the Same
Some clients will know exactly what they want and they will expect you to create it precisely in that manner. Others will have no clue what they want and they’ll leave most decisions up to you. Some clients will be a pleasure to work with, others will make you want to pursue a different career. Each client will be unique and will present new challenges and present new opportunities.
23 Resources for Clean and Compressed CSS
Published January 28th, 2008 in CSS - 48 Comments
There are a number of free online tools that can help you to create and maintain effective CSS coding. These tools include validators, optimizers, compressors and more. Try out a few of these tools and see how they can help you to keep more efficient style sheets.
CSS TIDY
CSS Tidy is an open source CSS parser and optimizer from SourceForge. It is available as an executable file, and there is also an online version. CSS Tidy is often able to achieve a compression ration of 30% or more. In addition to compression, CSS Tidy can also format CSS code for higher browser compatibility.
