Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Build Websites Easier With Premade Templates

To most people the process of building a web site remains somewhat of a mystery. This confusion probably stems from the fact that there is a cornucopia of web sites on the Internet. Even with wide variety of sites, every single one can be divided into two sections: front-end and back-end.

The front-end is the first thing that it is designed. It encompasses the look and feel of a web site. This is probably the most established part of the web site production process. Design has been around since Gutenberg printed his first bible. Much of what has been used in print media (especially art magazines) has transferred to the web.

Most well thought out web sites start off with sketches on paper. We like using the big huge box of crayons, the one with the crayon sharpener built in. Most of the colors in the "big box" are pleasing to the eye and are web friendly. If you use begin paying attention to sites you'll notice that only a few colors are actually used, 256 to be exact. Only about 100 of those won't give you a headache when you look at them. On request we will give these early designs to a client that wants to control the look and feel of their site. The site, of course, never ends up looking like the early designs. The same idea and concept is there but because of restrictions colors and whole images are lost.

This brings us to the next part of the front-end, the actual site creation. This is what many people view as the most important, which is what separates a professional looking site from an amateur one.

The images are created using products from across the board. Mainly, designers stick to industry standards like Photoshop and Illustrator. After getting the basic image in terms of proportions and size the designer should create the static HTML page.

This is the basic page you would see if you viewed the page source. This is one of the most rewarding, most hated and most tedious part of the web design process. Each browser displays a page differently. Sometimes we build a different site for each, trying to maintain the same layout.

That concludes the front-end section. Personal sites and some small business sites stop here. While this maybe acceptable today, tomorrow any web site hoping to attract and keep visitors is going to have a strong back-end.

There are many sites and website designers that offer premade templates, these have the entire graphical layout that a page needs.

For those with little or no experience with website design software, templates have quickly become a practical solution to professional website design. Most of the top end sites offer a huge selection of very impressive, easy-to-edit website templates. All you have to do is check your email containing the link to download the .zip file. The html in these templates is compatible with Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft Frontpage. The major advantage is the price, they run anywhere from $20 to $70. Another great advantage is you don't have to hire a web designer, who usually takes 1 to 2 weeks to produce a page of such high quality. Webmasters, either novice or expert, can easily save thousands of dollars on design fees by using website templates.

Author of this article is Alex Marias.

There are also some exception sites, such as http://www.web-site-templates.org that provide packages of templates at one price, instead of providing a different price for each template.

Friday, September 21, 2007

42 Points to Make More Money With Adsense

1. Remember: Adsense doesn't make you money; traffic makes you money
2. Write posts that link to good content on higher-ranked sites in your niche. If your traffic is low, click on those links yourself - webmasters will take notice.
3. Post on forums in your niche and add your site to your signature
4. Submit articles to article directories
5. Use Technorati Tags
6. Submit your best articles to Digg and Del.icio.us
7. Comment on other blogs with similar themes to yours
8. Become a regular on several similarly-themed blogs you like
9. Use Google Sitemaps
10. Write about well-known people in your niche
11. Use a blogroll, but only add sites that you would really recommend. Less is more.
12. Read Gogsense
13. Remember: Good content + good advertising = traffic
14. Choose a niche you’re passionate about
15. Post/write an article/add content every day
16. Make your content unique and useful
17. Be timely: break news, comment on new information, become a valuable source of interesting new stuff
18. Be yourself. If you’re funny, be funny; if you’re not, don’t try to be. Be confident that your personality will draw like-minded readers.
19. If you can’t think of anything interesting to post about, find something interesting to post about.
20. If you can’t find anything interesting to post about, keep looking.
21. You just read something interesting that has nothing to do with your site’s theme. Find a way to make it relevant. Use it as an example or integrate it into a story. Use it.
22. Read Copyblogger, and Problogger
23. Remember: Traffic + Adsense = Money - So don’t get kicked out
24. Read the Adsense TOS and don’t break it
25. While you’re at it, read all the Adsense guides Google provides
26. Do NOT encourage readers to click Adsense ads
27. If you’re placing a picture specifically to subtly draw attention to Adsense Ads, make sure the ads are clearly distinguished from the image (borders or a line between the two)
28. If you’re unsure if your ads comply with the Adsense TOS, ask them for a review
29. Better yet, design your ad concept on a hidden page and have Google review it first
30. Remember: Traffic + Adsense optimization = More Money
31. Study the Google Heat map
32. Place site-relevant pictures near your ads
33. Color images are often better than black-and-white
34. Animations are lame
35. Integrate your ads with your site design
36. Place ads between blog posts
37. Place ads in blog posts
38. Consider borderless Adsense ads
39. Use wide ad formats
40. Be Patient: Time, trial and error are what you need to succeed
41. Give your Adsense implementation a few weeks (at least) before drawing any conclusions
42. Use channels. You are going to want to know which ads are being clicked and which aren't.

Web 2.0 Templates