Is It Easy to Create our own Website? What is HTML?

Is It Easy to Create our own Website? What is HTML?

Creating a website is not so much a feat, if we compare it to the
education of other technical skills. Most people tend to give up and
pack their bags as soon as they hear the word "programming" and
"technical". They think it`s too much of a hassle to actually learn a
whole computer "language". HTML, the most basic computer language in
building websites, is actually pretty simple to understand, as long as
we have the interest in learning new things.

What is HTML?

HTML is the acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. For learning
purposes, just think of it as a language that the computer
understands. For example, as humans, we were taught different
languages; i.e. HTML as a language, is mostly and specifically used to
create a website. The web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer
or Mozilla Firefox, will then decipher and interpret the code or
rather, language(HTML), and display it in a way we can understand it,
just like in a basic webpage.

Coding.

Coding the HTML language might be a bit tough for some people, so we
can actually purchase programmes, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, or
even Microsoft Frontpage. These programmes are solely created to help
individuals in designing professional webpages/websites.

Furthermore, one could also gain access to online web-builders,
website builders that are inbuilt and can be directly controlled from
the net. There are many different and specific builders online.

Books and magazines contain guides that can help in offering tutorials
and ways to put up our own websites. Even online tutorials are
credible, as in the modern world, information technology is the best
and most cost efficient way in retaining knowledge, especially in this
particular field.

So, you could start and build one right away. If you enjoy coding, it
might even become a favourable past-time.

--
Regards,

Jeyasithar R
(www.CO5.in)

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Why You Should Use Graphic Templates

Why You Should Use Graphic Templates

When it comes to graphics, most Internet marketers shy away from using
graphic templates whether it's ebook covers, website layouts or
promotional banners because they firmly believe that by using graphic
templates, they are tarnishing their own business. They want to own a
unique identity and hence will always find a professional graphic
designer to do the job. Well, you're in for a big surprise!

When you purchase a graphic template, you will be able to customize it
to an extent or even build a totally new design based on it! What's
the point of using the template then, you say? Well, it serves as a
source of inspiration and ideas for a totally new design. You can't
derive anything from a blank canvas, right?

On top of that, you are actually saving a lot of precious time that
you can otherwise spend on more important matters like developing new
products or market your products. When you buy a pre-made template,
you only need to edit a thing or two to give it an identity of your
own, and that gives you more time and flexibility to work on other
stuff.

Okay, let's say you argue that hiring a designer to do the job is
equally fast. That may be true but don't forget, hiring a professional
designer to do a custom design for you will cost you a lot of money.
Unless you need a totally unique identity that you are aiming to
establish firmly in your niche market, you don't need to get a
designer to design it for you.

Not all graphic templates are suitable, so you have to be careful when
choosing one. Consider quality over the price, and you're on your way
to creating a positive image for your business while saving more time
for more productive chores!

--
Regards,

Jeyasithar R
(www.CO5.in)

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Why Hire A Designer?

Why Hire A Designer?

A lot of online business owners start with no money. They have to do
everything themselves -- the preparation of a product, the development
of a marketing strategy, the actual building of a website to cater to
their product's marketing needs. As their business expands over time,
they will find that their simple "homemade" site might not be enough
to cover everything, and they will have to take a day or two away to
simply dedicate that to the website expansion.

Sounds familiar? Chances are, you're someone who started everything
with no money too, so you're pretty skeptical when it comes to giving
away your money in exchange for something that you could have done
yourself. However, there is a lot more to hiring a designer than just
finishing up a job that you don't want to do.

When you hire a web designer to do your job for you, you are doing
more than just handing over the "dirty job" to someone else. In fact,
by paying a little money, you can let the designer worry about the
little annoyances that always evade the main picture and only come
haunting when you're halfway through the job. That way, you will be
more focused and have more time to spend on your actual business
strategy.

On the other hand, the designers you hire a professionals so they are
good at what they do. By outsourcing your web design jobs to them, you
won't have to worry when problems surface because you can always get
them to fix it for you. Again, they will be able to pin point the
problem and fix it faster than you probably will be able to.

Also, the work you pay for will turn out more professional than what
you can achieve because the designers have been doing it longer than
you have. After all, they do it for a living so they have to be good!

So, remember to not just work your business, but grow your business too!

--
Regards,

Jeyasithar R
(www.CO5.in)

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Who Is Your Audience?

Who Is Your Audience?

Understanding the type of people who visit your site is a very
important task because you can use that information to enhance your
site to suit them. As a result, you will gain more loyal returning
visitors that come back again and again for more.

What is the age level and what kind of knowledge does your audience
have? A layman might linger around a general site on gardening, but a
professional botanist might turn his nose at the very same site.
Similarly, a regular person will leave a site filled with astronomy
abstracts but a well educated university graduate will find that site
interesting.

Take your audience's emotional state into consideration when building
your site. If a very irritated visitor searches for a solution and
comes across your site, you will want to make sure you offer the
solution right up front and sell or promote your product to him
second. In this way, the visitor will put his trust in you for
offering the solution to his problems and is more likely to buy your
product when you offer it to him after that.

When you design the layout for your site, you have to take into
account the characteristics of your audience. Are they old or young
people? Are they looking for trends or are they just looking for
information served without any icing on the cake? For example,
introducing a new, exciting game with a simple, straightforward black
text against white background page will definitely turn prospects
away. Make sure your design suits your site's general theme.

Try to sprinkle colloquial language in your sites sparingly where you
see fit and you will create a sense that your audience is on common
ground with you. This in turn builds a trusting relationship between
you and your audience, which will come in useful should you want to
market a product to your audience.

--
Regards,

Jeyasithar R
(www.CO5.in)

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When Is the Right Time to Redesign?

When Is the Right Time to Redesign?

If you run a website, chances are you often wonder whether it is the
right time to do a total redesign of the layout of your website. Here
are some points to consider:

Are you thinking of a redesign just for the sake of it? If you
answered yes to that question, it is not yet the right time to do a
redesign. Remember, a design serves a specific purpose. If you are not
sure whether to do an overhaul of your site, keep in mind that your
current design might have a specific purpose that you might not know
about. You will lose that function if you do a redesign.

On the other hand, if your website has had the same website design
since 1990, perhaps it is high time to do a redesign. The last thing
you would ever want to happen to your site is when visitors leave your
site without taking a look at your content just because the design is
old fashioned. If this is your case, here are some points to ponder
before doing a redesign.

Redesigning your website is like performing plastic surgery on it.
Your website loses its current identity (for the better or worse) and
your regular visitors might not recognise your new design at first
glance. You risk losing them just because they thought they landed on
the wrong page. Hence, it is very important that you retain a
characteristic feature from your old layout. Perhaps it is the logo of
your site; perhaps it is the same text style for the title for your
site.

To play it safe, put a poll on your site to let your visitors do the
talking. If they think it is necessary for the website to have a fresh
look, give it to them!

--
Regards,

Jeyasithar R
(www.CO5.in)

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Web Design Elements You Should Avoid Having on Your Site

Web Design Elements You Should Avoid Having on Your Site

As a web designer, you should design your websites to give your
visitors the greatest ease of use, the best impression and most
important of all a welcoming experience. It doesn't matter if you had
the greatest product in the whole world -- if your website is poorly
done you won't be able to sell even one copy of it because visitors
will be driven off your website by the lousy design.

When I'm talking about a "good design", I'm not only talking about a
good graphical design. A professional web design will be able to point
out that there are many components which contribute to a good website
design -- accessibility design, interface or layout design, user
experience design and of course the most straightforward, which is
graphic design.

Hence, I have highlighted some features of the worst web designs I've
come across. Hopefully, you will be able to compare that against your
own site as a checklist and if anything on your site fits the
criteria, you should know it's high time to take serious action!

1) Background music

Unless you are running a site which promotes a band, a CD or anything
related to music, I would really advise you to stay away from putting
looping background music onto your site. It might sound pleasant to
you at first, but imagine if you ran a big site with hundreds of pages
and everytime a visitor browses to another page on your site, the
background music starts playing again. If I were your visitor, I'd
just turn off my speakers or leave your site. Moreover, they just add
to the visitors burden when viewing your site -- users on dial up
connections will have to wait longer just to view your site as it is
meant to be viewed.

2) Extra large/small text size

As I said, there is more to web design than purely graphics -- user
accessibility is one big part of it too! You should design the text on
your site to be legible and reasonably sized to enable your visitors
to read it without straining their eyes. No matter how good the
content of your website or your sales copy is, if it's illegible you
won't be selling anything!

3) Popup windows

Popup windows are so blatantly used to display advertisements that in
my mind, 90% of popup windows are not worth my attention so I just
close them on instinct everytime each one manages to pass through my
popup blocker (yes, I do have one like many users out there!) and,
well, pops up on my screen. Imagine if you had a very important
message to convey and you put it in a popup window that gets killed
most of the time it appears on a visitor's screen. Your website loses
its function immediately!

In concluding this article, let me remind you that as a webmaster your
job is to make sure your website does what it's meant to do
effectively. Don't let some minor mistakes stop your site from
functioning optimally!

--
Regards,

Jeyasithar R
(www.CO5.in)

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