Design My Own Website

Archive for the ‘Design My Own Website’ Category

A lot of people want would love to build their own website.  Websites are still a very romantic vision, a place of ownership on the internet.  It’s almost like a stake of real estate.  However, many people do not know where to start.  There are a lot of facets but it really is not difficult when you decide, “Hey, I want to design my own website”.

Here are some key things to think about when building your own website.

1) Find A Good Web Design Software

While many people want to go out there and learn web design from scratch, including HTML, Javascript, and even some back end programming, this really is a lot to ask for a “normal” person.  I come from a computer science background so it might be easy for me, but this is my career.  If you ask the normal person to do it, it’s a lot.  This is why most people pay for web designers.

But in most cases, this is not necessary.

There are many WYSIWYG editors out there (What You See Is What You Get) which run on your laptop or computer.  Not to mention there are many web-based website builders (my favorite is WordPress!!).  These are good enough for about 80 to 90 percent of the sites out there.

2) Learn About Web Usability

Depending on the purpose of your site, you need to think about your users, not you.  It is similar to opening a store and avoiding sellings things YOU like and instead sell things your customers will like.  A huge mistake for website owners is to put too much of their ego into it.  It needs to be about your customers.  So imagine when you browse other people’s sites and think of the things that annoy you and the things that help you.

Often, simpler is better in the eyes of users and search engines.

My favorite web usability books: Web Pages That Suck and Son Of Web Pages That Suck

3) Learn HTML (and optionally Javascript)

Why do you need this if you have a software?  Well, it definitely helps if you want to tweak things or add them.  There are many free javascript goodies out there that allows you to add polls, guestbooks, and more to your site.  Not to mention many of the ways to monetize your site are in javascript form such as Google Adsense and Paypal buttons.

Knowing basic HTML is very helpful, and the more you know, the easier these type of tasks will be.

4) Link Your Pages To Each Other

Surprisingly, this is a very important step.  Not only for the people browsing your site so you can provide them with related pages on your website, but search engines like this also!

5) Learn Internet Marketing

Depending on the goal of your site, if it is to get a lot of visitors from search engines and from the general internet at large (versus say a private site): As more and more websites get on the web and more and more users are out there, it is becoming important to learn how to market your site.  This is a big mistake I made early on because I was just too old school and thought a good web design of a website was everything.

Consistent effort with internet marketing will get traffic to your website

You need to learn some basics of internet marketing and search engine optimization so that you can get your site found.  Designing your own website is not good enough in many cases any more.

A beautiful site which cannot be found really doesn’t matter now does it?

Hope these tips have been helpful as you consider how to build your own website.

One of my favorite web design authors is Jakob Nielsen.  He is quite old school and has some fantastic web design books like Designing Web Usability

It is as basic as considering web user psychology.  His stats indicated that, generall speaking, if after three seconds there was no feedback from the browser, then the user would click the “Back” button and go to the next site.

If the page did not fully load within 10 seconds, they would click that “Back” button.

In the old days of 56K modems, this meant that your page had to be under 100K (graphics and text included).  These days you can afford to have a few megabytes worth of web site.

The gist of it is: web user psychology is a whole new ball game.  People expect free and fast for most things.  So you need to design your website to give and give fast (even if you’re selling something!).

(Ever wonder why big flashy splash pages are shunned? Because it takes too long to loud and it gives the user NOTHING!  Just like a movie that has too many special effects just for the sake of special effects!!)

Today, people want instant results.

Web User Psychology: give it to me fast!

If your web design does not grab their attention immediately, they won’t stick around. And if your web site does not offer something of benefit, they won’t bookmark it and they won’t come back..

So, with that in mind, let’s discuss some practical ways to grab the attention of web site visitors.

Nothing Extraneous In Design

If it doesn’t provide value, don’t put it in.  Because it is extra content that must be downloaded.

Easy To Navigate

One of the most interesting things to do is film a user browsing your site.  Give them a list of tasks you’d want them to do and see how they do it.  Even when the web designer believes it is obvious, often times it is not.  Make it easy for the general public to navigate

web design 101: Do Not Make Your Site Hard To Navigate

Utilize Existing Convention

Many popular sites have helped put conventions into play.  Use them! Users have been trained.  Use these conventions because the less they think, they happier they are with your site.

An example: the use of menus and tabs on the top or on the side.  Thank you Amazon.  People expect to see their navigation in these areas.  So use that, why put it at the bottom ? The less you confuse your readers, the happier they are, the more they will like their site.

Make Your Point … Quickly!

Often times when you write something, you can rewrite it and delete half the text.

Make Them Want More.

This is important, because you want them to come back.  Continue to deliver just enough quality content.

A great way to get them to come back is to also incorporate a mailing list. Offer an incentive to join the mailing list.  This way they are in effect subscribing to your blog!  Then it is up to you to continue to deliver great content and a valuable service!

These are the basics when planning your online business or even just building your own website and designing your website presence. Now go use these and create a killer site for yourself!

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Many people look to learn how to design their own website because they want to start making money online.  internet marketing and designing websites for the most part go hand in hand.

There are a few stats floating out there when it comes to succeeding in business.  Many people will say 9 out of 10 businesses fail.  These are brick and mortar type businesses from people who make the sacrifice and take the plunge.

9 out of 10 businesses fail

I would probably add that it is something like 99 out of 100 internet markteting businesses fail.  Why?  Because it is much easier to get into internet marketing so more people will try it!

What is missing is that mindset: that entreprenurial mindset.

Here are today’s top five internet marketing mindset tips for success:

1. It is YOUR business.  Treat it as such.

This is your baby.  It’s not a 9 to 5 job for someone else.  This means you will have to put in a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of commitment to this.  Working at another company is like babysitting someone else’s baby.  This is your baby.  Don’t forget that.

2. Information overload!

Believe it or not there are MANY ways to make money with internet marketing and online businesses.  And even if you focus on one way, there are many methods to achieve that one way.  Because of this, as you are studying, it is very very easy to get distracted on the “next best thing”.  Experienced markters will tell you to “find that one thing that works and stick to it”.  Well, unfortunately it’s hard to know what is the one thing that works and it seems every day there is a new thing, a new e-book, a new course that pops up telling you how to do something.

Find something that makes sense to you, that you can do, and it is likely to work as there are many ways to succeed in internet marketing.  And if it doesn’t, then you can tweak it some more.

3. Beware the hype

As you start studying and educating yourself with making money online, you’ll find there are a lot of products out there.  If it sounds too good to be true, it is.  And beware of “invisible” sales pitches.  This means they leave out specifics on how to accomplish making money and simply say “just a few clicks” or “just copy and paste”.  And if they promise immediate five figure income, beware!

4. Patience, commitment

Just compare your online business to a brick and mortar store.  A regular business will take thousands of dollars in startup costs.  They may take three to five years to break even or make money.  The hype in internet marketing may make you impatient to be making money now since you hear so many stories about it.

Patience, Persistence, and Commitment Lead To Success

So just be patient.  It costs very little to run an internet marketing business online, and you are likely to make money much sooner than a brick and mortar store.  Give yourself a few years of persistent work at it before you toss in the towel on internet marketing.

5. Don’t give up your “day job” and work multiple streams of income.

Let’s say you are making $60K a year at your job.  Let’s say you just had a $5K month in internet marketing (which equates to a $60K annual salary).  I have been told (because I myself am not there yet) to remember not to give up your day job until you can make that type of income consistently for at least six months.  There are ups and downs in internet marketing.  Make sure you do not AVERAGE IT OUT either.  Make a minimum of $5K for six months straight.  Then you can think about it.

The internet is pretty funny and sometimes in the blink of an eye you may get a major portion of your income taken away.  Your affiliate accounts might get closed suddenly.  For exampe, Amazon closed all their California accounts with only a few days notice in response to a bill the governer just signed.  Another example: your Google adsense account might get banned suddenly and without warning also. This is why it’s important to have a variety of incoming revenue.  And this is why it’s important to be very cautious about the money you’re making before you do quit your job.

Hope this helps!  To your success in internet marketing!

I got this question from a potential client of mine.  She asked me “Well, what exactly is a web designer?”.

From designing my own websites and programming my own websites you’d think I would have a good answer.  Instead, I looked around the web for some answers just to see what other said.  I found this very good article with a lot of detail which I wanted to repost.

You can read the original here:

http://www.teradepot.com/web-2-0/what-is-a-web-designer-anyway/

Here is the article:

“What Is A Web Designer Anyway”

As a web designer, I get all kinds of requests , for information other than web design, and as a web designer I’m not suppose to really to be able to do things outside of the web design area. I believe there are a few misconceptions about what exactly a web designer does.

In this article I am going to nail down exactly what a web designer is and what they should be able to do. This article pertains to small business website designers and not to bigger businesses where they are looking for someone who specializes. First I’ll touch of the differences between a web designer and a web developer. A web designer is someone who creates the visual design and layout of a web page. A web developer is someone who does the behind-the-scenes programming of a website. For example a web developer creates the code for database websites.

Web designer’s definition:

For many businesses, the online web site presence is the last piece of the puzzle to success.

They give business organizations a web presence by building them a website. Web designers are professionals who organize information, create page layouts, while communicating the business’s information/opinions in a website. Web designer’s create another medium for the business to expand into. Creating a website enables the business to attract new customers, showcase its services products, and to do business across countries (as opposed to one location).

What things do web designer’s do?

That’s a really good question. It is definitely hard to nail down what every designer must do in order to call themselves a web designer. A good web designer should be able to do both the design and the development, unfortunately for you the consumer it doesn’t always work that way.

Your web designer must be able to perform the following:

::Understand and keep current will all new emerging technology

:: Layout web pages with HTML, XHTML, XML , and other programming languages

:: Program HTML (hand code), JavaScript and CSS

:: Translate your ideas, needs and expectations into a web page.

:: Design navigation elements (such as navigation bars)

::Create graphics in Photoshop or any other professional imaging software

:: Effectively participate in a web development team

:: Have an understanding on how to create Flash (authoring software used to create animation programs)

:: Understand and implement web standards

:: Have an understanding of Search Engine Optimization

:: Have a basic understanding of typography, graphics and color theory

:: Understand needs of users and of usability testing

:: Have ability to analyze a target market

:: Understanding of cross browser problems and how to fix them

A great web designer also has knowledge of coding languages such as:

:: C++

:: Python

:: Java

:: JavaScript

:: Cold fusion

:: SQL

:: PHP

Sometimes it might be difficult for a web designer to have all those different programming languages under their belt. It is like knowing English, French, Chinese and German. Quite complicated. The more languages they know the better. Well that should help you on your search for a good web designer!

Remember to check out the original here:

http://www.teradepot.com/web-2-0/what-is-a-web-designer-anyway/

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What good is a website if it does not get any traffic?  Did you know some of the websites that earn the most money actually look a bit crappy?  Why is this? Because internet marketing is the key.  You need traffic, and from there it’s a numbers game.  This article is a brief overview of internet marketing.

If your website doesn't get traffic, then what good is it?

When I first got into designing websites, I was pretty proud of myself for putting together very nifty websites.  Then I learned more about web usability and web psychology and it knocked me over.  (For more info on that, check “Web Pages That Suck“).  But then my clients started getting upset because they would say they would Google even their own names and nothing would come up.
The solution?

Internet marketing and SEO.

That is when I started becoming a student of internet marketing.

These days, I do not spend as much time with website design.  In fact many of my sites are build on WordPress.  Instead, I build very functional sites and spend the rest of my time on marketing.

That being said, there are so many internet marketing possibilities for promoting an online business. Following is a simple explanation of some of the most common ?internet marketing options that you can use to promote and get traffic to your website, blog, and online business.

Article Marketing

This is the most conmon way and is a convenient way, especially for bloggers or any other website that produces articles and blog posts on a regular basis.  What you do is take that blog post or article and then submit it to an article directory.  In the author resource box of that article, you then put a link back to your website.  This works great because when people read your article, they can then see the link to your website.  This works even better because search engines will also see links to your website and rank you higher.
The more article directories you submit to, the better.  Just to get you started, three of the best are: ezinearticles.com, buzzle.com, and goarticles.com

Forum Marketing

Consistent effort with internet marketing will get traffic to your website

There are likely many forums out there related to your online business. So why not be a contributing member?  Most forums let you put a link to your website in your signature and in your forum profile.  So you get backlinks to your site right away.  But in addition with your thoughtful posts, people are more likely to visit your website.
Directory Listings
Directories are a lot like search engines, only listings in the directories are managed and ranked by people rather than by automated, electronic means. Many directories ?accept directory listings free of charge, so they can be an inexpensive and effective form of internet marketing.  For search engines, you also are able to get additional backlinks but submitting your site to a directory.  Dmoz.org is the most popular.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a must for just about any business.  Why?  Because then you have access to your website visitors to come back.  If, for example, the search engines change their algorithms and you no longer appear on the front page, you have your mailing list to write to.  Think about it as repeat traffic.  What you do is when someone visits your website, get them to send you their email address. You then put them on your mailing list.  Most often you want to offer an incentive such as a free report or ebook for joining your mailing list.  From there, you need to make sure your mailing list provides a valuable service with great content and also plugs for helpful products.

Ezine Advertising

Ezine advertising, as an internet marketing option, is a lot like advertising in a magazine; only the “magazine” is delivered to subscribers electronically rather than through the mail. By placing an ad in an Ezine, many readers will become aware of your website.
Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing

Pay-per-click search engine marketing is one of the most successful forms of internet marketing. Basically, pay-per-click search engine advertising is a process whereby you bid on ?specific keywords that will direct targeted traffic to your website. Google Adwords is the most popular Pay-Per-Click marketing resource.  Have you ever searched for something in Google and saw ads appear?  Those are Google Adwords ads.  You target specific keywords and then you tell Google how much you can afford to pay.  They will figure out where and when to place your ads.  You do NOT pay until someone clicks on your ads.

Social Bookmarking

In the old days, people bookmarked websites they liked in their browsers.  Then came the idea of “Social bookmarking”.  These are websites which allow you to “bookmark online” so to speak.  So you can share your bookmarks with many other people.  This has now become a source for many internet marketers to add backlinks to their own websites.  There are many social bookmarking sites.  You should check out socialmarker.com as that is a semi-automated tool to let you post your website URL to many social bookmarking sites at once.

Those are six very tried and true ways to get traffic to your website.

So try some of these internet marketing tips. Just remember to put out consistent and constant effort and you will see your website traffic grow!

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