WhyYou Should Use HTML Web Templates?

Posted on July 2, 2008 | Filed Under Website Tips

By Sharon Housley

Web templates expedite the process of setting up a new website. The idea behind a web template is that it will save time with the creative design and layout process.

In the business world, time is money; hence, using templates can save money. It can be a challenge to find a web designer for hire, and quite often the designer’s schedule will not always mesh with the needs of a small business. Time rarely controls a web graphic designer. Artists are, well, artistic, and don’t necessarily work by the clock. Instead, they work when inspiration strikes, which can be problematic when there are deadlines to meet. Templates are ready-made, and can be easily edited, allowing you to instantly create a website.

In addition, webmasters that may lack adequate graphic or design skills can quickly and easily create a website themselves, simply by editing and customizing the existing HTML layout in a web template. And locating a themed web template takes far less time than attempting to create a layout and graphics from scratch. Web templates also remove any coding issues. This is especially helpful to webmasters who are just starting out and just learning HTML coding.

The bottom line is that webmasters who use web templates will have their websites up and running much quicker.

Where To Find Webmaster Templates?

Locating a web template that meets your business or personal needs doesn’t have to be difficult. There are online directories and galleries, most of which are categorized into themes or by industries. For example, a variety of themed and generic templates can be found at Webmaster Templates: http://www.webmaster-templates.net .

Other web templates can be found HTML Templates Sources - http://www.small-business-software.net/html-web-templates.htm .

What Is A Good Template, And What Is Not?

Differentiating between a good template and a not-so-good template can be difficult for an amateur. A beginner should have no issues editing the basic HTML layout, but some of the more complex graphic templates and web designs can be difficult for a novice to manipulate. If you are a beginner, stick with HTML-based templates, which can be edited with a common HTML editor, until you get the hang of web design.

How Can Templates Be Edited?

It depends on the format of the web template, but in most cases the web templates available online can be edited using common HTML editors such as DreamWeaver, FrontPage, or Web Express. The graphics can be edited in any type of imaging application such as PaintShop Pro, Gimp, or PhotoShop. Some templates will also use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to control and standardize things like font sizes and colors across all web pages. These CSS files can be edited using a CSS editor like TopStyle.

What Should I Look For In A Ready-Made Web Template?

Web templates should be editable in any HTML editor.

What Am I Allowed And Not Allowed To Do With The Templates?

Different templates are licensed for different purposes and with different restrictions. You must carefully read the licensing agreement on the template’s website to determine how the template can be used. Most licenses allow templates to be modified and customized. Some licenses stipulate that the templates are for personal use only, and not for commercial use, so be careful there.

Web templates offer webmasters a great opportunity to minimize development time and get new sites on the web sooner rather than later. The structure of web templates allow webmasters to focus on the proprietary content development, and optimizing the website for search engines, rather than struggling with layout and graphics.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

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Take Website Usability to the Next Level

Posted on June 10, 2008 | Filed Under Business Management, Online Marketing, Website Tips

By Sharon Housley

Website usability is more than just a good navigational structure. A large number of people have visual or hearing disabilities, so you should design your website in ways that allow those with either minor or significant impairments to view and navigate your web content. The following tips will help expand your website’s usability so that all users, regardless of their sensory perception and abilities, are able to take advantage of your web content…

1. Images

Include “alt text” for any images on a webpage. The alt text should accurately describe the image. The visually impaired will often use screen readers to discern what the images are, and their screen reader will read the alt text and tell them what the image is.
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Creating Keyword Rich Backlinks

Posted on June 5, 2008 | Filed Under Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Traffic Generation, Website Tips

It is, as it always has been the holy grail on online marketing:
links! There are many different ways to get links to your site: link
exchanges, certain services, blog commenting, articles and on and on.
Fortunately, most people skip over the easiest (and cheapest) way to
generate high quality backlinks to your site - tell your readers how
to link to you by creating a ‘Link To Us’ page

Why have a ‘Link To Us’ page? There are 2
reasons: you get to suggest to your visitors that they link to you -
suggestion is a powerful tool - and because you can suggest they use
the keywords you are looking to rank high for in the search engines.
Will everyone link to you? Some will, some won’t. You’re looking for
the ones who do and those who use your suggestions will help you with
your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Plus, there are a lot of people on the internet who
are not html savy. By providing code to copy and paste, you make sure
their links will be valid. Broken links don’t count, but all valid
links do. And if you only get a few more links by having this page on
your site, then it’s worth the effort.

A ‘Link To Us’ page should include a variety of icons, banners,
thumbnail images and especially text links. Give directions to the
lowest common denominator, so don’t be afraid of saying “right-click
to save images locally and the upload to your web server”. Put the
text links in a textarea input tag so the resulting page displays the
HTML you want them to copy and not the link. This also makes it easy
for people to copy and paste.

You then put a link to this page on a fairly prominent
place on your website, so everyone who visits will get the suggestion
to link to your site and that you make it easy to do so. Both of these
will make it much more likely you will generate links with the
keywords you want. It ends up being a win-win for everyone.
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Sitepoint.com gives away their Photoshop Book

Posted on May 15, 2008 | Filed Under Marketing Downloads, Website Tips

Looks like Sitepoint is working to increase the subscriber base they currently have.

They have decided to give away the Photoshop book they publish. If you have never order a Sitepoint product, well, they’re great. So when they decide to give one away you jump at the chance. It’s only available for the next 30 days, you don’t need to subscribe to a newsletter.

Here’s the link: http://www.sitepoint.com/launch/f948f3

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Web Log Analysis

Posted on February 21, 2008 | Filed Under Business Management, Internet Trends, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Traffic Generation, Website Tips

By Sharon Housley

Everyone who understands Internet Marketing will tell you to analyze your web logs… but what does that really mean? What particular things should you pay attention to when analyzing your web logs?

Errors - Page Not Found

How many visitors to your site experience an incorrect or invalid URL? Perhaps you have links on your website to a page that no longer exists. Reviewing the number of “page not found” listings in your web logs will help discern if you have any pages that are not accessible to your visitors. If that is the case, you can then either replace the missing page, or implement a system to automatically redirect the visitor to an appropriate alternate page.

Top Referrers

Where is your traffic coming from? Reviewing the sources of web traffic allows you to assess what advertising campaigns have resulted in increased web traffic.
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