HTML Tutorial 5 – Links & Menu Bars – Website Design Tutorial
In this HTML website design tutorial I will teach you how to add links to text and images. I will also show you how to make a very simple menu bar using text style.
Difficulty Level:
Medium/Intermediate
If you have any problems or need help with any of this tutorial please leave a comment below or message me on YouTube.
Duration : 0:6:57
When structuring a large web site designers often make the navigation too shallow or too deep?
When structuring a large web site designers often make the navigation too shallow or too deep. what is meant by the terms “shallow” and “deep” in this context.
Where the navigation sits relative to the hierarchical structure of their website. Compare Google.com with Yahoo.com. In Google’s home page there very little navigation, but yet there are thousands of pages you could visit. Yahoo has much shallower navigation.
How Do you Choose a Web Designer?
Its evolution. Simply put, every business needs a web site, for several reasons. If you are asking this question, you already know your business will need a web site, or it needs a new web site. Now it’s time to find the designer.
Before you even go looking for a web designer, sit down and determine what you need, what you want, and what you can afford. You know what kind of business you have (or will have) and you know what you what to offer people from your web site. Determine if you need a brochure site to promote your business or an e-commerce site to sell your products, and what types of add-ons you want (blog, newsletter, user accounts, forums, podcast, audio/video, Flash). The more you need + the more you want = the more it will cost.
Next you need to determine if you want to use a local company or designer or if you are okay with global pros working on your project. Both have benefits.
Local
You can go into the office with your notes jotted down and meet with a real liver person to discuss what you need and find out what they can do and have done. If they have a local office, it means they have been around for awhile and will likely remain. You can check credentials and Better Business Bureau lists to ensure they are professional. But they are likely to charge more as it costs a lot to run an office. They may also only work with larger budgeted sites.
Global
No limits. You can find a web designer anywhere in the world. And the costs can vary widely from super cheap to extremely pricey. You can go for a large company or a single person. But be careful, sometimes not everything is as it seems. You may find yourself dealing with a 1 man operation when you thought you were dealing with a large corporation. When choosing a global pro, be sure to look at everything they have done and ask as many questions as you can to determine the legitimacy. Make sure you know who they are and what they can do with you.
Once you know what you are looking for, it is time to begin your search. Go to Google or your favorite search engine and do a search for what you need. Do not go with the very first result. click on every listing for the first few pages so you get a good feel for these types of sites.
First Impression
Once you have seen them all, narrow your search by choosing the ones whose sites you liked best. This is important because if you are unhappy th the site they use, you may not be happy with the site they give you.
Professional
After narrowing it down, investigate the sites. Go through every page, make sure everything works and there are no obvious typos. If they are thorough and professional about their own site, they will be with yours.
Portfolio
Make sure they have a portfolio and client list available on their site, and make sure it is current. If the portfolio looks like it has not been updated in years, the company may no longer exist. Check all the sites they have done to ensure they are professional, and make sure they have some designs you like.
Qualifications
After looking through the portfolio make sure there are sites in the portfolio or client list that they have done sites that have the same features you need on your site. If they have never done anything like what you need, it may be because no one asked, but more likely because it is not something they can do.
Contact
All companies provide you with ways to contact them. With global pro’s there is not always a brick and mortar office, so contact will usually be via email. This is fine, but it is always better when a company provides a phone number as well. You may never call, but it is always good to know there is a number incase you need it. When you do contact a company, ensure they respond to you in a timely manner. Waiting 2 or 3 business days is not acceptable. If they make you wait on the initial contact, image how long you would wait when working with them.
RFQ
Every company should offer you a free request for quote. Send an email to several companies outlining what you need, and what you want. You may want to keep your project budget under wraps until you hear back from the quotes. you may be shocked at the quotes, or you may be pleasantly surprised.
Once you have a few quotes in you can see what the budget looks like and you can now determine who to work with. Determine who has the best sites, can do the most, and do it for the best price.
Once you have that, your ready to roll on your new site.
Feling informed? Get your free quote from Creative Compulsions today.
Myles O\’Reilly
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/how-do-you-choose-a-web-designer-102891.html
I want to build a professional looking web-site for my photography business. Where should I start?
I know what I want my layout to look like but I know very little about how a website is built or how it works. Should I hire a web-site designer? How can I get the most professional look for my money?
Yes, you definitely should start by getting a web host. Read http://hostingtopic.com/what/e-commerce-hosting/ for the right steps to take.
If you just want to quickly build an ecommerce site without the hassle of getting designer, shopping cart developer etc, try one of the best packages at http://www.bestecommercehosting.org
Good luck.
5 Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Web Designer
Choosing a web designer has grown to be very difficult. You can find all kind of types, prices, skills, and abilities. Everyone who can’t design their own website should seek professional help, but here are 5 mistakes to avoid when choosing your designer.
1. Choosing a designer who suggest flash intro pages or a ton of flash
I like flash websites. They are pretty, do cool things, and usually are very visually-stimulating, but this doesn’t work for anyone unless you are as big as, Coca-Cola, or you have $1 Million budget just for website promotion. Since most businesses don’t have budgets that big over even a 10-year span, you need a site that helps drive traffic for free.
A flash site can’t be read by search engine robots (the things that crawl your site and return what is on your site). These robots can only read html text in the form of titles, alternative text, body copy, and other elements that are not part of flash. In the end, flash is like one big picture on your site. It may look good, but that is all the search engines see it as.
2. Choose a designer that suggests you use frames
Once again, this is a search engine issue. Frames can hamper the search engine’s ability to follow your site, its navigation, and ultimately what you are all about. This is a good place to explain why search engines need to be able to figure out your site.
When a search engine crawls your site, it gets indexed along with all of your content. Then the search engine plugs your site into its extensive database, and when people conduct searches, your site gets inserted. Now there is a lot more to this topic, in fact an entire industry has spawned from this, but in a nut shell, you want it to be as easy as possible for search engines to find out what your site is about, and find your keywords as often as possible. If your designer wants to use frames, it is usually safe to bet that they will not be very good at setting your site up for good search engine optimization!
3. Use a template for your site
There are many great template sites available. Usually, you can purchase a template for under a $100. The biggest problem with using templates is the lack of consistency and branding. I worked with a fairly large company that should have employed a professional designer to build a site that carried their brand, but instead they used a template that was a far cry from anything consistent. You may save money by buying a template, but the money you will have to spend to compensate for lack of consistency will far outweigh the savings.
Another reason for avoiding templates is bulky images and flash. For one, you usually get a flash header or intro that is resource-heavy, and then you get stuck with a bunch of images for navigation, headers, and other important areas. As stated earlier, this will hinder your search engine rankings. You don’t want to have to pay for every visitor, so avoid simple mistakes on the front end.
4. Use a part-time designer
I have nothing against people that have two jobs or trying to make ends meet doing design part time. The problem with this situation as a client is time. When you deal with a part-time designer, they usually have an issue with finding the time. They have a main job that takes up their time 40+ hours a week, so they have to find time around that for your site. This usually means they will work on it on the weekends, at night for an hour or two, or some other random time. This drags out the time to complete your site. Instead of completing your project in 2 weeks, it takes 2 months or longer! When you work with someone that designs and develops full time, you get more time commitment, which means quicker completion.
5. Use your friend’s cousin’s friend from the gym to design your site
I have encountered many clients that started out working with someone they knew, but really didn’t know. Usually it is a friend of a friend or some other distant relationship that says they save them the client money. If the job gets done, because many times it never gets done, it takes a long time and the quality is sub-par. I am not shooting down the referral system, because I do very well with referrals, but you should do some homework on the referral before you jump into it. When someone says they can design a site for 1/6 of the cost you can get it anywhere, usually it is 1/6 of the quality and takes 6 times as long to complete. Get your referrals, but ask for more information. Don’t take everyone else’ word for it!
There are more mistakes that you should avoid when choosing a web designer, but these 5 are major issues to avoid. In today’s market, your website must be professional and useful. It needs to contain the proper SEO elements, and should be consistent with the rest of your marketing activities. In fact, in many instances, the web site should be the center of your marketing plans, so don’t try to go too cheap or too quick for the sake of getting a website up. Talk to a professional that can assist you through the process!
Nate Stockard
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/5-mistakes-to-avoid-when-choosing-a-web-designer-728213.html
Where can I find a good Web Site Designer?
Go to Go Daddy.com. You can do it yourself….it has great templates and is easy to navigate. I did my own. You can check it out at www.deepbluewatertexas.com
I need web site for designer fabric for home decoration with outlet pricing?
I know. There was a place in Branson, Missouri for years called Carolina Mills Outlet that sold Leslie Faye, Laura Ashley, etc. I can’t seem to locate any type of outlet anymore.
What’s the best free web site designer available?
I am guessing NVU (http://www.nvu.com/) it is an open source (free) designer that has html and WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface which means you do not need technical experience and it is a rival to Front Page
Good web site designer?
I’m looking to have my own web site for my business (it shall be an e-commerce web site, I guess). I’ve researched plenty and all the prices of web site designer are no lower than $1000. Is there any web site designer out there that makes nice websites but it doesn’t cost so much? I know my html and such. I just really don’t have the time to dedicate to making a website. Thanks!
There is a site called prostores which provides ecommerce service that I’ve worked with before on designing a layout for another business. My website and portfolio can be found at http://www.cardboardmonet.com.
The fact that I wouldn’t be designing the ecommerce code myself would make it so the quote is less then $1000, not like what another member suggested means I’m "not to be trusted".
For more information on myself and my company, check out the link above.
HTML Tutorial 6 – Putting Your Website Online – Website Design Tutorial
In this HTML website design coding tutorial I will teach you how to place your very own webpage/website online totally free. This is using WebNG:
http://cp.webng.com/register.aspx?gun=67379&yoni=digiplay
Difficulty Level:
Medium/Intermediate
If you have any problems or need help with any of this tutorial please leave a comment below or message me on YouTube.
Duration : 0:3:46