Scott Lindsay's Articles in Website Design

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Web Development And Full Integration ‘Fully integrated’ is a term used to describes websites that are progressive enough to include virtually every form of online media in their web presence. If you look at sites like Yahoo, Forbes and virtually any of the major television network sites you can gain some idea of what I am taking about. These sites contain either news of blog information. They also contain original video streaming sources and audio streams including podcasts. These sites tend to subscribe ... Web Design And John Q. Public When using web builder technology to develop your website it is important to know that the advancement of the site is based on the intuitive choices available that can help you expand the primary areas you select for your website. Most sites have from one to five separate primary areas that branch from the home page. These areas deal with the key functions of the business. They can include Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Us, and the Store. This area can also inc... Web Development And The Site Review Every online business owner wants to ensure that his or her web development objectives are on target. Web development includes Search engine optimization and appropriate use of keywords. One of the ways many individuals are helping develop their website is by utilizing reputable site review sites. Interestingly there is even a site review that reviews other site review sites. Let me seek to demystify what I am talking about. When you have worked to put all the finishing... Web Design For The Do-it-yourselfer Many potential online business owners want to develop a powerful website that is a blending of their own personality and a potent visual presentation that will be attractive to visitors. Interestingly, these same business developers often have very little in the way of solid direction for their site. They know they want to sell products to customers, but may not be sure how to translate that desire into a web design. This is where a web designer can come into the picture t... Web Design – Skip Intro There are two words that I come across on the web that tend to draw the same internal response as a telemarketer phone call at supper time or spam email. The two words in question tend to be a distraction to me on a very personal level and often make me feel like I am wasting my time. Skip Intro This little notice shows up on sites that include flash and video elements when you access their opening page. It doesn’t matter how many times you go to their page you must sti... Web Design Simplicity And Focus Web design can be a bit like being handed a box of watch parts with the instruction manual that reads, “Put contents together completely.” You turn the instructions over looking for more information, but come back to the singular line, “Put contents together completely.” No matter how long you try to put the watch together you will find it virtually impossible without step-by-step instructions. Unlike a manual for a watch, web design can be constructed in a variety o... Web Design And Marketing Language How effective is marketing in site design? Well, let me share an ‘off site’ story. A blind man was sitting on a street corner and a sign had been placed before the man that read, “I’m blind, please help.” In front of the sign was a hat with a few coins shared by those passing by. A marketing guru was walking by and noticed the man sitting there. She spoke a few words to the man and tossed in a few coins. Then she took the sign turned it over and wrote something on the b... Web Design – The Jitterbug Approach The term jitterbug brings to mind a specific dance or dancer, but it also brings to mind someone who has a zest for life and enjoys the simple things life has to offer. There is a new cell phone company that caters to baby boomers who may have a zest for life, but enjoy an acute sense of simplicity. It may come as no surprise to learn that this company is called Jitterbug. Their cell phones have a simplified approach that makes it easy for the end user. You won’t find a... Web Design – Free Development Tool When working on your web design you want to make sure your ecommerce business logo is a positive reflection of the work that has gone into building your site. For some online stores there is a limited supply of financial resources from which to draw for a new logo or business graphic. I recently stumbled across a service on the web that can provide free logos for use in any kind of application. You may wish to have a banner ad designed, a logo, a button or creative elem... Web Design – How Confident Are You? How much confidence does your business website project? Do customers view you as confident enough to consider trusting you? There is a danger in being either too confident or exuding a lack of confidence. Some sites can come across as too brash and frighten customers away. This type of site is generally reflective of high-pressure sales tactics often used in face-to-face sales efforts. Some sites can be too timid. They have some information, but there is never a ca... Web Design – Mashed Integration The ability to develop your online business presence may depend a great deal on your ability to blend technologies. The integration of multiple software applications may be beneficial to the development of your business. Social networks like MySpace utilize a variety of imported codes to allow their users to show videos, allow audio to be played on their page or even provide a slide show of photos from a particular event. This site grew to prominence because it develope... Web Design – Kick The Tires Website design is a purely personal expression. When you work with a designer you are attempting to pass along your vision for the website in the hopes that they can capture that vision and bring it to life. Often what you get doesn’t really coincide with your vision, but it’s a website so you may not get too upset. Often the process of wed design is a bit like attempting to reinvent the wheel. Sure, it may be a rather unique wheel with lots of technical gadgets, but the t... Web Design – You Are Replaceable And That Should Make You Happy In the past there was always a fear that automation would replace (or displace) honest, hard-working citizens. While this may happen, there is reason to look at automation as an ally in online business. If you were to conduct an online search you would likely find businesses that rely on personal contact, personal check and other hands on details as the only means of facilitating a sale. I have encountered a few in recent days and this always has the feeling of being ei... Web Branding – Bottled Rainforest Have you ever been around a poet that knows so much poetry by heart that they annoy you every time the subject of poetry comes up? They are passionate about their love for poetry and are emotional as they explain the complexity of the poems they recite. Certainly you have heard techno-geeks spouting off the specifications for the latest computer gadget, software program of external device. They know computers and computer language seeps from them unbidden. These people... Web Design – Using The Family Tree When it comes time to work on a web design you should work to develop the site before you actually develop the site. What I mean by that is try to map out what you are wanting in your website and how everything should break down logically. Think of it like a family tree. Each branch is the father, mother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandma or grandpa in the tree. There is a logical pattern to the tree as it branches from one generation to the next. When you view a famil... Web Design - How Important Is The Designer? Do you remember when developing a website was the stuff of an elite core of techno-geeks who understood a language called html? Other computer languages have been added to the mix, which has placed the personal development of a website among the stuff of myths and legends. It can seem almost too good to be true when you hear that it may be possible to develop a website even if you have had no previous skills at website development. If you have ever worked with word proc... Web Design: Appealing To The Hunter On an early fall morning a hunter quietly makes his way through the vegetation as he follows the trail of deer. He recognizes the signs and knows that if he is quiet enough he may see one of the elegant beasts. He passed some fine specimen of sagebrush along the way and even a few particularly nice cedar trees, but his mind was on his prey not the particular varieties of flora he encountered. Website Hunting Believe it or not the scenario above is very similar to the wa... Web Design: Content Procurement There is a debate among web design experts as to who is responsible for procuring content for the website. Many professionals want the content to be the responsibility of the site owner. The reasoning is simple – the site owner should have a better understanding of the site products or services than the web designer. The other side to the argument is that the web designer needs to assist the site owner in obtaining original knowledge-based articles to compliment the site. ... Web Design: Give Me Bullets Did you know there is an essential difference between the way web designers look at the way they design a web page and the way the consumer evaluates the effectiveness of a web design. Comparisons * Web Designer: Interested in every subtle nuance of color, graphic and texture. * Consumer: Interested in how fast the page loads. * Web Designer: Includes links throughout the design for a variety of locations within the web design. * Consumer: Clicks on the first prom... Under Development: Low-cost Site Progress Developing content for a website can seem a bit intimidating. However, one of the easiest ways to get started is to simply get started. If you are developing your website through a template-based web host you can develop the bare bones of the site and finesse as you go. What this may look like is a 2-4 paragraph home page with a few additional pages that may say “Under Development”. While I have always recommended research and planning ahead of time, sometimes a reasona... The Upside Down World Of Web Branding Some of the best ideas for web branding defy logic. For instance, if you were to develop an ecommerce site you might well seek to establish your business name as the primary branding feature. What if your business name is less important than you think? Developing a catchy slogan seems to be an important step in branding? What if your site visitor is mostly interest in what you do or what you have to offer? In some ways the best ideas for web branding turn the tables of ... Initial Impact: Price And Performance How important is your website design? It could be you have a very specific look and feel in mind for your website and that vision can only be forged by a master web designer. But what if you have an ecommerce store you’d like to open and you require a simple, yet customizable web hosting and design solution? What if you want a professional look, but have a limited budget? For those just starting their journey into web-based business the notion of paying a few thousand d... Web Branding Letting Your Humanity Shine Through It wasn’t so long ago that advertising was mostly filled with unrealistic scenarios that attempted to convince the buying public that a better life was available if they were just willing to purchase a product. You could be better looking, have a better home, enjoy greater friendships and never gain weight if you simply used an advertised product. Of course this was never stated, but was often inferred. This type of advertising is less prevalent today. The question may be ... Ecommerce: Naming The Solutions The world of ecommerce is filled with fascinating technology and significant possibility. The move from a brick and mortar store to online sales may feel like being exported to a foreign country. You may not understand every issue involved in developing a winning website, but you CAN adapt. The end result may well be a long-term business opportunity derived from a worldwide customer base. I’d like to touch on just a few of the tools available to online marketers. Search... Video Streaming: Three Methods – One Choice If you’ve visited websites with video streaming you will likely find there are three separate means of accessing the video presentation. These three methods rely on separate technologies to accomplish a similar goal, but each method has a slightly different effect on your prospect. 1) Progressive Download This method provides a combination of methods to present your video stream. It downloads the video file, but can begin to play the video before it is fully downloaded.... Website Development On Your Own Terms The early days of web development saw a relatively small handful of ‘experts’ and had them seeking to find ways to make a website do what their client wanted them to do. There was very little standardized methods to make website development an easy process and each site may have been designed with customized programming that may have been totally incompatible with any other site. When the number of programmers raised from a few hundred to more than 30,000 it became much cl... Website Basics: Taking Your Templature The use of template designs in website creation can be an important way to speed up the process while maintaining a quality website design. This can be accomplished at a fraction of the cost of ‘reinventing the wheel’ of site design. One of the myths of site design is that it needs to be 100% unique. The truth is a template can generally be customized in such a way as to be perceived as something altogether new. Site design can borrow from the successes of today’s site ... The Basics Of Web Design: Gimmicks Don’t Sell Some website developers make the mistake of believing their visitors are stupid. Now, they may not say it directly, but they allow visitors to come to that conclusion every day. Some ecommerce websites want your business so badly they reprogram the back button on their site to bring pop-up advertisements to your screen without actually sending you to a previous page. In most cases you need to eliminate the page completely and start your Internet program again just to have ... Ecommerce Basics: Three Things To Avoid When you decide to put your ecommerce website together there are a few mistakes that are easy to make, yet easy to avoid. While the list is rather lengthy we will look at three of the most important. 1. Contact Us Because of the instantaneous nature of the Internet it is important to place relevant contact information either on each individual page or have one easy link from each page to your contact information. It may be important to utilize a call service and i... Ecommerce: Profit In Data Feeds? You’ve been to a shopping engine online. You know the kind, a place where you can do comparison-shopping online before you actually make a buying decision. If you are a netrepreneur you may wonder if it is even possible to have your product considered for price comparison sites like, Yahoo Shopping, Shopzilla NexTag, Shopping.com, Froogle and PriceGrabber. It is possible, but your inclusion into the world of online price comparisons relies on significant work from yo... Ecommerce: Stress Reduction Certainly it’s important to plan and prepare for an online marketplace. It’s important to learn what you can about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, traffic building, ezine publishing, RSS, blogging, PPC and other marketing methods. The point of balance in ecommerce is there doesn’t need to be an incredible amount of stress associated with the development of an online store. It is possible to locate a one-stop ecommerce solution that can get you started on the r... Web Design: A Three Second Impression "We find that Web sites have three seconds to make an impression." - Jeff Rosenblum, Questus According to a 2005 report on holiday shopping conducted by Questus, it was web design and function that held the most meaning to online visitors. Roger Park in a report based on those findings said, “70 percent of online shoppers consider web design as a key role in 2005 online holiday spending.” The report went on to say, “Over 30 percent of online shoppers cited navigation, t... Website Design: Welcome The White Space Individuals who are new to website development will often compartmentalize the web page and fill every available space with either text or graphics. After all, why shouldn’t you maximize the site design by including as much information as possible? There seems to be an underlying fear that if there is ‘white space’ the website will look incomplete. The term white space is a common term in publishing. For instance when a newspaper is developing an advertisement they will se... Ecommerce Site Design: Tell Me What You Really Think Site design is a primary determinant in online shopping. If your site looks dated or relies on inferior site design methodology it may be the reason your sales have not grown. Perhaps existing customers are used to the site, but what about new prospects? What impression do they have of your site? What would compel them to come back? Take some time to research your competitor's websites. What seems to work on their site? What have they done really well? How does this inform... Ecommerce: Have Cart - Will Shop In order for you to sell products or services online you will need a shopping cart application to facilitate ecommerce. While your customers simply want a way to make a purchase if they are interested in your product you will have already considered tough choices. For Instance... If you want a full solution for invoicing, statements, receipts and company financial history there are solutions that cover all of this with an application for a shopping cart that is tied to ... Hidden Html And The Keywords They Love If you have a website that is not performing well it is possible that you have selected keywords or phrases that are too general. When you choose an all-encompassing keyword or phrase you have to understand there is significant competition for the same broad term. To set your website apart you may need to look into the possibility of become much more specific about describing your product in keyword phrasing. For instance if you sell sweatshirts, you may want to choose ... Developing A Business Forum: Focus And Function “Communication--the human connection--is the key to personal and career success.” - Paul J. Meyer It doesn’t take long to discover the incredible diversity in online forums. Some forums are saturated in Google Adsense and other advertising banners. Some are virtually ad-free. Many private forums are visited because they are very welcoming and you gain a positive sense of community when you visit. Another style of forum that is routinely visited is ones that seem to foll... Disturbing Web Trends: Ugliness Sells? Isn’t it annoying when your online competitor gets more traffic and makes more sales than you do even though their website is ugly? Your website is stunning so how can this happen? Well, it’s not necessarily the beauty of a site that sells. There is a disturbing web trend that seems to indicate that “ugliness sells”. Is it really the ugliness that sells? Not quite. Let’s make it clear: you don’t need the most wonderful website ever to make people trust you. You don’t ne... Go For Keywords-Add Value To Your Website! So, what are keywords anyway? Little wonders if you really want to know. They are as important for the success of your website as the advertising and other promotional means. No keywords, no SERP. Linking strategy is probably the most important SEO technique, but keywords follow closely. As a mater of fact, you could exchange as many links as you wish, but, without content, your website has no real value. Without keywords your website cannot be found. People use keywords t... Designing For Web Browsers Web design is always a challenge: new web browsers make website owners to turn to web designers to redesign their web pages; different web browsers display websites in different ways, leading to the same problem: redesign. This is costly, needs time and if the job is not done right, the release of a new web browser may lead to the same trouble. Moreover: a non-standard-compliant website is not a user friendly website (obviously!) and it might damage your business, by driving ... Web Design And Navigation As people “browse” the Web, they “land” on a page and “navigate” on a website. To find their way around they need a “navigation” system. Navigation is as important for web design as for a real life drive: when you drive on a new road you want to see clear marked destinations, exits and parking lots. You want to know where you are and where you go. So do your visitors. Fail to provide a clear road map and they will go back to where they came from. Navigation should be clear an... Writing Web Content Professional writers find it hard to read web content. Not because web content lacks quality, but because it lacks literary style. Obviously writing for the printed media and writing for the web are two different matters. There are not too many people ready to give up the morning newspaper for the, let’s say, “morning e-zine”, but more and more users browse the web looking for information, news and entertainment. It’s easier to follow a story in the printed media than onli... Web Design – Is It An Art? Web design is an art. There’s no question about that. The question is: how many websites designed by real web designers are out there? With the amount of crap that purely invades the Internet and suffocates the users nowadays, there are serious reasons to doubt that web design is an art in its own right. So called web designers create terrible made for AdSense sites, or those awful personal pages that have nothing to say. But the Internet is a World and you should expect t... Web Design And The Psychology Of Colors Web design is not an easy task, especially if what you need is to create a business website in plain HTML, with a very simple layout, easy to navigate, fast loading and, above all, distinctive. To reach this purpose web designers don’t have too many options. Typically all they can do is blend colors harmoniously to create an appealing website that combines attributes of simplicity and logic while providing valuable content. It is therefore important for any designer to kno... Building A Successful Website In 10 Easy Steps So why do you want a website? Would you like to create a personal page to tell the world who you are and what you dream for? Or maybe you have a large family, with members living in different parts of the world and you’d like to keep the family together at least online. What about making a living online or promoting your business? No matter the reasons, here are a few tips that will help you create a professional website. 1. Design a website focused on a particular topic a... The Basics Of Website Design When you are on the Internet, you cruise websites for certain kinds of information. You may know of a website that you are familiar with, or you may have to type in a keyword, to find the website that you need. No matter what website you find, the premise is the same, you find information on it and your browser displays this information. How does your browser know what to display? It goes by code. Your browser was created to recognize HTML (HyperText Markup Language). This is... SEO For Flash Websites-is It Possible? If there is one tool to create astonishing websites, that’s Macromedia Flash. However, it is not that easy to learn and is difficult to use. But the results are incredible: web pages that mesmerize us with special effects, including image and sound, animations that make us feel like we are in a theatre, interactive applications and so much more. Inexperienced online entrepreneurs ask web design companies to create Flash websites. Many of these firms are indeed able to desi... Web Design – The Importance Of Design Simplicity For Business Websites Search engines don’t care about web design. People do. While search engines will not index a website for its great layout, but for the content, people will forget the website that has nothing distinctive about it. No visual impact, no interest! Now, if you are a serious online entrepreneur and want to have a website that sends the right message to the visitors, you must know that there are some web design techniques simply inappropriate for a business website. Many web des... Website Basics – Increasing Website Performance A website is a very important and powerful sales tool. It’s this very tool that opens your business to the world. A website can substantially increase your corporate presence on the market while functioning as a very effective PR tool. To achieve public awareness it is not enough to just set up a website. You need to define the website goals that will transform your web presence from a simple announcement that you are in business into the very sales tool we were talking about...