icon1 Posted by The New Webmaster in Web Design on Sunday, November 1, 2009 | no responses
website graphics

A very significant part of the entire website marketing process is Website Graphics.  It efficiently works as a catalyst in pushing your website much higher on the SERPs and thus takes it to a new level of sales and success. Proper, conceptualized and thoughtful graphics designing of a website offers its potential customers the perfect first impression and therefore, it is very mandatory to create a consistent overall image of your site. The attributes of being professional and attractive largely depends on the quality and positioning of the graphics stored in your website. If nothing works efficiently for your website design, using professional looking graphics can still offer you a decent ranking.

Positioning

Clearly, while launching a website and trying to spread a message across the public, the content is focused the most. But, in reality, it receives the focus most only when it is displayed appealingly.  An efficient way to present content appropriately is breaking up the text with well positioned and relevant graphics, so that reader’s interest is maintained while you get your message delivered. Simply, ensure that your website graphics compliment your content aptly and helps conveying the message efficiently. Intelligently designed graphics immediately tells the visitor about the content your site can offer.
Image Formats

While talking about the nitty- gritty of website graphics, image formatting is quite important. Usually, the two common formats used are JPG and GIF, because of their quick loading attribute. The JPG format is primarily used for photographs and the GIF format is meant for buttons, logos or menu bars. Now with graphics in JPG format, the think important to notice is that every time the image is edited and saved, a small amount of quality is achieved, hence, ensure to edit the image in the original format of the image handling software you are using, and then save the final version in JPG format.

Proper Sizing

If your website holds many large graphic files, ensure to focus on two vital aspects. First is the slow internet connection; if your viewer has low internet speed, your graphics would take long to get downloaded on his/her screen, which might result in lost of interest. Secondly, at times, graphics can use a lot of bandwidth and thus, the presence of numerous very large graphic files on your popular and much visited site can easily escalate the cost of running that site. Therefore, graphics above 50kb, should be given serious thought of size reduction. More importantly, do not think about inches or centimeters and instead, view things in pixels, as this is what your web page is measured in.



icon1 Posted by The New Webmaster in Internet Marketing on Monday, December 22, 2008 | no responses
css

What is CSS ?

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is a great tool to add a unique look to your web pages.  CSS enhances fonts, colors, and even the spacing of your web pages.  It is a useful tool to let you separate your HTML content from your style. For example, you can use your HTML file to create and organize the content, but all of the visual presentation including the background, fonts, colors, link effects, text formatting, and spacing are created with a CSS file.

Benefits of CSS

As discussed, CSS makes it easy for you to separate the style and layout of your HTML files from their informational content.  This means you can determine the look of your site in one file, and change the whole site by modifying that single file. It also means you can make your HTML changes by accessing one file.

This structure provided by CSS also means that you can work with your web pages so that they look good on any browser.  For example, a page on Mozilla can look very different than a page seen on internet explorer.  CSS eliminates that difference.

CSS gives you more control over how your pages look because it is a more detailed mechanism than HTML.  HTML wasn’t designed for style, it was designed for document structure.  CSS was designed for style.  This means it is easier for you as a business owner seeking brand development and recognition to define your “look” and give it a unique and consistent feel.

Users say that CSS also prints better than HTML documents.  Important if visitors are accessing your content, which they hopefully are, printing it, and taking it with them or better yet – sharing it with their friends and associates.  Additionally, the pages allow visitors to print the entire page as opposed to the partial pages that HTML often prints.

CSS decreases your page size significantly, making it easier for your visitors to load your site and all relevant graphics and copy.  It also means that your web pages can be seen quickly and clearly with handheld browsers.  This is huge because many people are now surfing the internet on their cell phones, smart phones, and PDAs.  If your site doesn’t load quickly, chances are people are going to leave.  If your site is quickly and clearly accessible – you may have a new customer!  Additionally, it will take up less space on your server if you’re running close to your limit – and save you less money if you’re being charge by bandwidth.  This is because CSS requires less code.

CSS enables you to position the code for your content at the top making your page search engine friendly. Properly marked up, HTML pages can easily found and properly categorized by search engines.

It is also fairly easy for anyone to learn because CSS already uses well-known coding elements and principals.

The benefits of CSS include making your web site:

• Faster to create

• Easier to maintain or change

• More adaptable to fit new and emerging technologies

• Compact

• Neater and cleaner in the HTML code

How do I use CSS ?

Cascading Style Sheets can be used in two ways – internally or externally. When used internally the CSS code is placed within the ‘head’ tags of each HTML file. The HTML code basically looks just like this:











2. Using the @import method, appearing as:












So what method do you choose?  That depends on what you need.  For example, internal is used when a designer needs to style only one page, or different pages with different styles.  Web page designers tend to prefer an external cascading style sheet. This is because, as noted earlier in the benefits list, you will only need to edit one CSS file to change the entire website. Webmasters also find external is better because they are easier to maintain, they’re more compact, and generally the appearance is easier to control and stylize.

Potential Concerns

Not all browsers can read CSS.  This is a real concern; however, the percentage has decreased to the point where less than 1% of browsers are affected.  What sites are affected?  Older browser versions, created before CSS was standard, including Netscape 4.0.  Because the vast majority of browsers are significantly newer than this, and because the World Wide Web Consortium has recommended the use of CSS, making it a widely acceptable and recognizable mechanism around the world, all concerns about using CSS are negligible.

Bottom Line

CSS is a tool that will make your web pages easier to organize and maintain, your website easier to change, your brand potentially stronger, your website more compact and easier to load, your search engine optimization will improve, oh and your pages will just look better.  There really isn’t a reason to not experiment with CSS and integrate it into your web site.  Once you begin using and designing with  CSS, you’ll likely find building sites is more fun, faster, and they look amazing.