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I’m 16 and have been doing website designing as a kinda part time job, while all my mates flip burgers at McDonalds and clean out toilets in Sports Centres!
From the 2 years I have been designing websites I have learnt a number of tips and tricks that I wish to offer to all you web designers out there.
1. Keep image file sizes below 20K if possible. Large images can take a long time to download for your visitors and they will probably become impatient and decide to go elsewhere. A way of getting around this is to use thumbnail images, which are the same image but reduced in size. When you click on the thumbnail it could take you to a page with the picture in its full size.
2. I received some feedback from a visitor of one of my sites and I was told that they found it very hard to navigate my site as one of the problems was that when they entered a page it had no links to get back. I quickly altered the layout of my site to accommodate for this. A number of things I did were: Put a link on every page directing it to the home page and a custom back button which sent the visitor to the last page they visited (this can be found at www.javascript.com). They also said they found it hard to contact me, which is probably the most crucial part of websites. To correct this I put an email link at the bottom of all the pages. (To make an email link copy and paste this into your page - [email protected] - Changing the [email protected] to your own address and remember to remove all spaces except between the a and href at the beginning)
3. When I started out I used to have a website with the address www.geocities/myname/, which I got from geocities for free. This was fine, except it made the website look SO unprofessional especially with a banner on every page advertising another company never mind the fact that no one would be able to remember your domain name. I 100% recommend you to buy your own domain name. They are as cheap as £10 for 2 years, which is nothing really. www.GetDotted.com offer great deals on domain names. If you want a .com its slightly more expensive but they are considered as international domain names and you are more likely to get listed on top search engines.
4. ALT tags, these little babies are very underestimated by people, but I’ve found they work a treat! Move your mouse over the banner at the top of this page and it should display a description of the image. This is very useful for 3 reasons: If the visitor has images turned off, it will display the text instead…..If the user wants to find out what the mage is they can just put the mouse over it…..And Search engines pick up the words when they spider your site. Search Engine placement is probably the second most important thing after the website itself.
5. Search Engines – If you don’t get on those search engines you’ll never get any visitors, that’s why you have to take time on this process. First of all make sure your website is complete, this is because when the search engine goes through your site it indexes all of your pages not just the home page, so the more pages the better chance you will get higher up the search engine. In the alt tags I mentioned add a few of your keywords that you think people will type into the search engines. DO NOT PUT IN KEYWORDS UNRELATED TO YOUR SITE.
Meta tags – I’m not going to explain what they are and do because I’ll end up being here all day, but what I will do is tell you that they are a MUST. Go to this website address for a free meta tag generator www.submitcorner.com/Tools/Meta/
Now your website is complete its time to submit it. Don’t use one of these programmes that say “We will submit your site to 50’000 search engines” because there are only really 10 main search engines you will get visitors from. The best thing you can do is manually submitting your site because you have a lot more chance of getting indexed.
Hint – If you’re unsure of what keywords to go for on your site, type what you think a visitor might type into a search engine. Then take a look at the first website that comes up top, then look at what they use (You can do this by right clicking on the page and choosing View Source”)
6. A quick little tip on spelling aswell. Spelling errors will make your site look unproffesional so I recommend you first write in Microsoft Word and press spell check. You can then copy and paste the content into your site.
You can also do this when writing in these forums, which is what I’m currently, so I hope there isnt any spelling errors or I will have to have a word with Bill Gates!
---
Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you design websites more efficiently now.
Dav1d
From the 2 years I have been designing websites I have learnt a number of tips and tricks that I wish to offer to all you web designers out there.
1. Keep image file sizes below 20K if possible. Large images can take a long time to download for your visitors and they will probably become impatient and decide to go elsewhere. A way of getting around this is to use thumbnail images, which are the same image but reduced in size. When you click on the thumbnail it could take you to a page with the picture in its full size.
2. I received some feedback from a visitor of one of my sites and I was told that they found it very hard to navigate my site as one of the problems was that when they entered a page it had no links to get back. I quickly altered the layout of my site to accommodate for this. A number of things I did were: Put a link on every page directing it to the home page and a custom back button which sent the visitor to the last page they visited (this can be found at www.javascript.com). They also said they found it hard to contact me, which is probably the most crucial part of websites. To correct this I put an email link at the bottom of all the pages. (To make an email link copy and paste this into your page - [email protected] - Changing the [email protected] to your own address and remember to remove all spaces except between the a and href at the beginning)
3. When I started out I used to have a website with the address www.geocities/myname/, which I got from geocities for free. This was fine, except it made the website look SO unprofessional especially with a banner on every page advertising another company never mind the fact that no one would be able to remember your domain name. I 100% recommend you to buy your own domain name. They are as cheap as £10 for 2 years, which is nothing really. www.GetDotted.com offer great deals on domain names. If you want a .com its slightly more expensive but they are considered as international domain names and you are more likely to get listed on top search engines.
4. ALT tags, these little babies are very underestimated by people, but I’ve found they work a treat! Move your mouse over the banner at the top of this page and it should display a description of the image. This is very useful for 3 reasons: If the visitor has images turned off, it will display the text instead…..If the user wants to find out what the mage is they can just put the mouse over it…..And Search engines pick up the words when they spider your site. Search Engine placement is probably the second most important thing after the website itself.
5. Search Engines – If you don’t get on those search engines you’ll never get any visitors, that’s why you have to take time on this process. First of all make sure your website is complete, this is because when the search engine goes through your site it indexes all of your pages not just the home page, so the more pages the better chance you will get higher up the search engine. In the alt tags I mentioned add a few of your keywords that you think people will type into the search engines. DO NOT PUT IN KEYWORDS UNRELATED TO YOUR SITE.
Meta tags – I’m not going to explain what they are and do because I’ll end up being here all day, but what I will do is tell you that they are a MUST. Go to this website address for a free meta tag generator www.submitcorner.com/Tools/Meta/
Now your website is complete its time to submit it. Don’t use one of these programmes that say “We will submit your site to 50’000 search engines” because there are only really 10 main search engines you will get visitors from. The best thing you can do is manually submitting your site because you have a lot more chance of getting indexed.
Hint – If you’re unsure of what keywords to go for on your site, type what you think a visitor might type into a search engine. Then take a look at the first website that comes up top, then look at what they use (You can do this by right clicking on the page and choosing View Source”)
6. A quick little tip on spelling aswell. Spelling errors will make your site look unproffesional so I recommend you first write in Microsoft Word and press spell check. You can then copy and paste the content into your site.
You can also do this when writing in these forums, which is what I’m currently, so I hope there isnt any spelling errors or I will have to have a word with Bill Gates!
---
Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you design websites more efficiently now.
Dav1d
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They're sorted alphabetically with about 200 to a letter. It's a bit like blowing in the wind.
And no, I don't get too many hits. Most of my work comes from a barber's shop in Leeds (???).
And no, I don't get too many hits. Most of my work comes from a barber's shop in Leeds (???).
You don't get too many results do your Turbo?
Don't bother listing a web design company in Yahoo! as there's just no point. Go and see and you'll find out why.
I never said Yahoo! was good. just that it will increase your hits a great deal - Once i got my site listed i saw an increase in hits, which were confirmed as coming via yahoo by the tracker i have on my home page. Personally if i want to find something I usually just hit google cos it comes up with the most useful results for the majority of things, but not everyone does. Ultimately everyone is different, so if you're listed on every search engine then you're bound to get more hits, although exchanging links with similar sites is always good becuase it will usually be about something related (a similar band for a music site for example) so your link is likely to be seen by people who are interested in it.
As a few people mentioned dmoz.org is pretty good and is mirrored by a large number of sites (i think anyway) although not as many people use them as you get very specific results - but still, every link, and hit counts!!
As a few people mentioned dmoz.org is pretty good and is mirrored by a large number of sites (i think anyway) although not as many people use them as you get very specific results - but still, every link, and hit counts!!
Brio wrote:
> Yahoo! is THE main serch engine to get listed in
Well, Yahoo! is going down the tubes nowadays and loads of people (including me) recommend Google and the Dmoz.org project (both the same thing). Google is a search engine and Dmoz is a directory like Yahoo! but Google searches Dmoz at the same time. Google is also THE BIGGEST search engine on the net and the fastest. There's also things such as the google search bar that goes on your browser and it's invaluable. A lot of schools have it installed.
> Yahoo! is THE main serch engine to get listed in
Well, Yahoo! is going down the tubes nowadays and loads of people (including me) recommend Google and the Dmoz.org project (both the same thing). Google is a search engine and Dmoz is a directory like Yahoo! but Google searches Dmoz at the same time. Google is also THE BIGGEST search engine on the net and the fastest. There's also things such as the google search bar that goes on your browser and it's invaluable. A lot of schools have it installed.
deejay wrote:
> You said about search engines... What one do you think is the best?
I agree with stevepower on the fact that Google is a very good search engine to be placed...
One of the websites I did for a company I got the keyword Gatwick Parking top for their website, and they got about 60 hits a day from then on!
This is why Google is a must....
I agree that Yahoo is very overated but netherless millions of people use it, which means whether YOU like it or not you have to be on there.
Another search engine that I always submit a website to is DMOZ.org Not many people know about it yet, but it supplies results for other major search engines like AOL and looksmart...
So there you go... Get your site listed on Yahoo, Google and DMOZ.org
Dav1d
> You said about search engines... What one do you think is the best?
I agree with stevepower on the fact that Google is a very good search engine to be placed...
One of the websites I did for a company I got the keyword Gatwick Parking top for their website, and they got about 60 hits a day from then on!
This is why Google is a must....
I agree that Yahoo is very overated but netherless millions of people use it, which means whether YOU like it or not you have to be on there.
Another search engine that I always submit a website to is DMOZ.org Not many people know about it yet, but it supplies results for other major search engines like AOL and looksmart...
So there you go... Get your site listed on Yahoo, Google and DMOZ.org
Dav1d
Just go through as many Search Engins as you can, Yahoo, Alta-Vista HotBot, UKPlus, .... as many as you can for better results.
Brio. I would never trust Yahoo as a search engine. It is terrible, it always has been terrible. Ever since I started using the Internet back in '95 I could never trust Yahoo! If anyone is not using Google, they do not deserve to see the quality sites that it ALWAYS returns on all searches.
Get your site listed on Google and if it's worth visiting it will be put at the top of the relevant results pages.
Never use Yahoo! It's terrible.
Get your site listed on Google and if it's worth visiting it will be put at the top of the relevant results pages.
Never use Yahoo! It's terrible.
Yahoo! is THE main serch engine to get listed in, but you do need a pretty good site as the main directory (not the google connected part) is indexed by humans and they do look at how well made your site is, and the level of content, so it does take a while to get listed, but when you do there'll be a big increase in traffic.
Other than that, just think about the search engines you use most and look for the "add your site" links. The more you are listed on the greater the chance someone will find your site!
Other than that, just think about the search engines you use most and look for the "add your site" links. The more you are listed on the greater the chance someone will find your site!
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