Archive for September 2011
Microsoft Expression Web 4: Comprehensive Website Design Tool With Features Galore
There are many applications available for professional quality web design and the web developers pick the one that suits their need the best. There are frameworks and stand alone web design tools. While a large number of web designers opt for Adobe Dreamweaver, there are some alternative solutions available. A web design and development company looking for a feature rich web development platform can consider the latest iteration of Expression Web, from the stable of Microsoft. The version 4 of this HTML editor is aimed at the web development professionals who want a comprehensive package to cater to all their web design needs.
The interested developers can download the latest version of the app from the Microsoft website. This is better compared to purchasing products online which may take a while to arrive at the destination. The users can buy the product or use it as a trial. An installation wizard guides the users throughout. The UI of the software is quite simple and there are right and left panels. The panels accommodate the files and documents linked to a project, the CSS elements, as well as the style sheet elements. The panels can be hidden if the users want so. Overall, the interface is quite intuitive and customizable.
The interface however contains some much used features within menus which can be a tad hard for the first time users. They may face difficulty in locating these features and need to refer to the documentation. Expression Web 4 is better suited for those web designers who already have the experience of working with other web editor tools. The app presents the different CSS elements in a user friendly graphic way thereby making it easier for coding.
The app offers various viewing options during designing websites. There are code and design view modes along with a Split view that actually is more practical. The veteran developers will however opt for the code view. The Site View is very helpful as it gives the users an accurate graphical list containing all images, folders and HTML files. This also makes editing single components easier. The Publishing View is enabled only after the developers link the files of the website to the server. This helps in keeping track of published files. The Problems View is very useful, as is evident from its name. It points out issues like Slow Loading Pages and Unlinked Files. The Hyperlinks View shows how the pages in a website are interlinked in a graphical layout.
To facilitate website maintenance the software offers the developers with a number of reporting features, accessible from the Tools menu. The CSS Report, SEO Report and Compatibility Report are quite helpful for locating errors and issues in websites. This also helps in finding issues in content writing in a website and modifying it accordingly. The report features are helpful for the advanced users and the plethora of data may confuse the beginners. The web developers worried about cross browser compatibility will surely appreciate its SuperPreview tool. This enables them to view the website in various browsers. It also saves future modification needs.
The tool is moderately priced compared to the industry leading apps. The owners of older versions can upgrade to version 4 at reasonable pricing. The Ultimate version comes with apps like Expression Design, Expression Blend, SketchFlow and Encoder Pro.
Creating a Website – Create It The Simple Way
Creating a website can be a daunting task. A daunting task that existed, before technology evolved into a new era. Today technology has provided a simple way to setup and create a website. Technology has also made it possible for a complete beginner to setup and create a website in minutes. Let’s focus on the simple way to create a website especially if you are just a beginner.
First, determine what is the website going to be used for; such as personal, business, E-commerce,affiliate, etc.. When that is determined then one has to decide on a domain name such as (your-domain.com). When choosing a domain I have a strategy that I would like to share. First, make it easy to remember and make it relevant to the product or service that is offered. For instance, a domain name that is about dog toys would not be to good if the website offers car parts. This strategy works with any category relevant to the website and helps search engines find the website naturally.
Following this, the website has to be created with a type of software. This software will allow the creator of the website to add content and images. If you are experienced in website building a plain text editor and some computer code (html, javascript, and css) is all that is needed for the soft ware part of the website. If not then a pre made template style website is ideal for a beginner. All the knowledge that is needed to build a pre made template website is some content and images. Pre made template websites do limit your full building potential though. For example, you might just want to change a certain look and not be able to do so. However, most companies that offer pre made websites, have a text box the lets the owner of the website change the look. In this text box the css code can be altered if it is ever becomes an issue for the website owner.
Lastly, a web host will be needed to make the website live to the internet. This is also a very simple task to accomplish with all the new technology that has evolved. Most companies have the software already programmed and is usually a one click setup installation connecting the domain name to the website. This overall makes it easy for a total beginner to pick a design and publish with one click.
SEO Secrets and Promoting Your Website to Save You 80% of Your Money!
Welcome to SEO secrets and do it yourself SEO. This article will talk about the proper ways of optimizing your website for the search engines and save you a lot of money so you can allocate that well earned cash into other stages of your SEO optimization. I will also show you the most basic things to do regarding page structuring, things to avoid (pros and cons). A lot of SEO companies out there are charging thousands of dollars every month for SEO maintenance and I find it very bothering.
I am also writing this article to help other customers out there because my first website was a victim of poor SEO. A customer ones approached me and said “Can you place me up the search in 2 days? I can pay you $1,500.” I told him that this is not my decision but Google’s. As long as we follow the rules of Google it can be done in a certain amount of time… but not 2 days.
STEP 1 – Buying A Domain
Buying your domain is the most important thing in SEO. Do not buy a domain just because you want some cool domain name. If your business name is Ace Computer Graphics and your buying the domain acg.com, you might be attracting the wrong keywords since ACG is also one of the Nike Shoes special edition. And also not just that you will be grabbing the wrong traffic and customers. So make sure to do keyword farming before getting your domain.
When buying a domain you have to make sure that the domain you buy is relevant to your business and the service you do. In this case my keyword for Google is Las Vegas Web Designers. For example:
My Business is: Web Designing in Las Vegas
Domain: acewebdesignlasvegas
URL: las-vegas-web-designers
In this section you need to be versed with basic HTML and use a software to edit the section below such as Adobe Dreamweaver.
You also need to make sure that your keyword is in the source code of your HTML such as:
Las Vegas Web Designers
Your format score:
Domain relevancy = 100%
URL = 100%
TITLE = 100%
NOTE: Avoid keyword stuffing. And what i mean is avoid placing like 50 keywords on your webpage source code. Google doesn’t like this. You will get better results with 4 or 5 keywords.
Now that we got the basic format of your website all SEO friendly we now move on to the next step. We need you to create an Articles Page and a Blog page. Write a good article about your business. Write important things people would want to hear. Things that will help them and how they will benefit from it. Your article can be 5 paragraphs. Link this page as one of your buttons so that your viewers can link back to you homepage. Remember to name your article page /articles.html and follow your Step – 1 setup above regarding source code settings and structure. You can even embed a video on your articles page. You can do the same thing on your blogs page.
STEP 2 – Submitting Your Website to Google, Yahoo and Bing
When submitting your website you can go to the Google add URL website
A lot of people out there also goes to this link without working on step 1. I guarantee you that Google will not index you. Remember, Google wants to index a smart website. A website with proper spelling, format, images that are small in file size. Avoid a full flash page because that is a solid brick wall for Google.
After you submit your website to the above Google Submitter tool it will probably take a week or two to get indexed. While waiting to be indexed we are going to work on other things. You will have to get a Twitter and Facebook Account. In twitter add as many local businesses that has twitter on your area, same with Facebook, and create a Fan page for Facebook. Go to the Facebook Developers Page which will teach you on how to create buttons and shortcut widgets for ex: (Like and Send) button. Link your twitter and Facebook into your mobile phone and send a message a day, at least now you have minimum exposure for your website.
To check if you are indexed, visit the website SEO Centro.
This website will tell you which position and page you are at. If you are already indexed and Google accepted your website into its listings. You will probably end up at a poor position at a very odd number result like page 200. Don’t worry about the position. The good thing is that you are now indexed and we can move on to the next step.
STEP 3 – Link Building Process
When we talk of link building we are talking about Exchange links. Getting good position results in Google is basically about link building. You linking to other high ranking websites and other high ranking website linking to you. If you just started your link building and your website still have 0 Rank, it is hard to convince other high ranking sites to links with you. So in this case they might say “You have 0 rank so i wont want to link with you because it will be bad for my website. At this stage do not put on a frown.
This is where you get an SEO specialist to work on your monthly link building. There are a lot of SEO specialist who will claim they do manual submissions, which is the case of most but they will only submit like 10 submissions a day. At this rate of time and the amount of money you are paying them you are basically losing business. However there are a lot of Link Building Software’s out there which will do the Link Building portion of the website automatically and they submit to thousands of bookmarks every time. Remember do not do this without reading the rest of the instructions above.
During the Link Building process, lets just say there are now 500 links pointing back to your website. These are the links which will give you a page rank on Google and display you at a higher page results. Those people will also be reading your website, blogs, articles and might be potential customer. They will be clicking on your Facebook and twitter widgets and get directed to you Social Bookmarking as well. The reason why there is a monthly Link Building maintenance is because website come and go, so maybe 1 month from now your 500 links pointing to you might only be 450 links. So 50 link out of the 500 are now bad which you need to get rid or it will slowly pull your website down.
Continue this repetition and check your website for bad links so you can take them out. During these stage, other website owners will be contacting you to request for exchange links. Make sure they are a legit website and check their ranking before you do so.
If you follow these steps, I assure you, your website will be in the first 3 pages of Google and before you know it, you will be in page 1.
STEP 4 – Checking your Alexa Ranks
Take advantage between the relationship of Alexa and Google. The more people visit your website the higher your Alexia ranking will be. High = Closest to 0 which means Facebook should be #1 or #2.
Ones your website hits 3 position in Google at 1st page, this means your website is now almost a web portal. At this point, contact me, your web designer and have me create you Advertisement spot areas for people who would like to pay you monthly for their logo to be placed on your website for advertisement.
NOTE TO ALL BUSINESSES RELYING ON THE INTERNET TO MAKE THEM MONEY:
Your business is the love of your heart. Having a poor website can easily destroy or degrade your business. You invest thousands of dollars on our business yet you only have someone who only knows 20% about Web Designing and SEO Marketing take care of your website. If you create a website for your business and expect it to earn for you, please follow the natural laws of proper SEO. Its not the SEO programmer your worried about but its how Google thinks as well. If your website fails, your business will fail as well and your website will be lost. Also avoid doing exchanging links with just anyone. If that someone has poor web ranking, i don’t suggest you link with them.
There are also website customers out there who would pay for a nice looking website made and go through the whole SEO Optimization and end up high on the search. Now realizing they are high up the search, they now cut off their SEO service thinking they will be there forever and not realizing they are severing the whole Link Building Process and Maintenance so all those hard work now goes all to waste. When this happens, your website is now in a Zone called the “Twilight Zone”, I just made that up but your website will be in a stage where its hard to pick up from the point it got cut off because its not just a matter of linking again. We now need to wait for Google to react at the same time. So please, if your website is high up the search and getting you good business. Please invest in a proper SEO Maintenance to keep your Rankings High up. As you can see why it needs to be that way. It means if you have a website, it needs to have an SEO as well.