Free Web Site Makers

Free web site makers that are easy to use for all internet users, free website makers are also called WYSIWYG HTML Editors

Free web site makers are not for everyone, and as time progresses they are becoming less and less used. This article describes some key points you should know before deciding upon which web site maker you will use.

   So, you want a free web site maker that has all the features you could ever use, right?

You may be on a one-way street to disaster. If you are creating a website, chances are you want as much traffic as possible... right?

Us professional web developers will always tell you to never settle for one of these cheap tools, and to learn HTML first and foremost. This is the best advice I can give you, it will be the foundation for all further knowledge when building your website. HTML is not difficult to learn, just start out learning how to change colors, fonts, images, and tables (pretty simple). With that knowledge, you can create a limitless number of completely different web sites.

THE BEST FREE WEB SITE MAKER, IS NOTEPAD!

Notepad is the basic text editor provided with Windows, all you have to do is write your pages HTML, then save the page as .HTM or .HTML... and youre done.

When you create a web site with a free web site maker (sometime called WYSIWYG HTML Editors) it may appear to look good... but most likely be full of back-end errors, and problems.

Free web site makers work by you creating the look of the page you desire, and it will create its own HTML for what you have entered. But the HTML it generates, more often than not, contains many errors, is not compatible with all browsers/computers, and all around is just a headache.

This is what I would reccomend:

If you are creating a website for a business, STOP! A professional web site developer is your best option, contact me and I will be sure to give you a great deal!

If it is for a personal website, and you are set on a free web site maker, then download a trial of Macromedia Dreamweaver.

For everyone else, learn HTML, and use notepad as your new free web site maker!

Beginners web design guide, and web page design tutorials for the beginner.

Beginners guide to Web Design

  
This web page was designed to help guide any beginner to web design in the right direction, and hopefully help them find a good place to start.

   Glad you decided to join the wonderful world of Web Design!

Now where do I start?
Lets start with the basics, if you do not already know every website is made up of code which is not visible when you view a website. This code contains basic instructions for layout, design, colors, naviagation, links, etc... This language is called HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language), and consists of a HTML tags each performs a different function. Everything you see on this, or any website is a result of this HTML code.

Nowadays, you dont even have to know HTML to create a website... there are programs which write all the HTML for you... called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editors.

With that being said, lets move on to how your page should look...
The most important thing to remember is to make the website easy to naviagate, have links to your homepage and/or all your main pages from every page on your site.

Create a naviagation panel, linking to your main sections. For your first website you should probably have this on the far left side of each page, with the content to the right of the naviagation.

Clearly mark your titles for each page at the top of the page!

Use Bold, and Italics to bring out important items in your content.

Refrain from using bright colors, or dark backgrounds... as it interferes with the users experience.

And most of all, keep trying!

Learn Internet Marketing

Learn Internet Marketing, a quick start internet marketing guide.

Internet Marketing can be an imtimidating business; But if you know how to correctly market a website online you can do anything with that knowledge...

   Learning Internet Marketing...

There are hundreds of different places I could start this (meta tags, search engine optimization, submission, etc.) but lets first understand the basic premise behind Internet Marketing.

You have a great looking website.
Every you sees it is impressed.
But without marketing, it is useless.

The theory,If you build it, they shall come. Does not quite work when it comes to the Internet! So how does one go about getting noticed?

Before anything marketing takes place, you must first have a fully completed website (with many pages of content).
 

Content is King

I reccomend having atleast 20-25 pages of content before ever taking your first step in the Internet Marketing world. Develop content, write interesting articles, make your website USEFUL!!

Ease of Use

Now that you have all your content created, you must make it easy to naviagate for both your user and SEARCH ENGINES! Try to build it in a hierarchy starting from your main page, branching off into categories, then to your main pages of content. For example, if you had a website about FOOTBALL, you could stem that off into a TEAMS category. From there you could either link to content pages for each individual team, or if you have alot of pages of content, then you could break it into another sub-category of PLAYERS... and then list your content pages. This will make it both easy for your users, and for search engine spiders to naviagate.

Once you have your a COMPLETED website, it is time to move on to Search Engine Optimization. Search engine optimization is basically taking a normal website, and making it *search engine friendly*. How is this done?

OPTIMIZATION

This is probably the most important aspect of all Internet Marketing... Search engines are your best friends when it comes to increasing traffic, so you want to make your website look its best for them. When I say, *look its best*, that has nothing to do with how the website looks to your users... instead it is how the back-end of your site (code) looks when a search engine spider comes to view it. First of all, you should have META TAGS in place on each of your pages... Im not going to get into meta tags here, as I have written articles specifically about meta tags. You just need to have three meta tags: Keywords, Description, and the Robots tag.

Internet Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization go hand and hand. You must know what you are targeting before implementing any of these strategies. Targeting and selecting your keywords is part of the optimization process, so Ill explain that next.

 

Targeted Keywords

Optimization, and selecting your targeted Keywords are two parts of a whole in Internet Marketing. You could fully optimize your entire website, but if you dont select good keywords to use in optimization, then your efforts are wasted.

If you are in a crowded industry, or if you have many competing websites, you should consider targeting less broad keywords, and more specific keywords. For example: if you sold computers, it may not be wise to target keywords like (Computers, Personal Computers, PC, Desktop, Labtop). There is no use in targeting impossible keywords. In this example, it would be nearly impossible to attain top 10 rankings for the above mentioned keywords because they are far too broad.

Instead put yourself in the shoes of one of your customers, who is at a search engine searching for your kind of products / services. What are they most likely to type in?

Think about that for each individual page of content you have, and select 5-7 keywords for each page you have. (and try not to reuse the same keywords on different pages).

 

Internet Marketing Implementation

At this point you should have a fully completed website, with many pages of content, with an easy to use naviagation, and selected 5-7 targeted keywords for each of your pages. Now its time to make it happen.

Lets look at one of your pages now... Ill use *Search Engine Optimization* as my example page.
First of all, you should name each file with either your number one targeted keyword, or the title. So for this example, I would save the file with a filename: *search_engine_optimization.html* (separated by - OR _ characters).

The web page title, and filename are the two most important factors. For the title, you want to again use your number one targeted keyword at the beginning, followed by a logical sentence describing the page. If you can work in 2-3 keywords, do so, but make sure it makes sense before anything else.

You should already have meta tags, so Ill skip that step, and move onto your HEADINGS (H1, H2, H3 and H4 HTML tags). These tags are intended for the heading(s) of your topics, and most search engines give them high priority. Using these tags will increase the size of the text in each of them, so use them sparingly. If you used your number one keyword in your title and filename, then use your #2-4 keywords inside these tags. (you do not have to use these tags, but search engines like them).

Moving on to the actual content of your website...
Try to implement your keywords throughout the content, without sacrificing readability. Make sure it never appears that you are simply listing keywords, always integrate them into logical sentences.

When you have all of your targeted keywords implemented in your content, then it is sometimes a good idea to place a few of them in BOLD or ITALICS... this sets them apart from the rest of the text when a search engine spider comes to look at your site.

After that, you are pretty much finished...
The last part is inter-linking all your pages of content together. You should use the number one keyword of the page you are linking to for the anchor text(visible portion) of each link. This also adds quite a bit of *points*.

That is the gist of it, now all you have to do is submit the your website to the search engines... and wait for the spiders to come get it... patience! :)

HTML Color Codes

HTML Color codes in Hexidecimal, make sure you use Safe codes in your HTML codes.

HTML Colors are measured in Hexidecimal values, separated into three colors. RED, GREEN, & BLUE. In the following format:
#(RED,RED) (GREEN,GREEN) (BLUE,BLUE)[#RRGGBB]

   When selecting a color in HTML, you will almost always use Hexidecimal values for your html color codes. Hexidecimal is simply a different numbering system which ranges from 0-15; whereas the decimal numbering system ranges from 0-9.

Instead of saying 15, we use the letter F... So you could say it these hexidecimal codes range from 0 --> F ; like this:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

In HTML color codes, you use these hex color codes to determine the amount of each color (Red, Green, Blue) to have in your final color.
Format: #RRGGBB

So if you wanted a pure blue, then youd use the highest possible value in the Blue column[BB], and the lowest in the red and green. So now you know the highest value is an F, so plug in *FF* for the last two values... and 00 for RED, and 00 for GREEN.
PURE BLUE----> #0000FF
PURE GREEN---> #00FF00
PURE RED-----> #FF0000

And of course, for the html color codes for black and white, just think about it... Black is lack of any color, so it would be all 0s, and white is just the opposite... all Fs

PURE BLACK--> #000000
PURE WHIRE--> #FFFFFF

From there just mix and match until you find the perfect colors for any part of your website.

Starting a Website from Scratch

Web design mistakes, secrets, tips, and must know information on web design you need to know!

So, youve decided to try to create a brand new website on your own from scratch huh? Well, you are in for a bumpy ride! Get ready to dedicate much of your time learning the millions of aspects the effect you sites success.

   There are basically two options you have when deciding to develop a brand new site. But Ill try to break down the most important things you need to keep in mind to help your site a success.

Option #1
Try to do it all yourself, from start to finish. Nowadays there are many universal tools that can do most of the dirty work for you, and claim to be an all-in-one package, for a very low price. What you probably didnt know is that these types of services are *one-size fits all type programs. In other words, you probably will never realize it yourself, but this new site is identical to thousands of other companies who purchased the same program. Search engines highly penalize this practice, and although the page may look pretty... it will never fully succeed in anything other than looking nice

Option #2
Hire a company who promises an offer thats too good to be true, and pay a bit less than the real experts in the field. Only to find out that you just spent $XXXX on a website which is new receiving no traffic, and no sales. So now youve just lost all your money invested, and have nothing to show for it but a cookie-cutter, template-based website... which is now next to worthless.

Reality of Selling Online

This is a guide for anyone who has a website that is/ or will be selling any products.

eCommerce, Shopping carts, merchant account, custom databases, secure ordering... it can get pretty complicated, but why isnt your site booming with sales yet?

   Let me start by saying that most people who decide to create a complete eCommerce web site with all the hyped up featured are entering the industry very blindly. With the hundreds of TV commercials claiming how simple it is to become a millionaire online, it creates a false belief in most peoples minds... and they rush into the project using the advice they heard from the big corporations who are selling you a Package that is identical to what theyve sold to thousands if not millions of other people with the same exact information. The only people who really succeed with those types of programs is to just browse its content, and then throw it in the trashcan, forget 95% of what you read, and create your own personal unique business.

With these pre-packed programs, you are guaranteed to get a cookie-cutter website which will generate next to no traffic, and very very little sales. Search engines know how to spot these types of systems and frown upon them, leaving you with a complete cookie-cutter site-- identical to 100s of your competitors. With that said how could you possibly make that site successful without pouring thousands more into Expert marketing services... and even then youll most likely lose most of that investment.

Ive dealt with thousands of clients, and with every single one of them I have always told them the truth about how Internet Business REALLY succeed. Never buy a program that claims guaranteed instant profits, NEVER! Trust me on this one, you have no idea how many people have come to me with stories of how they lost $10,000+ trying to *make it* in the industry, but they people they paid this money to were mostly companies making HUGE, impossible claims.
If it sounds too good to be true, it is!.

When I talk to my *so-called peers* in the Internet Development and Marketing industry, you would be shocked at how they talk about their *sucker* clients who paid them thousands for something that only had a value of $50 bucks or so to them. This enrages me, I come across this type of thing everyday. Most new web design clients are very skepical now because of getting burned in the past, its a big problem... and sometimes I feel like Im the last honest one out there.

Knowledge is Power

Your best bet is to check out some of your competitors, see what theyre doing that works, and expand upon that with your own ideas. I would much rather work with a client who has a vision or a dream of how theyd like to make their website the best it can be; but also know their approximate budget that can make it happen.

This is the most important part of the equation, if you expect to get a full eCommerce website for under $500... they need to re-think their approach. Whereas, if that same client came to me with that $500, and asked for my advice on GETTING Started... thats a little better. Leave it to the experts! It may cost a little more to have a REAL website created for you... but in the long-run it is the only option you have that will actually work!

Meta Tag Myths

Article about the many details involved to using the best possible meta tags on your website.

If you have a website, then chances are youve heard of Meta Tags. This article is meant to help understand how meta tags work, and how to make them work for you. There are also numerous myths relating to Meta Tags, and getting great placement in search engines... all this will be cleared up the this article.

   What are Meta Tags?
Meta tags are basically pieces of code in your source of your website, which is invisible to your visitors but search engines will use these as a method of describing your website. The two most important Meta Tags are- the description tag, the keywords tag. These two are what search engines will primarily look at. These two tags will be described later.

--- Meta Tag Myths ---

Myth 1 - Meta tags are not a magical solution.
They are important, but search engines look at a number of factors in order to determine website placement and ranking of your site.

Myth 2 - Keyword spamming.
A few years ago, many people tricked search engines by listing hundreds of different keywords in order to get listed in the search engines for all of them.
Now search engines have caught on, and this practice will not work any longer. In fact, many search engines will not index you website at all as a result of repeated spamming. It is best to keep it simple, and only list keywords which have the most relevance to your site.

Myth 3 - Meta Tags are all that Matter.
There are many factors which influence your ranking with search engines. Meta tags are only one. Including, Link popularity, directory listing, keywords in content, number of pages, links pointing to your site, your title, etc...

THE KEYWORDS META TAG:

This tag should contain about 20-25 keywords. Each keyword should have significant relevance to the content contained on your website. Also, it is not always a good idea to use generic keywords, like (web design, marketing, etc..)
Think about it.. There are thousands upon thousands, of webpages out there with these keywords. Now this would mean that your website will be competing for placement with those other 1000s of sites, and chances are youll lose to the large companies. You can use these generic keywords, but use more specific terms for the majority of keywords in the meta tag.

THE DESCRIPTION META TAG:
1. Length-
Your description should only be two sentences, and with brief descriptive sentences.
2. Keyword spamming-
The example above is something that is very common when people submit their sites to our directories. This can end up hurting you, once you submit your site... the editor will either:
(a) Add it the way it is (aim for this)
(b) Modify it to what they feel is necessary.
(c) Delete it all together

If you are not careful, you may end up with a description that gets you nearly no hits because the editor wrote their own. This is the main reason why I say to keep to short and sweet, yet effective. Here is a modificaion of the Bad Description above, which would most likely get you good placement, and wont be modified by an editor.

Keep it simple, yet Keyword rich

Expired domain names, expiring domain names, and on hold domain names

A review of the expired domain names

   Nowadays if you know anything about the internet, you know that all the good domain names are all taken. But there are thousands of domain names expiring each day. 

  For instance, lets say you sold computers online. You could find a domain name used before by another computer company, and is receiving thousands of hits. You can register this domain name and utilize this free traffic in order to make additional sales.

Net & Org

  There are many domain names out there which the .net, and .org versions of the name have already been taken but the .com is available.
 

Increasing Website Traffic

How to increase your website traffic for free, a free guide to boost website hits.

  There are billions of websites on the Internet, and all of them want to the most traffic possible.

How do you plan to step ahead of the masses?

   It can be a very difficult and complex task for the average person to increase their website traffic. That is why this basic guide has been writen, it is dedicated to the many different methods used to increase your hits and website traffic, sometimes this can mean free traffic.

  Search engines are the most important aspect of increasing your website hits, and website traffic because they provide an endless stream of traffic for free if you can acheive top 10 rankings for your keywords.

  The best way to acheive the highest ranking is to make sure your website contains your selected keywords implemented throughout each individual page, in the title tag, body, bold, italics, header (H1), and Meta Tags.

  After that just try to get as many links as possible to your site, with those keywords inside the Link (A Tag)... this will increase your link popularity, increase your website traffic, get you top search engine ranking when done right, and boost your website hits all across the board!