Thursday, March 1, 2007

Free Webmaster Resources

The overall importance of Quality Web Development or Web Design Tools is a factor among webmasters trying to get their webpage, website, blog or article exposed to the millions of users out there on the internet.
WebDesign and Development Resources are all over the internet and when I'm searching for a specific topic to relate to my needs,
I come across several sites that have what i am looking for, but found one site in particular that turned my eye and when considering the importance of a useful website, I absolutely give XCS Tools an 11 out of 10 for usefulness and overall FREE Resources.

I have found almost every resource available to webmasters looking to obtain the greatest advantage on the web....FREE- ffa sites, adblasters, minisites, viral traffic, content and anything else you can possibly think of!
You can even submit your url's to google right from the site in question which has prompted me to write this article.

When others might see a page full of links, I see the ultimate in free resources and knowing very well about several other sites that couldn't even measure up to the way XCS has developed this system of usefulness.

Visit the site and take a look around...you'll be busy for hours trying to get all the resources off this site and downloading tons of free software while drooling from the mouth.
Have a blast......Once you go...there is no going back

Webmaster Resources, Downloads, HTML, Webtools, Webmaster software and Freeware from the most powerful Webmaster Resource site on the planet! XCS Tools has the lowest selling price Webmaster software titles and is the #1 most anticipated Promotional, marketing, and freeware site. XCS is your download destination for Webmaster tools, free chat boxes, free customized toolbars, flash templates and intros, logo creation, banner creation, URL submission, games, and even learn HTML!

Quick Tips For Your Webdesign

When it comes to web site design best practices, planning is the most important thing to consider. This is the only way to building an excellent website, and doing it in the least amount of time. The process of making a web site can still be made faster by using some sort of web building tool.

The first thing you have to do is making a sketch on paper of the future site. It is very useful to get a straight picture of the look and feel of your homepage, as well as the navigation or flow chart of the various pages of your entire web site. A website is basically a pyramid with the homepage only being the top of it. Your visitors will navigate from your homepage to your 2nd tier pages and from there to the 3rd tier pages. At first, you will only build your homepage and the 2nd tier pages.

There are a few techniques that can help you build a website very quickly and avoid unwanted problems that can occur when you least expect it.

The Fast Track Technique says that the only thing you must do is plan one page, meaning your homepage, and then all the other 2nd and 3rd level pages can be simply cloned. Using this perfect page as a template, you can build the other ones, though filling them with different contents.

Webdesign is not so simple a task, as it requires the fulfillment of all the needs a possible visitor may have. There are also the needs of the search engines to take care of. A website must get the visitor to the page where he can make a purchase, and this all in one single mouse click. Such a website should get the name and email address of the visitor, which is actually more important than selling a product to your visitor.

The web pages must be optimized for the search engines and the best way to do that is by using articles that you write about your business, combined with SEO webpage design principles. This will most likely attract a lot of free, targeted traffic on your website.

Another important thing to do is not only get the visitors name and email address, but also lead the visitor along a particular path to get the visitor to take a certain action, that is to make a purchase.

4 Steps To Success In Web Development

If you are planning to become a serious player in the webdesign world, you should now what to learn and discover. Here's a short list that gives you an overview of your needs.

1. Learn HTML
Before you start creating websites you should master HTML. This is the key element to even start publishing documents on the web. This sounds pretty obvious but there are some elements that you should understand like the label element which will add great usability to a form.

2. Master Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
I can't stress this enough. DO NOT USE TABLES FOR YOUR LAYOUT!

Is it clear? Don't, just don't. Why? Because they work against you instead of for you. You can have so much more control of your layout, design and colors if you use 100% CSS.

1. CSS is easy
2. CSS is fast to create
3. CSS is lightning fast when your website loads
4. CSS is easy to modify

So forget table layouts and start using stylesheets. You will really like the things you can accomplish once you master them.

3. Learn A Server Side Language
This is needed to make dynamic websites like forums. PHP and ASP are a great example. You will need to understand what you can do with these languages and start using them.

Without a server side language your websites are really hard to maintain and will give you a hard job in creating an efficient website structure.
4. Learn A Database Language

I recommend learning MySQL since this is an open source database and is installed on most hosting providers in combination with PHP.

A database is nothing else then some tables with data. You can select data with queries like:

SELECT * FROM table WHERE ID = 3;

Now everything is selected from table when the ID equals three. It's not hard to understand SQL, you just need to know how it works. PHPMyAdmin can help you a lot when you are creating your database.
So, start with step 1, and stick with CSS as long as you don't master it. CSS is huge, and you will love it once you know how it works.

For application development you can't do without a language like PHP and a database like MySQL.

Hilco van der Meer is known as the author of the How To Master CSS Course and is a web developer for over 5 years now. His blog can be found at http://www.DutchDesign.org. The course contains a Real-Time CSS Editor to practice in real-time with the CSS codes, a complete step-by-step guide and the informative Training Videos. For more information you can visit:

The Declining Importance of Meta Keywords, Description Tags, Alt Tags, etc.

Meta description tags are used on web pages, usually at the top of the page, and are hidden from view of everyone except the search engines. They used to hold quite a bit of weight in the search engine ranking process of websites, but are not used as much anymore. This is because people would pack as many keywords as they felt necessary into this hidden code on the webpage, and soon the ranking system used by the search engines was no longer as valid as it had been in the past.

So, the question is now raised, should I include Meta description tags, alt tags, title tags and Meta keywords in my webpage? The simple answer is yes, why not; every little bit helps when it comes to improving the likelihood of positioning your website into the top search results. If you break down the importance of each of the Meta description tags, different search engines will put more weight into some of them then others. Google� for example ignores most of these Meta description and Meta keyword tags, and puts more focus on the keywords that are used in the actual content of a webpage. Some search engines, that still use keyword description tags in their search engine crawls, will often verify whether or not the keywords used in the keyword description are in fact mentioned throughout the webpage.

Alt tags still remain an important addition to your webpage, as they describe the images which are used throughout your site. It's important to include alt tags so that search engines can recognize all of the images that have been used throughout and where they came from. Alt tags that also contain keywords, can also help to improve your keyword frequency, which in turn will improve your search engine rankings.

Although many of these Meta description tags no longer carry as much weight in the process of determining search engine positioning, they do still carry benefits among some of the search engines. It's important to remember that if you include keywords in any description tag, particularly the alt tags, that you also include them often throughout the body of the actual webpage. This way, when the search engine crawler compares these Meta tags to the content throughout the rest of the page, they will match up, leaving your site with higher credibility, which will hopefully result in higher page and search result rankings.


I have been writing content for over 3 years now on a wide variety of topics. I also have recently added webdesign to my website. If you are interested in purchasing original content, or need a website or website makeover, please visit Content Resource Center

Webdesign Barcelona and Basel: matching your content with high quality design

One of the most appropriate manners of weighing up the services of a Webdesign Barcelona and Webdesign Basel provider is to look into the types of content management systems it can handle. Moreover, a content management system is likely to provide you with the guarantee that template issues can be advantageously operated: as a rule, a CMS deals with template systems as well. These are very significant for the functioning and functionality of the overall design of a business website.

In other words, you will let Webdesign Barcelona and Webdesign Basel professionals deal with design aspects and you will only preoccupy your mind with the content you will offer to the CMS to deal with. Of course, a well prepared Webdesign Barcelona and Webdesign Basel team will also be able to come up with their own suggestions as to what your content should include for the most auspicious promotion of your business.

TYPO3 and Joomla content management systems publish and handle your content. Moreover, they guarantee the “survival” of your website for quite a number of years because they simply render websites dynamic. Even if there is a change in the overall appearance of a website, your content (the already published one) will be maintained as long as you want it to. In other words, content and design are stored separately with the aid of a CMS.

Don’t worry: separate is the best aspect in such a case. Under such circumstances, design is preserved while authors may add their contents. Moreover, a dynamic content is made possible owing to another feature of a CMS like Joomla or TYPO3; this feature is concerned with the development of extensions such as shopping carts, polls or forums. Extensions are user-targeted and they allow your content to be known by as many people as possible.

Subsequently, professional Webdesign Barcelona and Webdesign Barcelona teams will not deal with design issues on an exclusive basis. On the contrary, they also comply with content management requirements. However, their work is highly improved if they are “helped” by a CMS like Joomla or TYPO3. Such programs render websites highly user-friendly; moreover they are not difficult to use, so that the web designer you are hiring should spend his time strictly worrying about design and content integration rather than about the fact that such a CMS is too difficult to manage.

Now to your part: make sure that in the content you provide for your site you include extended data on the type of services you are offering and on the products you are supplying. It is only in this manner that you will manage to actually initiate and then develop with a profit your business. Even more, frequently updated services & product information is highly appreciated by potential customers. It will give them a hint on your preoccupation of staying on a line perceptive of what’s new in your branch of business and on what improvements you can make and you actually undertake as your current/near-future purpose.

In the end, people will look for information integrated in a pleasant or out of the ordinary design. When content and design agree, the dynamics of your online business is secures. Keep in mind that visitors will only be attracted by what you can bring different or high-quality on the Internet market. Therefore, keep your content up-to-date and consult with your web designer not only on design issues, but also on development aspects.

Source: http://www.a1articles.com

Webdesign don'ts

Your website is the life and soul of your Internet presence, if your website appears and acts unprofessional your company will seem unprofessional and people won't feel confident buying from you.

With that said webdesign is a complex issue and I could discuss it for days with you but for this article and for the moment anyway I'll concentrate on sharing the things you shouldn't do when it comes to designing your site as ultimately bad webdesign affects people more than good webdesign. These don'ts of webdesign are in point by point format.

Don't use frames. Frames are a thing of the past and are out of fashion, they mostly confuse visitors and they basically destroy your chances of getting good search engine traffic, not to mention the problems associated with bookmarking and printing pages that use frames.

Don't limit access to your site by requiring visitors to already have or download a certain plug-in, this is the same as increasing download time and most people won't bother to wait for the download, they'll just visit your competition instead.

Don't have scrolling pages which require the visitor to scroll sideways to see the whole page. This is so annoying to most visitors that they'll leave straight away. This happens when you design your site at a certain resolution and someone visits with a resolution lower than that. Design for a resolution of 640x480 if you want to be sure that your pages avoid having scroll bars. You're pretty safe however designing and maximizing your pages for an 800x600 resolution because most people nowadays surf in that resolution.

Don't annoy your visitors with blinking text, pages full of banners, continuous background music that slows down everything, pop-up windows, text that's hard to read because it's a similar color to the background etc. If you do annoy them you can bet they won't return.

Don't use under construction pages, you're only wasting peoples time if you direct them to a page that's not ready so never link to pages unless they're finished.

Don't make visitors wait, if people have to wait for a page to download because it's bogged down with too much graphics and other media they'll just leave.

Avoiding the above don'ts of webdesign will at least give you a chance of retaining visitors and maybe even have a few of them return.

How to Seach and Find What You are Looking For

Recently after designing a website for my family and showing them what terms our website comes under in the search engines, I noticed they don't really know how to search to find what they want. These are people I thought were pretty computer literate, as they have had a computer as long as I can remember. If my family doesn't know how to search I am sure there are many other people out there too, who don't know how to search. Even if you are computer literate, this article will still be beneficial to you as you need to know how to find what you want on the Internet. As you know some of the results are not always what you are looking for.

I recently read a newsletter I had received which had some interesting statistics. Did you know that when a searcher does not find the information they are looking for they believe their keywords are wrong? After you read this article you will be able to find what you want unless it doesn't exist and chances of that are rare.

How to search within a website
For the remainder of this article we are going to be using Google as an example. Let's say we are looking at the site www.imaginarysite.com and we want to find what pages have the word "financial" on it. You would type in Google: financial site: www.imaginarysite.com and it would return all the results within www.imaginarysite.com . This would be useful if the website you were looking at did not have a search option.


Finding sites that link to yours or another website
Finding sites that link to your website or a competitors website is an interesting tool. Sometimes the websites linking to your competitors will link to your website also. To search for links you must type link: imaginarysite.com. This will give you the results of all websites with links to your website that have been indexed by Google. If they have not been indexed those websites will not be listed.

Finding definitions
This is an interesting type of search. For example you may be reading a website on marketing and keep seeing the term blog. You have absolutely no idea what a blog is. To find out in Google you would then type define: blog. The best use for this search is with technical terms that you might not know.


Finding exact words
To find exact words that are in that order or grouped together, use quotation marks, for example "website design" or "purple monkey habits". Personally I find this search the best tools of all. A good use is when searching for articles and I am searching to see how many websites have my article. I would search "search engine basics" (which is the title of the article) and because there are a ton of websites with those three words together, I would add Alicia at the end without the quotation marks. Try it and see what shows up. This is especially useful to find more specific results.

Finding sites with a keyword in the address
To find keywords that are in the url (website address), for example type allinurl:webdesign ; another example would be allinurl:web design. Each example would give you different results. The first example would yield results with webdesign (as one word) in the website address. The second will give you results with web design (with a space between the two words). This search would be especially useful if you were looking for the salon named Pink Lime but, you can only remember that it has pink in the name and that it is a salon. You would enter allinurl:pink, salon, which would return all results with pink in the url and also with the word salon.


Finding your keyword and corresponding synonyms
Use the "~" sign which can be found on your keyboard, you just have to look for it. It can usually be found on the left of the 1 key on your keyboard. It is called the tilde sign. An example would be if you typed ~holistic coach. The results would include holistic coach, natural coach, massage coach and some others.

Searching the web and finding the results you are looking for is sometimes a difficult task. A lot of people search using just two or three keywords, which sometimes does not yield the results you are looking for. The best practice is to search using a couple of keywords and if that does not give you the results you are looking for, try adding another keyword after that until you really get the results you are looking for without having to search through pages of search results.