Archive for the ‘Building Websites’ Category

How Dreamweaver Can Make Building Websites a Breeze

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

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If you’ve ever wanted to create your own website, you might not be sure where to start. If you’ve done your research and you’re looking for the easiest program for everyday people to use, it’s likely that you’ve discovered Adobe Dreamweaver. This is one of the friendliest web design programs to use, and the fact that it includes an HTML editor just makes it that much more desirable. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to design a website for personal or for business use. There’s something for every type of user in Adobe Dreamweaver, but before you dive into design, you need to learn how to use the program effectively.

There are so many different books and tutorials out there for Adobe Dreamweaver training, but you might not know how to choose the right one. First of all, if you want learning the program to be as easy as using it is, you’ll need to leave the books on the shelf. Textbooks are great for other things, but when it comes to web design, having that hands-on experience can make or break your success in using the program. Just like children, who learn the alphabet better by seeing it and writing it, our brains are wired to learn things through example and by being shown. It’s human nature for us to be more “show me” than “tell me” when it comes to learning.

With computers, hands-on use is essential to your making sure you understand everything. If you can’t see the computer screen, you won’t know the difference between the cursor and the pointer, other than that one is shaped like an arrow and the other is a blinking line. It’s really a matter of basic common sense. If you use training software to learn Adobe Dreamweaver, your brain will get to see how the program works, and then you can duplicate what you have seen. If you just read a book, your brain will likely get stuck between the information and execution stages because you are not seeing the program in use.

Adobe Dreamweaver makes website building super easy for anyone. Taking the time to invest in training software and tutorials that can show you how to succeed with Dreamweaver will make learning the program just as simple as using it can be. It doesn’t matter if you’re a web designer professionally, or if you just want to build your own website. You can learn Adobe Dreamweaver much easier if you take the time to get involved in a hands-on training method.

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HTML and XHTML in Adobe Dreamweaver

Thursday, December 25th, 2008

HTML is a markup language used to create documents designed to be accessed across the World Wide Web using browser software such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. The version of HTML in current use is known as XHTML, a stricter, rationalised version of the original HTML specification. One key thing to note about HTML and XHTML pages is that they describe the content and structure of the page rather than the position and presentation of the elements on the page.

The first significant difference between an HTML and XHTML page is the document type definition. There are several ways in which this specification can be done in Adobe Dreamweaver. One of the most convenient is to go to the Modify menu and choose Page Properties. Here, in the category marked Title/Encoding, one of the options reads Document Type (DTD).

There are quite a few options available in the drop-down menu next to this setting, some relating to HTML version 4 and some to XHTML version 1. These DTD settings specify the rules that the mark-up language must follow so that the browsers can render the content correctly. For any new content you may be creating, the best specification to choose is XHTML 1.0 transitional since it uses the current XHTML specification while allowing backward compatibility with slightly older browsers.

When looking at an HTML page, the structural content is perhaps not immediately apparent. However Dreamweaver provides a number of useful ways of keeping tabs on the structure of your web page content. One of these is known as the Tag Selector. Wherever the cursor is positioned, the HTML code relating to that part of the page is displayed in the bottom left of the page on the Status Bar in an area called the Tag Selector.

When the browser reads the page, the tags surrounding text and other elements tell the browser the structural importance of each element. The H1 tag tells the browser that a piece of text is a major heading. The H2 tag signifies a sub-heading, and so on. As these tags are displayed in the Tag Selector, you can get an idea of the structure of the page and you can also click on the tags to select the element they contain.

The tags tell the browser the structural importance of each element but the page doesn’t contain any information that helps the browser decide how each element should be displayed. This job is done by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). An XHTML page is still basically an HTML page. However, the syntax used is stricter.

One example of this difference is that XHTML is case sensitive while HTML is not. In XHTML, all tags are lowercase so the H1 tag has to be written h1. In HTML, h1 or H1 can be used.

In XHTML, the closing tag is obligatory: in HTML it is permissible to have an opening tag without a closing tag. One such example is a horizontal rule (hr) which creates a dividing line between two sections on a webpage. This element is represented by a single tag, since it can never be used as a container. In XHTML, there is a special syntax for such elements: a single tag which is both an opening and closing tag (hr/). In HTML, the single opening tag is used with no closing tag (hr).

In summary, XHTML is the current version of HTML and this is the standard that you should use for any new projects. However, existing projects that you may inherit may well contain HTML rather the XHTML. Therefore, you should be aware of both. Remember also that HTML and XHTML describe only the structure of web page content: neither of them should contain information regarding the presentation and display of this content. The display and presentation of web content should be done using CSS.

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Affiliate Marketing Tips - Why You Need A Website

Friday, December 14th, 2007

by Eleanor Phyllese

Affiliate marketing is making it possible for virtually anyone to come online and make money with little or no money of their own. You do not need to create your own product or service so it simply comes down to being able to generate sales. Learning how to sell online can be a great challenge for many people.

Unfortunately most affiliate marketers try one or two approaches to sell and they usually fail and then quit. Do not be part of this group. You must learn from your mistakes because people that are making big money online do things very similarly and people that do not make much money also do things very similarly. Sometimes it can take a bit of time and a few failures before you figure out the game of internet marketing.

Most people want to make money online and they want to do it overnight without any effort. The problem is that this lure of trying to make quick money causes you to use strategies that are simply not effective. An example of this is throwing up a google adwords ad with a direct link to an affiliate page and then targeting any general related keywords. This strategy rarely works and can cost you a lot of money very quickly.

Remember that most people look at the internet as a free information resource and not a shopping mall. They do not make searches on their computer with the intent to buy something. Certainly there are a few searchers that do have clear intentions to buy so if you do want to target these then make sure to only bid on keywords that have the term ‘buy’ in it. However this is a small percentage, it appears that most people buy things online by being referred from sites they trust.

The kinds of sites people like and trust are simply those that help them and offer them either free information or a free service. For instance article directories can be great for selling products because people will read an article, feel like they have done some research and then maybe they may switch into buying mode when they encounter your links at the bottom of the article which means your conversion rates will be much higher.

This is why creating content rich sites is very important because you must be able to keep the visitor on your site long enough for them to potentially switch into buying mode before they click on your affiliate links. People buy based on emotion and not logic and most people will not purchase something unless they feel that they have done some research on the subject. If your site can offer the research information then people will be much more likely to buy after they click on your links.

Make sure you create a content rich site related to your niche and add your affiliate links either to the side or the bottom of your articles. Also try to make sure your articles are unique and written by you as search engines are becoming more strict with duplicate content. You can use adwords to promote your site but also be sure to use article marketing too as it can be very effective at driving free traffic from both the article directories and also the search engines as your sites ranking increases due to increased link popularity.

Also make it a point to learn about search engine optimization. The biggest key to getting high rankings with the search engines is to create good quality unique sites that offer free useful content for its visitors. Ask yourself whether or not you would find your site useful if you were a visitor. Always try to give your visitors the best possible experience as this is also the goal of the major search engines too. You can do reciprocal linking or article marketing to help increase the visibility of your site on the internet as this is also important to better rankings. Build a site and do it well and in time you are sure to find affiliate marketing success.

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