My focus is on how website usability goes hand in hand with good SEO. Usability science, or human factors, pursues the quest for human-computer interface designs that are easy to use. While Usability Day is about technology as a whole, and how that technology makes our lives easier, this article will turn its attention to website usability, and how it can be important in search engine optimization. Website usability deals with ease of navigation, how colors work together to enhance a user experience without hurting the eyes, the size of fonts, and design. But some of the concepts of website usability have a direct effect on how search engines crawl your website, and index it accordingly. "Memory is...

Testing a website for accessibility can be a time-consuming and laborious process. The free Web Accessibility Toolbar can do most of the hard work for you though and is an indispensable tool for anyone interested in accessibility. The toolbar is not an automated testing tool so does require manual work from you. It's therefore able to avoid the many problems with automated accessibility testing tools. It doesn't require any technical knowledge so even the biggest technophobe can check their website for accessibility! Installing the Web Accessibility Toolbar You can download the toolbar for free from and after you install it, it will sit in the toolbar area of Internet Explorer. The total file size...

If you want to sell digital products on the internet such as ebooks and software you need to create a specific type of website called a mini site which is by far the most effective way of generating sales and converting visitors into customers. The most simple form of mini site consists of only two pages which are the sales letter and the download page, but you can also add some additional pages such as a contact page so that people can contact you for support or an affiliate page so that people can find out how to promote your product. Before you set up your mini site you will first need to use your HTML editor to create a template which you can use for each page. All you need to do is create a new...

When you look at Web pages from large commercial sites, you see a variety of typefaces, type treatments, and even line-spacing variations.So how do the Web site creators accomplish those effects? They use a new and vastly improved addition to Web page design called style sheets. You might be familiar with the concept of style sheets from working with document-processing applications like Microsoft Word, where choosing a particular style produces a complex set of changes in typeface, color, size, indentation, and much more. Style sheets give you a corresponding capability as you design Web pages.One very important characteristic of style specifications, both in applications,such as Microsoft Word...

Tired of the same old boring white background on your Myspace layout? Now you can create a really cool Myspace layout that will be the envy of all your new friends. You don't even have to understand HTML, CSS or have a graduate degree in computer programming from M.I.T. to create an enviable Myspace layout. There are so many options, it's hard to know where to start. Using a Myspace layout generator can be an easy solution to creating interesting colors, fonts and graphics to your Myspace page. Find colors and fonts that you like and plug them into the Myspace layout generator, upload your favorite photo or graphic into the Myspace background, add a song or two to your Myspace music and, voila! You...

When it comes to making money as a publisher from Google Adsense, some webmasters have difficulties getting their ad displays right and therefore leave a lot of money on the table.Google Adsense is by far is the most popular contextual advertising program used by online publishers worldwide. Adsense has variety of revenue generating products starting from Pay per click ads, Adsense for search, referrals for Firefox with Google toolbar, or other Google products (a complete list is available when you log into your Adsense account). Many webmasters think that just copying and pasting the Google Adsense code into a web page will create a huge amount of money, but that assumption is a mistake. Here are...

Myspace layouts is one the fast rising and popular amongst the users. Many websites are offering myspace cute layouts and designs for download, as it will help the users build their pages quickly. Many users are not conversant with coding or any of the technicalities involved in web page creation. My space layouts, myspace profile editors or profile generators are nowadays used to create myspace cute layouts. Users can change the entire look of Myspace cute layouts by using editors from other websites. Users for example hide or display top friends in their profiles. Since JavaScript is not allowed, users use HTML or CSS to change the colours, background images, table styles, scroll bar styles etc...

The animation and game design world is a multi-billion dollar industry. And it continues to grow. Experts predict that this trend will continue for a great number of years as people of all ages become more and more interested in this exciting field. Since the demand for these types of services is continuously growing, there are a number of job opportunities for those individuals who possess the creativity and the drive that is needed to succeed. This world is ever-changing, so there are a variety of different industries that a degree in animation and game design can be of use. It is nearly impossible to count all of the video game providers on the market these days. And new ones seem to be popping...

About a week ago I got a phone call from a college buddy of mine named Paul who runs a soon-to-launch online business. Here's how the conversation went: Paul: "We want to hire your company to do the SEO for us. Whatever the price is, we can afford it." Me: "Tell me a little more about your company and exactly what you expect to achieve from search." Paul: "We want to rank #1 in Google for EVERYTHING in our industry, and I know you can do it for us." Me: "I'd be happy to consult with your team to make sure you understand the principles of SEO and get off on the right foot, but I think you're better off doing the work yourself." He was perplexed. Why wouldn't we want to take on his SEO work? It has...

Want a border for your table, but don't want to use thestandard border? Need a table cell outline? Here's how todo it. A SINGLE ROW, SINGLE COLUMN TABLE Insert a table with one row and one column. Make border equalzero. Set cellspacing to one. Set cellpadding to whatever youwant it to be. Choose a background color for your table that will be theborder color you want to use. Then make the cell color whiteor other color that you want. Here's an example:bgcolor="#FF0000"> Content goes here...< d> < r> < able> A SINGLE ROW, TWO CELL TABLE WITH BORDERED LEFT CELL Actually, to get the effect we want, we'll embed a table inanother table. First, create a 600 pixel table with one row and two columns. We'll...

CSS is the simplest way to create attractive, quality web pages. Unfortunately, many people are still attempting to control the structure and presentation of their web pages with only HTML. Here are four reasons that you should forget about tables and start using CSS today: Browser Compatibility-If you are trying to use tables to control the appearance of your web site, you may be able to achieve the exact look you want on a single browser (such as Internet Explorer). However, when people visit your web site with browsers like Firefox, Opera or Safari, your layout may be completely broken. If you want to make sure that users from any browser get the best experience from your web site, you need to...

How to Test Your Web Site Usability When designing a web site, you are never sure how it appears toall people. This is because people use different browsers,resolutions, computers and connection speeds to the Internet. Your site may look good with your browser, but absolutelyhorrendous in other browsers. This is why you should test theusability of your site, before you expose it to the world. What is usability testing? This indicates the ease with which folks can use your web site. Let's look at a few usability factors. Who is winning the browser war? Here are the browser statistics: 39% Internet Explorer 6.0 51% Internet Explorer 5.0 2% Internet Explorer 4.0 3% Netscape 4.0 A few years ago...

The main idea behind the concept of separating the content from its presentation is to allow website developers a useful framework to develop their website giving them the ability to change the website's appearance whenever they like without needing to redo the content structure. This article will explain the rationale behind separating content from presentation. Don't get me wrong, there isn't just one method for implementing this concept. More than that, since the introduction of technologies such as CGI, ASP, and PHP that allow web developers to generate dynamic web pages, a lot of companies have found creative ways to develop their website applications using this concept as their foundation...

CSS or cascading style sheets are used to create a set of styles that can be applied to your fonts, tables and most other attributes of your web page. These styles allow you to create a much cleaner, faster web page that search engines love and also makes life much easier on the designer when global changes to these styles need to be applied. It is also always critical to always keep in mind your target audience and the average internet connection speed these users have. By using styles sheets to their full advantage, you can help keep your web page size down to a minimum. When you sit down to think about the sitemap and the navigational structure of your website, you should consider using cascading...

So have you finally have given up on hand watering and want a in-ground system? Designing a sprinkler system may be easier than you think. In this short tutorial you will learn how to create a simple garden plan and then estimate how much conduit and sprinkler heads you will need for your project. Plotting your garden area First, find a some graph paper. If you don't have any you can Google "printable graph paper" and prnt the example images. Depending on the size of your yard, establish the scale by referring to each square as 2 or more feet. Next, you will want to measure and draw your house and patio areas. Be sure to include side walks and other obstructions like trees and garden borders as well...

CSS and Tables: The hype and the trends The History of tables Before tables came along, the web was a pretty dull place. Using tables forlayout opened up new vistas of possibilities of visually "designing" a page. It could well be argued that table based layout was responsible for the popularityof the web and the field of web design. Worse still, over the last few years, table based layout has come under severe criticism and was widely demonized. Web purists claim that tables were never meant for layout so one shouldn't use them for such. A rapidly progressive hype seems to be in the air all around. Reality behind the hype Despite the fact that pioneers have been talking about web standards for a...

Every website is trying to sell something, a product, an idea, a service or information even if they don't charge for it. In a previous article we looked at the best way to boost your profits whilst building your credibility with your customers. As I read back over that article I realised that it led neatly onto website design. 'Think about it, when you are surfing the web how many sites will you visit in an hour? More importantly how many will you remember? Pretty few I guess. Well it's exactly the same when your potential customers come to your site, they look around and leave, a lot of the time never to return. Did you know that the average web user will only stay at a website for 10 seconds...

Although CSS was first introduced in the mid 1990s, it did not become a mainstream tool among web designers and masters until more recent years. This is unfortunate, because there are millions of poorly designed web sites cluttering the internet that could be easily improved with the help of CSS. So what exactly is CSS? CSS is an acronym that stands for Cascading Style Sheets. The term Cascading Style Sheets implies two things. First off, the style sheets are cascading. This means that multiple style sheets can be used for a single web page. Additionally, the term cascading also refers to the way a style is determined in the event that more than one rule matches a single element. The second thing...

Use free web templates or build your own website from scratch - there are many professional web designers and companies that offer free web site templates. Use them and build a web site online for free - you need to download the free template (Web2earn also offers some excellent downloadable free website templates) and then customize it to suit your needs. If you want to build a free business web site, try a more serious and corporate color scheme and layout, or go with a lively and dynamic web template if you are building a site to sell teenage apparel. You can also build a site from scratch. In this case, you need to have some serious web design and development knowledge, especially if you want to...

There are many mistakes committed by individuals in the field of Web design and management. It is good to know, though, that there are less usability crimes committed against users now than before. This article presents the ten worst errors in Web design. 1. Poorly designed search engines - Some search engines take searches too literally to the point that usability is cut in half. These search engines cannot manage hyphens, plural forms, typos and other variants of the terms inputted. Such search engines not only make life harder for everyone but are especially difficult to use by the elderly. Sometimes, search engines rank results on the basis of the amount of query terms inputted, rather than on...

In this article I will go over a few observances that may be helpful to churches in creating their church website. We will not touch on the functional aspect, so much as the aspect of design characteristics. This article is a response from a blog I read, (forgive me I forget the link). In this blog, the writer brought up the idea that church websites are some of the most unique designs on the web. At first glance, I thought, "church website designs", best on the web? I've been used to seeing most church websites very tacky and at best embarassing to the church. After reading the article, it did open my eyes a bit more to some of the artistic trends in church website design. These are some...

As a web designer, you should design your websites to give your visitors the greatest ease of use, the best impression and most important of all a welcoming experience. It doesn't matter if you had the greatest product in the whole world -- if your website is poorly done you won't be able to sell even one copy of it because visitors will be driven off your website by the lousy design. When I'm talking about a "good design", I'm not only talking about a good graphical design. A professional web design will be able to point out that there are many components which contribute to a good website design -- accessibility design, interface or layout design, user experience design and of course the most...

Designers Mumbai 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website's Legibility By Seo Sultan Websites that make their customers work to read them are not the best way to get business. Miniscule fonts, text in colors that make it hard to see against the background color, and lines that are piled on top of each other are problems, but they're easy to correct. Let's jump right in and look at five easy fixes: 1. Format your text using CSS. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are the way to go - use one style sheet and control how text looks on your entire site. Make a change to the style sheet and your whole site is updated. It makes life a lot simpler. 2. Make the font size big enough to read. Consider your target...

XHTML first came along in December of 2000. It has since then grown in popularity substantially but has yet made the final leap. Although XHTML has some problems being viewed in Internet Explorer, it is still of great use and is very powerful. Unlike HTML, all XHTML have to have a closing tag. Be it an img or a p, it has to end. This is great practice for beginners and also helps even the most advanced markup writer keep up on his work. Also, if you are looking to impress your buddies or if you are looking to start your own web design business, XHTML is a good place to start. It makes your source code clean and readable, the most important things when looking for a professional. Not only that, it...

The coming-soon Samsung G800 is a 3G HSDPA technology enabled slider phone with a bright and vibrant 2.4 inch 262k colour TFT screen with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. With this amazing display, the phone makes every viewing experience a fun. Loaded with an integrated 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, Xenon flash and 3 x optical zoom, the Samsung G800 offers quality images and stills under any light condition. Music features like built-in music player and stereo FM radio zest up your musical soul like never before. While connectivity part of the phone is taken care of by features like 3G, Bluetooth A2DP, GPRS, EDGE and USB, web activities are maintained through functions like WAP 2.0 XHTML...

Keep It Simple Stupid Simple website design is a vastly underestimated tool in a web designer/marketers arsenal. Keeping a web page simple and uncluttered has benefits on both aesthetic and practical levels. The rise of interactive Web 2.0 sites, the need for endless plug-ins and add-ons can often deter less experienced users from a site before they have the chance to make use of anything it has to offer, so it is always important to think of you target demographic before deciding how to go about constructing your site. If your site relies on returning traffic it may be worth incorporating related features, but if your site is more angled towards one-off visitors it is more worth your while keeping...

MySpace is reportedly the fifth most popular website in English, and also in top ten of the most popular websites in any language. Its popularity in the United States ranks it among the top five websites, and it is known to have topped the charts quite often. MySpace has become very influential of the popular culture of our times, and it receives about eighty percent of all visits to online social networking websites. If you have a MySpace profile, but you are displeased with it because it basically looks like everyone else's, you have the possibility to modify the default layout. MySpace layout and backgrounds can be customized with a simple trick, such as adding hidden HTML code to your profile...

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets allow you to implement a few neat effects on your webpages easily. You can implement these CSS effects on your site by simply copying and pasting the code. ROLLOVER COLOR TEXT LINKS Have your text links change color when the mouse passes over them by inserting this code into the HEAD of your document: <style type="text/css"> <!-- A:hover {color:red} --> </style> LINKS WITH NO UNDERLINE Remove the underline from any or all of the links on your page by putting this in the HEAD of your document: <style type="text/css"> <!-- A:link {text-decoration:none} A:visited {text-decoration:none} --> </style> Or, remove the...

eMergent Marketing of Cleveland, Ohio is a bright, young search engine optimization company emerging in an industry surrounded by hype and cynicism. eMergent Marketing has expanded its SEO arsenal by offering Web site usability testing and conversion services to its clients, in order to improve the likelihood that their Internet marketing efforts have the greatest impact on consumers.eMergent Marketing represents a whole new way of thinking about Internet marketing and eCommerce strategy. It's no longer good enough to just focus on driving Web site traffic. With growing competition and increasingly savvy online consumers, it has become critically important to attract the right site visitors in the...

Stylish and accessible forms in CSS The majority of sites designed these days have at least one form. If you're a web designer then you'll know that creating a template is essential if you are to be efficient in your work. Many times I've compromised on a form's design due to time restrictions. Below is a template that I use and that is quite flexible in its design. This form allows for any type of input field from a simple textfield to a group of radio buttons. If your quite comfortable with CSS then please feel free to adapt this code. The fun you can have with this form can really change the way your forms look and make a great deal of difference to your overall web site design. XHTML CODE Below...

Today both Netscape and Microsoft have agreed to implement CSS in their respective browsers and this means that Web authors who want to use CSS have to knowwhich CSS elements they can and can't use, as well as the significant differencesin the way adopted CSS elements behave in both browsers. Both use only a subset of the complete specification as laid out by the W3C. Since both companiesare members of the W3C, however, they will adopt the full set of CSS elements over time - at least that is the hope. CSS1 (and CSS2) will only be useful to Web authors if they are widely adopted and fully implemented by browser manufacturers. If they are not, CSS could easily disappear. There is a precedent for this...