Web Design & SEO For Small Businesses

while designing and developing a website a web designer need to several tools to maximizing the effectiveness of the website. There are a wide range of different tools which is been presented here. Each of these tools is so important for a web designer.

1. 
   Web Page Analyzer Tool – This tool can be used to test the loading time of your web page. It gives a detailed report on how many objects and size of the objects on the page. These tools have several rating for each object like Green ratings is for good, Yellow for caution and Red for warnings.
2. 
   W3C CSS Validation Services – This W3C CSS validation Service is a web based tool helps web designers to check Cascading Style Sheets(CSS) are validated. The CSS can be validated here by three ways one is typing the URL, second is by uploading the file and finally by inputting the direct CSS code in the input box.
3. 
   Browser compatibility testing tool – By using Browsershots you can test your web designed pages in different browsers. As we all know the importance of checking the web pages with different multiple browsers. Browser compatibility testing is a critical element in the web development practice.
4. 
   Website Wireframe Tool – Wireframes are a basic visual guide for any web page layout design. Wireframe also allows maintaining design consistency throughout the site. Wireframes are very important part in the initial stage of the design process. Gliffy is a free web-based diagram editor. Gliffy free wireframe software makes it easy to create website wireframes and to share web mockups with anyone.
5. 
   Web color picker - This color picker will help you fine tune the hex color codes for your web page. These color picker tools are great for exploring colors and color schemes for your web design project.
6. 
   Screen Resolutions Checker – Quickly and easily test any Website in various Screen Resolutions! This tool allows you to check any web page in different screen resolutions. As web visitors uses different screen resolutions web designers need to check their web page design in different screen resolutions and make sure it looks in all of them.
7. 
   Dummy Text Generator – A dummy text generator will come handy to any web designers because when they wait for the content. Web designers can use dummy text generators to fill up that space.
8. 
   CSS Menu Generator – will generate both the CSS and the HTML code required to produce a text-based yet appealing set of navigation buttons. Menu generator makes it easy to create custom CSS menus without having to know all the complicated HTML and CSS
9. 
   Broken Link checker – Use this tool to check for Broken Links on a website. Broken links are links that lead nowhere; Clicking on the link will show an error page.
10. 
    Browser size checker - A nifty online tool for setting your browser size while doingWeb design.
11. 
    Robot Control Code Generation Tool – The only reason you might need to use a robots.txt file is if you want to prevent someone else from using this search engine to index your site
12. 
    Http header checker - Check your server to make sure the proper HTTP Status Codes (200, 301, 302, 304, 307, 404, 410) are being returned in the server headers.
13. 
    URL rewriting tool - This tool helps you convert dynamic URLs into static looking html URLs.
14. 
    htaccess tool – These tools will create .htaccess and .htpasswd files for you, without having to build these manually.
15. 
    Rounded Corner and Gradient Generator - This generates a basic box with rounded corners. It will create four image files and the necessary HTML and CSS code for you to put rounded corners around your content.
16. 
    Strip Generator lets you make your own comic strips. Users can even create their own Strip Blog, which combines the art of creating comic strips with blogging.

CSS Shorthand techniques are used for condensing and shorting your CSS code which makes your stylesheets small which will enable your website to load faster and easier to read. One of the greatest advantages of using CSS shorthand properties is to specify several properties by using only one.

So here are some 25 extremely useful CSS shorthand tutorials to make your CSS code more Concise.

1. CSS Shorthand Guide – The syntax for declaring the background shorthand values are excellent.
2. CSS shorthand properties – This tutorial explains on how using CSS shorthand properties you can reduce the size of your CSS documents even smaller.
3. An excellent source for Introduction to CSS shorthand properties.
4. Efficient CSS with shorthand properties.
   
5. CSS – Shorthand V Longhand.
   
6. Introduction to CSS Shorthand from Sitepoint
7. Free! – CSS shorthand properties – Shows some excellent examples of list shorthand rule.
   
8. Useful CSS shorthand properties
   
9. CSS Shorthand Properties
   
10. Use shorthand properties in CSS to shrink your style sheets.
    
11. CSS Shorthand, Step by Step How-To
    
12. Advantages of using CSS Shorthand properties
    
13. What is a CSS Shorthand Property?
    
14. CSS Shorthand Cheat Sheet
    
15. Detailed guide to using shorthand CSS in your cutups
    
16. Minimizing and creating efficient CSS code
    
17. How do I write Shorthand CSS?
    
18. A good collection of links to CSS shorthand articles
19. Shorthand properties
    
20. Writing CSS Shorthand
    
21. Writing Efficient CSS Shorthands
    
22. CSS shorthand tips
    
23. Using CSS shorthand for fast-loading websites
    
24. Basic CSS Shorthand rules
    
25. CSS Shorthand from WordPress
    

Feel free to comment and add your thoughts on these tutorials.

I am not sure all of you might have heard of htaccess files. Also may be thinking what can be done having an htaccess file on your site. The people who would have heard would have used to implement custom error pages and for protecting directories which needs a password access. But htaccess file can do more than that. Below I have mentioned few quality tips on how to use .htaccess files for webmasters to their advantage.

1. For Password Protection – If you have a specific area or folder that needs to be protected and only certain people should have access to it. Then .htaccess is your answer. There are several client side based scripts to protect your password which is not secured but using server side htaccess you are safe.

2. Block users with their IP – If you think you need to deny access to certain IP address or blocks. You can also allow and deny by domain name rather than the IP address.

3. Block referrals sites – If you think certain sites is misusing your content or images and hot linking without a legitimate one then you can block them through htaccess. An apache mod rewrite is required to be installed on to the server first most servers have them.

4. 301 redirects – 301 redirect is the most effective and Search Engine Friendly method for redirecting a web page. It’s not a difficult task to implement it will preserve the ranking and credibility of that particular page.

5. 404 error pages creation – Everyone get frustrated when they encounter a broken link page. But you can help the users by creating a custom 404 error page and tell them that this pages doesn’t exist which will make the reader to think that you care them.

6. Prevents from access htaccess – htaccess files allow you to prevent accessing certain part of your website. htaccess also can protect certain directories as password protect folders and give access to only specific users.

7. Create user friendly URLs- With htaccess and an apache module called mod_rewrite you can setup URLS in which ever way you want. Often ecommerce and a website on content management software generate URL with many special characters which are not search engine friendly. But with .htaccess file you can mod_rewrite them.

8. Enabling server side includes- One of the trickiest aspects of a maintaining a website is constant update on a certain part of the design which occurs on every page. But with Enabling server side includes instead of copying and pasting the new code on all the pages you can use a include file which will modify and will replace all the pages. You should also be able to do that using .htaccess

9. Set time zone of your server- You can set server time zone to local time zone using htaccess which will give the correct time being return in your web form.

10. Block bots and Cache of the web pages- Another advantage of htaccess is for blocking bots and caching of your web page by the search engines. This can be prevented too by htaccess.

htaccess is one of the smallest things that we all overlook. but I see many things I have listed here are very invaluable tool for a webmaster.

There are million of web pages offering useful information, products and services. But a majority of them are difficult for the user to use and ultimately doesn’t attract the your to stick with the website. As a professional web designer you should take a visitors interests and need while designing the website.

This blog posts presents 10 important common usability mistakes by a web designer.

1) Formatting linking text – An anchor text link is format with an underline which makes the user it is a clickable text. The current trend among web designers to make the remove the underline text decoration can make unnecessary confusion with the end user.

2) High contrast text on a light background – Another design trend which I have noticed lately among the designers to present a light text color like grey on a white background, this practice make vast majority of the users won’t be able to read what it is displayed.

3) Cluttered text – Another common mistake what I see in some websites are how the text is presented within the layout of the site with cluttering of the text. Remember the amount of time your get the visitor to impress is limited if the text is cluttered and make it difficult for the users. The best practice should be to have a fine balance of white space and text which increase readability and message mentioned on the website is easy to scan.

4) Confused navigation – It seems that many designers try to make new method of site navigation. Navigation should be clear and consistent through the all the pages. If you are using image and DHTML navigation make sure that you have a text link at the footer of the page.

5) Logo Consistency – Often this part is neglected most of the designers. The logo should be consistent through out the page and should have a hyper link to the home page.

6) Browsers – The layout of the website should be compatible with all version and different kind of browsers. Most of the web surfers have lower version of different browsers so make it compatible with all of them.

7) Online Order – Make the ordering process simple and faster, don’t make the visitor frustrated asking to do so many steps before they buy the product. If you can reduce the steps in the buying process it will increase the conversion of the site as well.

8 ) Bread Crumbs – Is a very type of navigation which will tell the users where they are currently located on the website architecture. Some sites ignore this accessibility issue and make the users lost inside a website without knowing where to go.

9) Loading time – Due to the over use of big graphics and other programs and multimedia like applets, flash files and videos elements can reduce the loading time of the website which make the visitor to leave immediately and your site will have a higher bounce rate.

10) Surprising the visitor – Most of the users are not comfortable with unexpected things occurring while they surf the web page like automated downloads and video and audio without the permission of the user.

The bottom-line is many, many sites are neglect the basic principles of a website design which mean the user is wasting time as they are looking inside the site trying to make some sense of its purpose.

I get several questions from non Internet marketers about affiliate marketing, when I tell them about what is my main source of income. I try to explain to them what is affiliate marketing is all about but still they are confused, now I started to respond to them as I do online marketing which is hassle free. Been said that I would like to tell you that Affiliate marketing is truly hassle free. Since it doesn’t involves complicated online transactions like merchant account, credit card authorization etc. It is very simple business with no overheads; all you need to spend is time and effort to build that business to the next level. Determination is key to be successful in affiliate marketing.

Some of the rules you need to follow if you want to start hassle free affiliate marketing business.

1) Start on a niche in which you are comfortable writing.

2) Buy a domain name which is relevant to your niche.

3) Contact a web designer to create a search engine friendly website or if you are good at HTML or can work on HTML editors you can work on it yourself.

4) Start of with at least 100 pages of unique content on the site.

5) Learn Search Engine optimization or outsource that to a SEO company.

6) Add more content pages on a regular basis.

7) Join Affiliate Networks like CJ, Neverblue Ads, Shareasale and Amazon Associate so that you can promote their merchants products.

Write reviews on those products, and insert merchants links on these content pages, Don’t over link and confuse the visitor.

9) Add on content until you get regular and good traffic from search engines.

10) Build links to your website with relevant and related website of your niche.

With the above said tips and if you are adding consistent content to your website and updating links sure in the long run you can start earning a good residual income from affiliate marketing.