Back To Basics
Okay, so first up is a little gem.

What is your average customer WORTH?
You don’t know?  That’s not surprising, a lot of business owners don’t.
It’s easy to work out -
o   Total the number of Clients you have in a given perid
o   Minus your expenses from your total invoiced
o   Divide the result by your Clients
o   Now you know what you can spend on marketing for your customers

Driving Traffic to your site SEO
o   Backlinks – why are they still great?  Because it’s evidence that someone else thinks your site is worthy of linking to, end of story.
o   Directories – if you thought Directories were old-hat, think again.  There are some quality Directories out there specific to most business niches.  Yes, there are a lot of low-quality directories also, but the same can be said for any type of website online.
o   Social Media – the entire planet has gone Social Crazy, but for some businesses, it really works.  If your clients hang out there, target it.  If they don’t there are still plenty of options.

The right page
o   Make sure your visitors are landing on the right page!  Don’t have links for a ‘red widget’ pointing to your contact page…I know that one’s a no-brainer, but it still happens.

Call to Action
o   Don’t expect them to pick up the phone
o   Unless you actually tell them the number
o   And make it easy for them

Track your new enquiries
o   Where do they come from?
o   How did they find you?

Knowing where your customers came from, and how much they are worth is invaluable in many ways.  If you’re shelling out for advertising, but not getting any return on that investment, you need to know.

Don’t worry, this is not going to be over-the-top technical, or just for the eyes of geeks.

(See our other tips here.)

Overview – Why is The Google ‘Panda’ Update Still Affecting Our Websites?

The long and short of the ‘Google Panda’ update and how it affects you is this – it is no longer just enough to have ‘useful’, or ‘relevant’, or ‘unique’ content for your website.

The Panda update goes a lot further than Google have gone before when it comes to how they rate your website (and ultimately your business) within the online search space.

You or your web/seo guys may have noticed your ranking stats jumping about a bit since around March – that’s when Google started rolling out Panda. And it ties in to what I’ve been telling our clients about recently.

Now – this is the crucial bit to keep in mind – Panda is not going to go away, or fade out. It’s an on-going, evolving change to the way Google rates your website.

Google cares a lot about the quality of search results presented to guys like you and me when we search for stuff on the web.

Why? Because Google’s income / revenue stream – totalling hundreds of millions of dollars – depends on Advertising. If the search results pages start looking spammy, or full of junk – searchers go and use an alternative like Bing or Yahoo. And Google loses money. Simple.

So How Does Google Panda Impact You?

The key here is now based around usability for your website visitors. Ask yourself these questions:

- Does my site look like it was built in 1980?

- Would I want my mother/brother/father/sister/friends to visit my site?

- Is my website chock-full of Ads?

- Is there unique content on the site that engages people searching for my product/service?

- Am I re-using the same content on different pages?

- If I visited my site, looking for my service, would I buy?

- Do my website stats tell me people are leaving my website as soon as they find it?

- How many pages does the average visitor view before leaving my site?

- How long does the average visitor stay on my site for?

If the answers to the above aren’t good – then you may have some work to do if you want to maintain or improve your position on the web.  And you’ll notice that all of these factors are ‘visitor-focussed’.

How Does Google Know?

Google already have several ways to monitor the above metrics automagically. But the key thing is how they designed Panda in the first place.

This is all based on Human review – yep, real live ones. Hundreds of guys, visiting thousands of websites, and rating them by actually visiting you. You or I may have been visited by a Google employee in the process – but that’s irrelevant – because they’ve now trained their computers to behave in the same way as the Human Reviewers. That’s what enabled Google to roll the Panda update out to every site on the web. Clever stuff.

What Do I Need To Do?

Forget SEO as it used to be. Panda changes all that substantially. Going forward, Google is all about usability for your visitors – and yes, one way of measuring that is ‘Social Proof’ – see my previous post where I mention Google+1 for an example of this.  If you’re not doing it already – start looking at your site as your visitors would, not as you ‘think’ the search engines would.

In last month’s Tips, we showed you Google +1, Dropbox and 1Password.  Some amazing benefits to small business owners in that lot. I might even get the T-shirts.

This month we give you some super-simple, quick & easy tips that are often overlooked on the keyboard that could easily save you hours of aggravation every single month!  When I say super-simple – that’s exactly what I mean.

(See our other tips here.)

#1 – Make the Most of Your Monitor

You are probably like me.  I’ll bet that sometimes you wish you had another monitor, or a bigger monitor, so you can have as many of your programs as possible visible at the same time.  Well, there’s a killer keyboard shortcut to maximise the ‘real estate’ on your screen.  Try it in your favourite web browser (this works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome)

Keyboard Shortcut: press ‘F11′ on your keyboard

This removes all the junk you don’t use when reading a web page – the address bar at the top of the screen etc.

Simply press ‘F11′ on your keboard again to get all the usual screen-hogging menus, navigation buttons etc back again.

#2 – Too Many Programs Running?

Fed up with clicking through the different windows on your desktop, trying to find the program you’re looking for?  This one is a breeze, and anyone with 2 or more fingers at their disposal can do it:

Keyboard Shortcut: Hold the ‘Alt’ key (left of your spacebar) with your thumb.  Use your middle or index finger to click the ‘Tab’ key.  This works in Windows, Mac (‘Option’ + ‘Tab’) or Ubuntu Linux.

You’ll be able to cycle through your open programs with ease

(Bonus Tip: if you have windows 7 with Aero enabled – try your Windows key + Tab together….ooohhhh!  Tell me what you see!)

#3 – Eyes Tired?  Text Too Small?

Again, this works in most modern web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.

Dead simple – hold the ‘Ctrl’ key on your keboard.  Hit the ‘+’ or ‘-’ keys on your keypad to increase or decrease the size of Text in the browser.

(Bonus Tip: to ‘reset’ to the original size – hit ‘Ctrl’ and ’0′ (that’s zero, not the letter)

#4 – Need to Find Something FAST?

Whether it’s a program, or a file, this works in Windows:

Hit your Windows Key (left of keyboard)

Type the name, or part of the name of the program or file you need, you’ll see a quick list of matching programs / files.

Click the one you need  (or if you’re a keyboard junkie like me, and hate having to use the mouse – use the up & down arrows and hit Enter)

Hey Presto.  Boom, you’re in.

(This works best if you have ‘Indexing’ turned on)

#5 – Some Well-Known Keyboard Shortcuts

This is a quick list of some of the more common shortcuts that will save you hours of your life in boring, mundane ‘office productivity’ over a year:-

These work in most programs:

• Ctrl + S = Save
• Ctrl + Shift + S = Save As
• Ctrl + P = Print
• Ctrl + O = Open (file or folder)

From Outlook Email Client:

• Ctrl + N = New Email
• Alt + S = Send Email
• Ctrl + Q = Mark as Read
• Ctrl + U = Mark as Unread

Have your own quick tips that save time on the boring stuff at work and allow you to get on with the stuff you enjoy?  Share them with us in the comments.

Well, that about wraps it up for this installment, see you in the next episode!

Here are 3 tips that any business owner can benefit from without throwing their PC (or Mac) through the window:

(See our other tips here.)

#1 – Google +1 is here!

If you haven’t heard of it already, then you have now.  If you’re not sure what it is, then a simple explanation is to think of the ‘Facebook Like’ buttons you see on many sites at the moment.

Now the importance of this is – it’s Google.  We all know how important those chaps are when it comes to the web, search, and running your business.

When Google does something, it usually has a massive global and local impact, so if you only have 1 ‘share this’ or ‘like’ button on your website, make sure it’s Google + 1.

Simple enough for your web guys to setup, so won’t break your website budget.

#2 – Dropbox

This is amazing.  Free storage up to 2Gb.

Want all your important documents or images to be available to you on whatever machine you work from?  Dropbox it.

Need to share important documents with your clients and don’t want to constantly email changes back and forth?  Dropbox it.

You save something to your Dropbox folder, which then almost instantly becomes available in the same folder on your other machines (or also available to anyone else you share it with).

Simple to set up.  Free.  Download, install, away you go – all your Word, Excel, image files, whatever you want available to you wherever you are.

You can even login to the website from anywhere in the world to access your files should you need.

Link to Dropbox site.

#3 – 1Password Vs Firefox 4 Password Manager.

Got multiple passwords you can never remember?

1Password wins hands down.  Many more options and the ability to integrate also with Internet Explorer (boo, hiss!).  1Password pops a handy little icon in both FF & IE, but most of the time you don’t need the icon – it just recognises the login pages that you have saved – and can even auto-fill for you.

Forgotten a login, or can’t quite remember the web address you need to login to?  Just hit the icon, and search for part of the name of the website, or the address.  It’s truly a great bit of kit.

Also features a great ‘Password Generator’ which generates really strong passwords – and obviously you don’t ever need to remember them, and so don’t have to use the same ‘easy to remember’ password you’ve always used before.

*** Use 1Password with Dropbox (see above) and you can have your passwords available to you on every machine you work on – home, office, anywhere.

Well, that about wraps it up for this installment, see you in the next episode!

Sprite Me makes it super simple to sprite up images with a little Bookmark tool.

Excellent for sites that don’t already have their images sprited.

#1 Firefox

#2 Chrome

#3 Internet Explorer

Chrome has about a 13% lead on IE according to these stats.  Heh-heh!

Anyone else seeing a similar pattern recently?  Would love to hear from you if you are showing something different, whatever market you’re in!

Here are 3 tips that any business owner can achieve without throwing their PC (or Mac) through the window:  they run from super-easy at #1, to more advanced by #3.

(See our other tips here.)

#1 – Go-Go Google Local!
Often overlooked, Google Local is a great place to get your business listed, with many search results now showing local results at the very top.

To get your site on Google Local, and Google Maps – go to http://local.google.co.uk/.  Click on ‘Put your business on Google Maps‘

Enter your Google Account details (signing up is free if you don’t have it – it’s worth the 2 minutes to fill in the form)

Fill in your recovery email address and/or mobile number

Click ‘Add new business’ and give as much detail as possible.

Done.

#2 – Validation Validation Validation
An easy one for you to check yourself – does your site have errors?  This can often put you at a disadvantage to your competitors.  Here’s how to check in under 30 seconds.

Go to your website.  Copy the address out of the address bar.

Then, go to http://validator.w3.org/ – Put your address in the Validate by Uri ‘Address’ field.

Click the Check button.

The W3C are pretty much the world authority on valid code in websites.

If you have Errors or Warnings, contact your designer and let them know.

Sometimes they are not important, but sometimes can really harm your Search Results.

#3 – First Link Importance
This is super-important for any of us with Logos at the top of our pages, which most of us do.  This tip is a little more advanced for those of you that want something more meaty!

We all know Google loves text, and how important that text is for our search engine results – here’s how to check that the very first link on your page is text – and why it’s so crucial.

To explain this as simply as possible – if Google finds 2 links pointing to the same page, it will use the first link it finds.  If the first link it finds is your logo – then Google doesn’t use any valuable text for that link. Google loves text, and images just don’t compare when it comes to linking.

Here’s how to check your site. (skip to the bottom if you’d prefer to see the video link)

1. Using the Firefox web browser, if you don’t have it already, install the Web Developer plugin.  Restart Firefox.
2. Now go to your website in Firefox.
3. On your menu bar at top, go to your Tools > Web Developer > Disable > Disable Javascript > Disable all javascript.  Click it.
4. Then go to Tools > Web Developer > CSS > Disable Styles > All Styles.
5. Now go to Tools > Web Developer > Miscellaneous > Linearize Page

(Don’t forget to re-enable 3, 4 & 5 above in your Tools menu when you’re finished.)

Now, you see your site pretty much as Google sees it.

If the first thing you see at the top of the page is a logo, then it’s worth speaking to your Web guys about.

If you want to check it out in more detail, see the video here

Well, that about wraps it up for this installment, see you in the next episode!

Web design flaws that impair usability do exist in many websites even with the tons of web design tools available. If users get stuck or are lost in a website, they abandon the website. If the homepage does not clearly express what the website is all about, they jump to other websites. If a website is difficult to navigate, they leave the website.

Usability is the capacity of the web design to make it easy for visitors to use the website. It allows users to go from one page to the other, jump from the first page to the last or go back and forth without difficulty. Usability is the first experience of the user with the business. This experience must, therefore, be as satisfactory and delightful as possible for the user by avoiding the following common web design flaws:

Complicated Search Tools and Processes.

Users want to navigate with some independence. Too complicated search processes easily tire them, so they usually go directly to the homepage search function. Search tools such as search boxes and links should be simple but visible. The search box should be situated conveniently at the right-hand corner of the top of the page and should have a search input field wide enough so that parts of the query are not hidden because of scrolling. Search boxes are good for complex interior pages while links are for simple interior pages.

Unchangeable Font Size

Many websites have fixed font sizes that don’t allow for resizing. For aesthetics, some web designs contain varied font sizes including small ones. This is a problem especially for senior and not too senior users and those with visual impairment. Small and thin fonts diminish readability and drive users away. The web design should allow for resizing of text using layman’s instructions instead of highly technical terms like pixels.

Cluttered Pages

Hoping to catch attention, some web designers include features like animation and moving objects such as scrolling, fireworks, twirling graphics, flashing banners or pop-up windows. Add some blasting music to that and you have, not only clutter, but chaos. Too many of these features disrupt smooth navigation that only lead users to the back arrow.

PDF Files That Require Online Reading

Users don’t want to be interrupted with additional procedures like the opening of PDF files. Moreover, not all computers are updated and not all browsers are the same.

In creating your web design, user experience is the most important thing to bear in mind. Every user wants to use the web in the easiest way possible. Thus, web designing is not about what you, the website owner, want, but what the user wants.

Measure It – useful if you want to quickly check widths to tweak your css without retyping / guess-timating 3 times……

FoxGuide – handy rulers ala Photoshop.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dom-inspector-6622/

If you’re messing around with web apps / php / apache / mysql / ajax (frameworks like Symfony / CodeIgniter / Kohana – you get the picture), this is sweet.  The DOM tree seems to be a bit easier to use / cleaner than Firebug’s Dom tab (counter-opinions on a postcard to BBC, Pebble Mill, W1 please).

And I like it.

xNeat seems to not be compatible with Windows 7 x64 at the time of writing, and after trying to run xNeat in compatibility mode for Vista SP2 / as administrator, we gave Ditto a run.

Works nicely with text in Notepad, copying db / mysql info in and out of IDE’s such as Netbeans.

Easy keyboard shortcut to pop open your clipboard menu – Ctrl ‘

Simply select the option ‘bookmark post at del.icio.us using same tags, enter your login details, bingo.

We’ll keep it simple. Either extract/install as I do below letter for letter, or amend the filepaths accordingly to match your own.  This is just how I did it on my local machine – no settings or instructions are intended for live sites, and any changes you make to your system are at your own risk.

First off, I have installed:

Wamp Server 2.0
Apache Version : 2.2.11 as shipped with Wamp Server
PHP Version : 5.3.0 as shipped with Wamp Server

1. If you need to, download Wamp Server and install.

Set Up Zend Framework

1. Download Zend Framework – Register with them first if you haven’t yet done so.
   Go to http://framework.zend.com/download/latest, click on ‘Zend Framework Full Package’ free download.
2. Download the .zip for Zend Framework 1.10 full (recommended) 1.10.8 as at the time of writing
3. Assuming your wamp directory is the same as mine “C:\wamp\www”  unzip the Zend Framework so you have this file structure “C:\wamp\www\zend” – within this folder you should have folders  bin, demos etc :-
   

   Wamp and Zend Framework folder structure

4. Now don’t get too excited – that’s the Zend Framework set up within your C:\wamp\www\zend directory. Next, start Wamp Server.

Set Up Wamp / Apache

1. Click on the Wamp icon in your Taskbar
2. Go to Apache > Apache Modules > make sure “rewrite_module” has a tick next to it.
3. Restart Wamp (Click Wamp icon in Taskbar > Restart All Services is simplest.  Or you can go click on Wamp icon in Taskbar > Apache > Service > Restart Service
4. Now we edit php.ini.  Click on Wamp icon > PHP > php.ini
5. Click Ctrl F, or go to Edit > Find in Notepad – find “include_path”.  We need to amend the line:include_path = “.;c:\php\includes”If this line has a semicolon before include_path, remove it.Now add in:”;C:\wamp\www\zend\library”(without the quotes) to the very end, but just before the closing quotes.  Mine looks like this (with the quotes):include_path = “.;c:\php\includes;C:\wamp\www\zend\library”Note the semicolon between the two filepaths.  This separates the two paths- don’t forget it.
6. Now we need to edit Windows Environment Path variable.
   Go to Start > Search > search for “System Environment Variable”.  Click on Edit System Environment Variables.
   You should get this window.  If not, open your Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings.  (I’m on Win7 x64, maybe different for Vista / 32 bit users)
   

   Advanced System Settings.

7. Click on Environment Variables, then find “Path” in the System variables, click Edit:


Environment Variables

8. The Edit System Variable window pops up – and we want to add the highlighted text below to the very end of the Variable Value:;C:\wamp\www\zend\bin
   
   *Don’t forget the semicolon at the end of the existing text to separate the path you are adding.  Click OK.  This will allow us to run the Command Line later on.
   

   Edit System Variable window

9. Re-boot.

Create a test domain for development.

Instead of using localhost, this is how to set up a test domain called dev.local for your development environment.  Then you just hit dev.local into your browser for testing as opposed to localhost

1. Open httpd.conf – Click Wamp icon in taskbar > Apache > httpd.conf
2. Find this line, and uncomment it by removing the ‘#’ from the beginning of the line.  This tells apache to then include the httpd-vhosts.conf file.  Save and close.

Now open httpd-vhosts.conf – if your directory structure is as we’ve been following above, then it should be in C:\wamp\bin\apache\Apache2.2.11\conf\extra.  (Apache2.2.11 is version specific if you have a different version choose that folder).



Open it with notepad.

1. Then add this domain as highlighted to the file as per the text and image below.

#first Domain

NameVirtualHost dev.local

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
ServerName  dev.local
ServerAlias dev.local
DocumentRoot C:\wamp\www\zendtest\quickstart\public
ErrorLog “C:\wamp\www\zendtest\quickstart\public\error.log”
CustomLog C:/wamp/www/zendtest/quickstart/access.log common
<Directory “C:\wamp\www\zendtest\quickstart\public”>
Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks Multiviews
AllowOverride All
<IfModule mod_access.c>
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</IfModule>
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

If you don’t have the text setting VirtualHost 127.0.0.1 for C:/wamp/www, (the ‘not highlighted’ text) then add that too.

Save and close.  Restart Wamp services.

One other thing – check your Zend framework and library folders aren’t read-only.

Create Zend Project

1. Create a new, empty folder for your new Zend project in C:\wamp\www – call it zendtest
2. Open your Command Prompt – type:cd C:\wamp\www\zendtest*You should now see:C:\wamp\www\zendtest> in your command prompt window.
3. Now we want to run the zf.bat file we added to the Environment Variables above. Enter:C:\wamp\www\zend\bin\zf.bat create project quickstart*Your full line of text in the Command Prompt should look like:C:\wamp\www\zendtest>C:\wamp\www\zend\bin\zf.bat create project quickstart.This tells Windows to run zf.bat, and create a new project in a new folder called quickstart, within zendtest folder.Open windows Explorer and check that your C:\wamp\www\zendtest\quickstart folder has been created.
   Within that folder should be the folders/files below.

   

Now, when you go to http://dev.local in your browser, hopefully you’ll see this!  You should be good to go to carry on with the rest of the Zend Framework quickstart guide.



Thanks to Tawfekov for instructions on setting up dev.local – see his video here (HD) or here at zendcasts (plenty of user comments) for further info on Wamp and Zend Framework.

If you want to set up Zend Framework with Xampp, go here.

I love the functionality of posterous though – images in the right order etc.

My problem with the Postie WordPress plugin seems to be that images go in at either the beginning or the end of the post. Not much use if you’re writing a ‘how-to’ with screen shots.

Default WordPress functionality seems useless for me as it’s limited to text only.

Anyone else know of a way to post to WordPress via email with image-order intact without the post showing up on some other site first?

If you’re working in a development environment where the number of developers > 1, then the likelihood is you’ll want some kind of SVN / code repository / revision / version control in place.  Or failing that, a good yoga teacher and some valium.  We’re currently using GIT for our web development projects.

GIT has a Windows client installer that you can hit up and the installation wizard runs pretty nicely.  Yes, it’s free, Yes, it’s open source, and Yes, legendary Linus Torvald is largely responsible for Git’s development.

If this is what you’re after, go get the GIT client, download and kick off the install.

Do I need to say ‘click next’ / agree to the licence / change your default installation location if required? Okay.

Some options here that are good for us Windows users:-

Make sure you check on the Git Bash Here and Git GUI Here to integrate with Windows Explorer context menus.

Now, I chose the safe option here, however if you need to be able to use Cygwin prompt – option 2.

I haven’t touched option 3 myself yet.

I’m going with option 1- on Windows desktop, but punting up to a ‘nix server, I think this is the option for us.

Hit next > scratch scrotum > pick nose >

And voila, bingo-bongo.

Hit the Release Notes if you’re particularly interested in a problem you had with a previous version.

Otherwise you’re good to go and set up your code repository, or tap into the existing code repository you’re using for a current development.

Happy Days.

Posted via email from bournemouthwebdesign’s posterous

So, you’re developing your shiny new WordPress theme with Dreamweaver CS5…

Here’s how you enable site specific code hints for WordPress.  Dead simple.

We’ll assume you already have your site defined for your web design and have set your Testing Server server model to PHP MySQL

Now, do the following:

1. Click on Site > Site Specific Code Hints

2. Dreamweaver should pick up you want WordPress in the Structure dropdown at top (as you’ve already defined your site and assuming you’re currently working on a theme / other wp project).  If not, just select it.

3. Click OK

Now, when you hit Ctrl & Space, codehints specific to WordPress appear:

4. Voila. Bingo.

Posted via email from bournemouthwebdesign’s posterous

Neat software to add your laptop or 2^nd PC monitor as an extra display monitor.  Free trial, but it’s so smooth I’ll be shelling out the $39 on this one immediately.

If you’ve already got 2 screens set up, and it’s not enough (it never is…), and you’ve run out of card slots in your PC for an extra graphics card, and the 2 machines are networked already – then try it, it’s sweet.  Perfect for any web design / web development work.  No, I’m not affiliated, I just think it’s great.

You can also take control of the second machine from the one you’re on, and view files, copy / paste, run programs etc etc.

Love it.

Posted via email from bournemouthwebdesign’s posterous

See the video below once you’ve opened Outlook up.

Video Transcription:

• Select your Contacts folder, then individual contacts within that folder by Ctrl / Shift selecting as you wish.
• Click New>Distribution List and give it a name.
• Click Select Members, then the Address Book from the drop down.
• Select the individual Contacts you’d like to mail.
• Click the Members button to add them to the list.
• Click OK, then Save and Close.
• Create a new Mail.
• Click the To button, then select the Address Book you created the Distribution List in.
• Your new Distribution List will show up as a Contact within that Address Book.
• Happy Outlook Mass Mailing with your new Distribution List.

This works nicely with a few caveats.  I’m not sure how well it works if you have thousands of contacts to email – something like phplist may work best in that situation.  Also I’ve had problems after upgrading my Windows operating system or Outlook itself.  The address books sometimes disappear, and the remedy is removing the data files (Tools>Options>Data Files), then setting up your mail accounts again.  This can cause ‘Minor Ball-Ache’, easily treated.

To find out more about how we can help you with your internet marketing visit this website: web design bournemouth

When developing a graphic template for your new web design, a good place to start is with colour.  Decide on a primary colour, then use lighter or darker shades of that primary colour and/or a complimentary colour that goes well with the variations of your primary colour.  Once you’ve made your colour decision, think about creating a pleasant, clean design, that makes it easy for your visitors to find their way around your website.  Don’t use huge images or photographs as background images, as this will slow your site down.  You want your pages to load quickly, this is now slightly more important than it was in the past, due to a recent Google update.

Make sure that the images you use makes sense in terms of the text content that you use on your website design.  A great website to use that this is iStockPhoto, which allows you to search for images by category and has thousands of high-quality images that you can use on your website.  You can even download example images to use in your layout design before purchasing them for a few dollars each.

Make sure your webpage is designed with modern accessibility standards in mind.  Currently, XHTML and CSS are the flavours of choice in terms of laying out your web page for Internet browsers.  You can go to the W3C validator web page to check there are no major errors in your web design.

You really want your homepage to be the primary focus of your main keywords, or keyword phrases for your business.  Make the navigation consistent across all pages of your website so that a user will find it easy to navigate back to the homepage and to other areas of the website – and try to make sure that a user can reach all the pages on your website within three clicks of the mouse from the homepage.

Having made all the decisions about colour and layout, you can proceed to lay out your graphic design in the image editing program of your choice.  Popular programs include fireworks, photoshop and the popular free image editing program called GIMP.  If this is your first web design, and then gimp may offer all the functionality you require.  A common size for webpages is currently around 1000 pixels by 800 pixels, once you’ve laid out all the elements of your webpage and a graphics editor, use the splitting or splicing function within that program to output the elements in the correct format for an HTML page.

You can then use the outputted HTML from your graphics program to produce multiple pages from this template.  Popular HTML editors include Adobe Dreamweaver, Note Tab pro, and free editors such as Coffee Cup.

Using the individual graphics programs, and HTML editors is well beyond the scope of this article, but there is lots of online help, communities, and forums out there to help you on your way.

Visit this website to find out more if you need help with your website: web design bournemouth