Status: O «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» A L L A B O U T W E B D E S I G N !(tm) "A Monthly Resource Guide For Web Designers and Webmasters" Issue #2 June 1, 1999 «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» Editor: Linda Anderson (aka windsong) All About Web Design!(tm) is a free, biweekly newsletter that covers EVERY aspect of web design. Topics include web design, writing html, resources for web designers, web site utilities, javascript, cgi, designing for search engines, and much more! If you're reading this newsletter, it's because you either subscribed or some kind soul forwarded it to you. If you want to get it delivered to your e-mail address every month, you'll find "subscribe" instructions at the bottom of the page. If you want to STOP getting it delivered, the "unsubscribe" instructions are there also. Replying to this message will NOT remove you. It goes without saying that your e-mail address is NEVER made available to anybody else. Never, no way, no how. «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» THIS MONTH'S CONTENTS... «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» SPONSOR'S SPOT EDITOR'S NOTES BOOK REVIEW SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLE (guest article) "Are You Losing Visitors?" LINKS OF INTEREST TO WEB DESIGNERS AND WEBMASTERS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR CRITIQUE CORNER HINTS, TIPS, AND TRICKS THIS MONTHS'S CLASSIFIEDS HOW TO ADVERTISE IN "ALL ABOUT WEB DESIGN!"(tm) SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE INSTRUCTIONS «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» SPONSOR'S SPOT «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» PROMOTE! Newsletter - Informative web resources, sites, zines, and lists submitted by readers, and by scouring the web and over 250 newsletters each month. FYI column, tips, and suggested software downloads, and reader comments each week. Archives, submission & subscription details at our site: http://www.promotefree.com/promote.htm?windsong «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» EDITOR'S NOTES «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» Welcome loyal readers and all new subscribers! This newsletter will now be published twice a month. Expect it in your mailbox on the 1st and 15th of each month. NEW E-ZINE about to hit the 'net! "All About Search Engines!(tm)" will be published by this editor twice a month on the 7th and 21st. You may subscribe by sending a blank email to: mailto:AboutSearchEngines-subscribe@onelist.com I subscribe to a lot of ezines. I have watched the networking going on out there on my behalf. Each time I read another ezine, I see my name and the name of my new zine mentioned. Editors getting other editors to give me a boost. You guys are beautiful. Because of you, the premier issue of All About Web Design!(tm) went out to almost 500 subscribers. And the numbers just keep on climbing. Thanks. I love you all. As most of you already know, I have been having a problem with formatting. And again the kind hearts out there have been coming to my aid. Thanks again guys. I think I may have conquered it. Starting with this issue, we will have "Critique Corner" where you can submit your site for a mini-evaluation. This will not be a full blown critique. Whether you have specific questions, or just want a general analysis, let me know. If you do not wish to have this published, then please do not request the review. mailto:editor@marketing-resources.com?subject=critique If you'd like to have one of your articles featured in ALL ABOUT WEB DESIGN!(tm) ...send the article to me at: mailto:editor@marketing-resources.com?subject=article (hint: it can also be a tip, or a trick.) But please stay on topic and keep it brief and to the point. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, complaints or advice, or just want to say 'hi', please contact me at: mailto:editor@marketing-resources.com?Subject=AAWD-Feedback Deepest gratitude to my best friend and confidant, UKJerry for his continuing support and encouragement. Without him, this just wouldn't be happening. Subscribe to his marketing zine at: mailto:ezines@paychecks-online.com?subject=ws Peace, windsong «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» BOOK REVIEW «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference by: Jennifer Niederst http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565925157/businessoppor084 Written in the popular "Nutshell" format, this guide is full of helpful tables and lists, making it a perfect desktop reference. The book breaks down the huge topic of Web site development into understandable, readable segments: the Web environment (browsers, displays, design principles), an in-depth guide to HTML tags, graphics manipulation and display, multimedia possibilities, and technologies for larger site management (such as Cascading Style Sheets [CSS] and XML). While this book is certainly comprehensive, the abundance of information could be overwhelming to someone just starting out with HTML. In addition, the heart of this book is filled with technical specificity on Web page creation (for example, a section under "Graphics" is titled "GIF87a versus GIF89a"). Readers looking for more conceptual explanations of Web design and layout would be better served with other titles. But for day-to-day development and maintenance, Web Design in a Nutshell is a truly well-constructed toolkit. «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLE «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» Are You Losing Visitors? by: Steve Warriner How many times have you seen an interesting website, clicked on the url, and then waited...and waited some more? Maybe you gave up. I do often leave an unloaded site because I've got a lot to do. Unless your site is the only one to deal with your topic, you've got no chance! But I know there are millions of new sites going up on the web constantly. My favorite search engine is likely to find one for me that I don't have to wait for. First lets talk about backgrounds. There are many very attractive backgrounds available for free or a fee. Don't use them unless this is a personal playpage and you don't care if anyone sticks around. Backgrounds will slow down loadtime, but more importantly, usability studies have shown that even faint watermark backgrounds make a website difficult to read. Graphics can be big loadtime hogs. But there are a few simple things you can do to greatly improve loadtime for your graphics. First, take each graphic to your favorite gif optimizer. Many times your graphic's electronic size can be reduced without significant loss of quality. I have a link to a gif optimizer on my site design page http://www.jedsweb.com/sitedes.html Whenever possible all of your graphics should be stored on the same server as your site. The more graphics loading from off-site servers, the slower your load time (and the greater the chance that the graphic may never load). (Editor's note: For a list of gif optimizers, jpg optimizers, html checkers, and related links, go to: http://marketing-resources.com/utilities.html There are some other great resources there as well.) Always use the size attributes for every graphic on each page each time the script calls it up. This will enable the text on your page to load immediately so the visitor has something to do while the graphics load. (Editor's note: For more on size attributes see the "Hints, Tips and Tricks" section in this issue.) If you don't know the size of a graphic copy the graphic's url and head over to http://madrabbit.net/webtools/source.html Paste the url in at the top and scroll down to "previous hic size" and click "width and height". Don't make any one page too graphics-heavy. Banners are very hoggy and no one page should ever have more than two, preferably just one. You can reduce the size with a gif optimizer and should always have those size attributes in the code. If you have a page that just can't be made without wall-to-wall graphics, there is another trick you can try. It will not always work because you can't control where visitors come into your site. But you can load the graphics behind the scenes on other pages of your site that they are likely to view before your graphics intense page. On your usual entrance pages each graphic can load as a 1 pixel by 1 pixel image. They will appear about the size of a period. If your visitor spends a few minutes on this first page, their browser cache will have them loaded for immediate viewing when they get to the graphics heavy page. Neat trick, when the visitor comes in your front door. There are many reasons that visitors will leave your website. One of the biggest is load time. Use these tips to increase the chances that your visitors become regulars and eventually customers. ____________________________ Steve Warriner is a website designer and owner of JEDsWEB http://www.jedsweb.com where he has loads of information about building profitable web sites with very little expense. Call or email your design questions to webmaster@jedsweb.com 607-243-8069 ___________________________ «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» LINKS OF INTEREST TO WEB DESIGNERS AND WEBMASTERS «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» Looking for some free software? Here you'll find a list of links to sites that have free software for all occasions. There is also a list of links of interest to webmasters and designers. http://marketing-resources.com/software.html _________________________________ "Resources and free stuff for web site designers" has lots of links. You are likely to find something of interest here: http://youonline.net/links/link_6.htm _________________________________ Here is a site that has web design tips. Check out the links and learn some basics for designing and improving your site: http://www.htmltips.com/ _________________________________ Want to know about CGI? Here is an introduction for those of you who know little about CGI: http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/intro.html _________________________________ "Mike's Clock Clinic" is a great site and has nothing to do with clocks. Don't let the title fool you. There are links to HTML resources, design tips, and more. There are enough links on this site to keep you busy for a month of Sundays. http://www.webcom.com/z4murray/website.shtml «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» LETTERS TO THE EDITOR «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» I listen to feedback. If you have particular likes or dislikes about "All About Web Design!"(tm) please let me know by sending your thoughts, ideas, critisisms, and comments to... mailto:editor@marketing-resources.com?Subject=AAWD-Feedback Also let me know if I have your permission to publish your ideas and comments. Dale Reardon writes: In this edition you talked about browser monitoring of your web site design. The best I have seen for this is: http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/index.html This editor is free and has an instant view mode that lets you see your changes as you make them. It is a wonderful editing tool and has built in uploading features. I like the ezine but would appreciate the title of the article being in the contents section so I can decide whether to read the articles or not easily. Editor's comments: Gosh, Dale, I was hoping you were reading the whole thing! But your point is well taken. I will include the title of the featured article in the list of contents. And thank you for sharing the link to the html editor. «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» CRITIQUE CORNER «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» Submit your site for a mini-evaluation. This will not be an extensive critique, but will be a general analysis. We can cover specific questions about your site, or analize just one aspect if you wish. There will be only one or two critique's published in each issue. If I receive more requests than that, some may not be published. I will try to critique them all and send you the results. Requesting the review constitutes permission to publish the results. If you do not wish to have this published, then please do not request the review. mailto:editor@marketing-resources.com?subject=critique Keith Price writes: I know you've got plenty on your plate, but If you get a chance to view my survey, I would appreciate any comments or suggestions you have on how I can 1) get more people to view and take the survey; and 2) Aggressively market the resulting product. http://www.zmagic.com/survey Editor's critique: Your survey page has a nice layout. It is not real clear why you are asking people to take the survey. I found no links to other pages on your site. I did go to your main page by manipulating the URL. These were the only two pages I found. Looked at your code, and found you have virtually no meta tags. The title on the survey page needs to be expanded. On your main page, the title is "Home". This will do nothing to help you get visitors. My advise is to do the following: 1. Rewrite the text on your main page and use this page as the entrance to your site. Make it clear why the visitor is there and what you are offering them. 2. Write some GOOD meta tags to go in your head tag. 3. Write some keyword loaded titles for both pages. 4. Then, promote, promote, and promote. 5. Subscribe to some good marketing e-zines. You will find links to some of the best in this and upcoming issues. If you have any problems or need help, email me privately and I will see what I can do. «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» HINTS, TIPS, AND TRICKS «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» HEIGHT & WIDTH Tags are extra tags that you can put in your IMG SRC Tags that will dramatically enhance the way your page loads. In most cases using HEIGHT & WIDTH Tags will make the information on your pages available faster to your visitors. If you use HEIGHT & WIDTH Tags, Navigator & Explorer will know exactly how big of a "hole" to leave for the graphic before it loads and will continue displaying the text down the screen. This gives the appearance of your page loading faster, when in reality it still takes just as much time to load the entire page. Using HEIGHT & WIDTH Tags works especially well with tables. Netscape will not display any information in a table until ALL the graphics are loaded. Using HEIGHT & WIDTH Tags will allow your visitors to read the text of your table and load the rest of the page while the graphics are loading. Note: Internet Explorer will load the rest of the page, even if you don't use HEIGHT & WIDTH Tags. But it will constantly have to reflow the text to accommodate the graphics as they are loaded. This constant reflowing is annoying and makes reading the text extremely difficult! Here's how you add Height & Width tags to your images: (XXX is in pixels.) «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» THIS MONTH'S CLASSIFIEDS «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» Register for our FREE courses on Winning the Affiliate Game. This training program, by Declan Dunn, offers a series of lessons and motivational tips to show you how to build traffic and increase YOUR sales. http://marketing-resources.com/course.html ____________________________________ How to make $200 CASH a day... laying around the house in your underwear! To learn how, send a blank email to: mailto:moremoney@getresponse.com?subject=W ____________________________________ Only 34.95 each for these beautiful, easy-to-install customized chrome plates for your car. You’ll be proud to display these high-quality weather-resistant eye catchers. FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING and FREE BONUSES. See for yourself and order yours now by going to: http://www.iditplates.net/new/1165/ ____________________________________ Absolute Internet Marketing Resources Ezine contains the most current, up to date marketing resources available on the planet! Get access to everything you need to turn your struggling business into an explosive moneymaker! Free! mailto:ezine-subscribe@appalachianmarketing.com?subject=ws ____________________________________ MAXIMIZE THE PROFIT POWER OF THE INTERNET! PIP News-free weekly newsletter. If you are new to marketing on the Internet, or even a veteran marketer -- here you'll find useful information, resources and services to build your web traffic, generate leads, and expand sales! To subscribe send a blank email to: mailto:PIP-News@ourlist.net?subject=Windsong_Ref _____________________________________ Get MONDAY MEMO! every week in your email inbox. It's FREE, and each issue is jam-packed with Information, Business Opportunities, Humor, Free Stuff and More. FREE Ad & FREE Report to new subscribers. Subscribe online at: http://Globemark.net/MondayMemo.htm or: mailto:SubscribeMM@globemark.net «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» HOW TO ADVERTISE IN "ALL ABOUT WEB DESIGN!"(TM) «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» Classified ads will be limited in number. Ads will be placed on a first come, first served basis. If your ad doesn't make it in the current issue, it will be run in the following one. We confirm all ads by email upon receipt of payment and notify you of the run dates. We reserve the right to refuse any ad for any reason. For advertising rates and to order by check or credit card: http://marketing-resources.com/creditcards.html «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE INSTRUCTIONS «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤» To subscribe to All About Web Design!(tm) send a blank e-mail to: mailto:allaboutwebdesign-subscribe@onelist.com To unsubscribe send a blank e-mail to: mailto:allaboutwebdesign-unsubscribe@onelist.com Copyright 1999 © Linda Anderson (aka windsong). All rights reserved. Please do not reprint, or host on your web site, without explicit permission. We disclaim any liability for the use of any contributed information contained herein. We also claim no responsibility for the legality or accuracy of the subscriber's advertisements or articles submitted and reprinted by permission.