Webmaster Tips – Page 4 – Web Development, Design & Marketing

Useful Toolkits and Utensils for Designers

April 8, 2023June 22, 2018 by Webmaster Tips

All such designers who are starting with work offline can make use of a graph or blank paper while starting from scratch. You can easily access the pre-designed templates, and for this reason, you need not start from scratch, as this will save you time and help in bringing out your creativity.

Many tools can be easily accessed while you are considering making a web design or plan. All these tools are also available for download. They mainly include grids, pre-drawn browsers, and iPhone and iPad development.

Paper Browser: this is a simple and printable browser that is useful for wireframing. It has a subtle grid in it which is functional for better and enhanced design. It is scaled for certain screen resolutions.

MBTI Sketching Paper: this tool consists of four multiple dimensions while you are coming up with different ideas for certain buying modalities that are humanistic, methodical, spontaneous, and competitive. It is available in four different sizes such as Legal, Letter, A3, and A4.

Concept7 Sketching Paper: this tool is useful in providing the browser window with predesigned grids, lines and also with note areas; it is easily available for A3 and A4 sizes.

20 Resources That Every Designer Needs

April 8, 2023May 17, 2018 by Webmaster Tips

Ever felt you were being bogged down by the resources that you have at your disposal? Ever felt that if you had a better or more attractive resources kit, then you would’ve met that deadline, but you weren’t able to meet or satisfy that client who rejected your design?

In this fast-paced world, where trends are made every second, let us see a few resources that are the saving grace of some and the magic tricks of others.

These resources come to the aid of all those desperate souls that search for better resources in the nick of time to complete their project. That’s almost awesome but never quite so.

Now, pay attention and feast upon the amazing resources developed by the truly ingenious developers to make our designing tasks that much easier.

1. Pixeldropr:

Allows us to create collections of our favourite icons, illustrations, etc. which can be directly dragged and dropped to a PSD file.

2. Drawspace:

Downloadable lessons to learn drawing.

3. Unheap:

Huge collection of JQuery Plugins for web enthusiasts!

15 Excellent Designing Portfolios For Your Inspiration

April 8, 2023April 16, 2018 by Webmaster Tips

The internet is full of a number of awesome and inspiring portfolio designs. To make your online visibility more impressive as you expect, it is vital to create an online portfolio that will help you stand out in this challenging marketplace. It can be designed in different sizes and shapes, it’s up to you, and it doesn’t matter whether you are an illustrator, web-savvy developer or graphics designer.

Not only this, it is a way that presents your site and attracts your potential clients effectively. The portfolio gives a superstar web designer touch, and innovative thinking lets you enable to engage more clients for a long time.

There are plenty of online tools available over the web that can help users build a portfolio without having sound knowledge of coding. Check out the 15 most inspiring and incredible online design portfolios for all, whether a design agency or individual site designer.

Choosing Your Corporate Identity According To Your Brand

April 8, 2023March 13, 2018 by Webmaster Tips

I have seen hard-nosed businessmen at each other’s throats about subtle changes in colour and hue and the exact shade required to convey the right message.

What should the company mission statement and strap-line be? What should be depicted in the logo? Should we use an established font or create one of our own? Opinion is often divided, and therein lurks a greater issue.

Branding is merely the tip of the iceberg. If individuals can’t agree on the core values of the company, then they would do well to invest time into addressing those issues before wasting effort on their corporate branding.

Having everyone working towards the same goal, singing off the same hymn sheet or being ‘on the same page’ might be a dreadful list of clichés, but if core values are at best confused and at worst missing entirely, then this is an early indication that the business may not be destined for success.

In businesses that are already well established, this is an even more serious problem as deep conflicts may exist around the overall direction of the company, which will have an effect on culture and efficiency and spill over into the realm of customer perception also.

The Best Online Sources for Creative Commons Images

May 18, 2023February 4, 2018 by Webmaster Tips

As a Web designer, you may want to use free images to enhance your work. Although the Internet is full of images of all types, you can’t use just anything you find on the Web; this can lead to a lot of headaches, the main being an expensive lawsuit.

Unless you’ve created or taken a photo yourself, you must get permission from the owner/creator before using Web images in your work. This is where Creative Commons (also known as CC) images come into play.

It would be an inconvenience and take too much time if you had to personally ask permission for every single Web image that you wanted to use. Instead, you can simply search for Creative Commons images using the online sources outlined below.

These sources will show you beautiful images that you can use for free in exchange for an attribution link on your website. Best of all, this attribution link is often provided for you by the source; all you have to do is copy and paste it into your website’s HTML.

There are different types of Creative Commons licenses. So you need to pay attention to this when searching for images. Some let you modify, adapt, and build upon the image, while others won’t let you change a thing – you will have to use as-is.

So be sure to look for the appropriate license based on how you’ll be using the image. Without further ado, here are eight of the best online sources for free Creative Commons images.

Webmaster tips for improving the usability of a webdesign

May 17, 2023January 2, 2018 by Webmaster Tips

A good web designer will always come up with new and great ideas that will set trends. A GREAT web designer will make a balance between a new web design and the functionality of the site that he is working on.

There are many exercises for web designers that promote ease of use and functionality, an excellent maintenance rate and great user satisfaction. I will adduce some of those elements created to greatly increase the site’s usability and functionality.

Intuitive navigation technique

There is an expression roaming around web users: “If you can’t find it on the first two pages of Google search, it doesn’t exist” The point of this expression is that the end-users often redirect their search from one to three links on the site before they give up. Keep it simple and keep it clean.

The intuitive navigation offers users that they jump from site to site and find the required information quickly and easily. While designing a site, keep in mind that users do not have to jump more than three levels in their search.

5 Things to Consider when Choosing a Drupal Web Hosting Company

May 17, 2023December 28, 2017 by Webmaster Tips

Deciding to use Drupal as your CMS of choice is a great decision. It’s open source, extremely customizable, and search engines like it. Now you have to find a Drupal web hosting company to fit your needs. Here are five things to consider when choosing a Drupal web host.

1. Does the Web Host Have Proper Support for a Drupal Installation?

In this case, “support” represents two different things. The first thing is the platform. Make sure that the web hosting account you choose has the actual equipment and software to support a Drupal installation. Drupal requires the following:

• An Apache, Nginx, or Microsoft IIS web server

• At least 15 megabytes of disk space

• PHP support

• MySQL or other database support

The more recent the version of Drupal, the more recent the versions of PHP and database software you require. In most cases, if the web host offers Drupal, then it likely meets the requirements.

I would check which versions the web host offers, and match it against the requirements from the official Drupal site to be sure. Even better, you can look for hosts that fine-tune the database and PHP settings specifically for Drupal.

The second kind of support you are looking for is tech support. If something goes wrong with your Drupal installation or if there are any problems, you want a host that can actually help you. Just because a web host offers Drupal, it does not mean it can help you troubleshoot Drupal related issues.

There is a lot of documentation online, but sometimes it’s far easier, and quicker, to just speak with your web host and see if they have a solution for you. So make sure the host you choose has a knowledgeable team.

3 Must Have Upgrades For Your Blog In 2017

May 17, 2023September 2, 2017 by Webmaster Tips

Like all forms of technology today, the moment you think you have gotten your blog to that point of ultimate perfection…..the whole blogosphere changes again! Maybe there is a new type of malware sweeping across the Internet. Or perhaps shareable content made easier is now the “it” addition to serious blogs. Perhaps the “hamburger” menu button is out and infinite scrolling has already replaced it.

Here, 2017 is no different from other years. Change is on the horizon yet again, and the blogger who wants to start a blog and stay competitive needs to update and upgrade as needed. In this article, learn about three of the top must-have upgrades for your blog this year.

1. Content-Based Upgrades.

While actual numbers can vary from day to day, the current working estimate suggests that there may be as many as 173 million blogs registered online. That is a lot of blogs! Of those blogs, estimates indicate as many as 1.13 million new posts go live every day.

Point being, your blog is competing with a LOT of others for those coveted sets of reader eyes. You are competing even harder for subscribers – readers who like your blog enough to give you their email address and permit you to send them updates. As the blogosphere continues to expand, you need ever-better incentives to nab that all-access pass to your readers’ inboxes during the 30 seconds or so they are surfing around your blog.

The hands-down best incentive for 2017 is “content upgrades.” What exactly does this mean?

Content upgrades are freebies that readers ONLY get when they give you their email address by entering it in the little box and subscribing to your email newsletter. So you want to make them VERY alluring. You want your free content upgrades to be so enticing a reader who leaves without registering to receive it will navigate back to you later to sign up so they don’t miss out.

The top content upgrades for 2017 are shaping up to be:

– Bonus materials that enhance knowledge gained from a popular blog post. An example might be a blog post you wrote about how to make your blog more visually appealing to readers. At the end, you offer a content upgrade featuring the list of the top five colors readers are most responsive to.

– Templates readers can use to recreate your success. If you have achieved great success with a particular infographic layout or a certain video format, you can bet your readers want to know how to do it too!

– Free plugins to increase conversions and sales. Let’s say you write a blog post about how using a certain plugin on your blog took your readership from zero to 500 in 15 days. A content upgrade at the end of the post might be an invitation to receive a free resource list of the best plugins of this type for each blog platform.

How you can sell web hosting as a value added service to your design clients

May 17, 2023June 30, 2017 by Webmaster Tips

With all of the new web design companies that are finding their way into the business these days, you need to have all cylinders on full blast if you are looking to build and maintain your own company in this modern web business landscape. One of the best options that many competitors do not offer is an option to host with the same company that is doing the design. This reseller hosting is a bit more difficult to implement, but well worth it when it comes to customers.

– How can I sell my reseller hosting options?

The first thing that you need to do is make it known to your audience how important web hosting is to their process. There is nothing wrong with placing a short video on your webpage about your distribution services. However, you must inform your audience of just how important these distribution services are in the first place.

Let them know just how difficult it is to achieve a consistent presence on the Interne and about all of the potholes they can expect with different options that are on the market currently. Detail exactly what you will offer in the form of hosting services, whether those services will be shared hosting, VPS hosting or dedicated server hosting. Explain the difference between these different types of hosts and also explained to your audience exactly how your service will be more stable than the competition.

– Make sure that your audience has all the information that they need to make an informed decision.

Many other web hosting platforms try to keep information and statistics out of the hands of their audience, preferring to make them purchase the service through ignorance. None of the people who are on a shared server will know how many other people are on it. These web hosts will not detail the security measures that they take to protect the data stream of their clients, nor will they explain how to get in touch with any customer service agent should anything go wrong.

FileMaker vs Excel for Business Purposes

May 17, 2023March 21, 2017 by Webmaster Tips

There’s a common joke in the business world that goes along the lines of “the entire world runs on Excel”. And while it always gets a few chuckles out of those hearing it, there is a frightening degree of truth to that phrase so much that the situation has become quite bad for some businesses, which rely on Microsoft’s spreadsheet solution or something equivalent to extreme degrees.

Sure, when you look at it in a certain way, Excel does act like a database in many aspects. But it’s not meant to be used as one and definitely doesn’t perform as well as a more specialized solution in heavier cases.

On the other hand, it does have the benefit of bringing simplicity to the table, allowing pretty much any member of the company to contribute to the collection of information and development of internal processes. But this should not be a reason to limit the whole organization to Excel, certainly not when you have better alternatives available.

FileMaker is a good middle ground

FileMaker is a relational database solution that aims to make the process of working with a “real” database easier and more streamlined by adding a nice graphical interface layer on top of it. While it takes a while to get used to, and it’s certainly more complicated than Excel once you dig deep beneath its surface, it’s often a much more optimal solution for those who want a good balance between productivity, features, and simplicity.

One of the strong aspects of FileMaker is that it can be easy to develop a custom interface for your internal databases, complete with custom control elements that can allow for the input of various kinds of information with a reduced error rate. The capabilities of FileMaker in this regard are miles above what Excel could ever offer you, and learning to use it should be your top priority if your organization still relies on Excel to a large extent.

What’s the Truth Behind Shared Website Hosting?

May 17, 2023December 12, 2016 by Webmaster Tips

Known as the most popular type of hosting by far, shared website hosting is used by about 95% of website owners. Even though this type of hosting is very popular, most people don’t really understand it.

Rarely will you hear the truth behind the phrases used with this type of hosting, such as “unlimited” and “affordable”. Before you make your hosting decision, it’s important to really understand what you are getting. Here’s the truth you need to know about shared website hosting.

What is Shared Web Hosting?

Shared hosting is a type of website hosting that places multiple websites on a very large server. They share the resources of this server in a “first come, first serve” way. With multiple websites on the same serve, hosting companies are able to offer very affordable rates, which makes shared hosting very economical.

Hosting servers can cost anywhere from around $150 per month all the way up to thousands of dollars a month. However, when you get shared hosting, you will pay between $5 and $11 per month with a good hosting company.

So, What’s the Catch?

We all know, when something sounds too good to be true, there’s usually a catch. The catch with most shared hosting companies comes with the marketing. They will claim to offer unlimited resources, such as bandwidth, disk space and domain hosting. However, there’s really no such thing as unlimited hosting since the limits are whatever the server can possibly provide.

Shared Hosting

May 17, 2023September 25, 2016 by Webmaster Tips

Shared hosting is perhaps the most common type of web hosting service used by everyday web owners and developers. As the name suggests, shared hosting offers affordable web hosting services by hosting hundreds – even thousands – of websites on a single, shared server.

Shared hosting services can come in different forms. Some service plans offer unlimited disk space and monthly bandwidth, while others may have limited resources that customers can use. Both types have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Shared hosting is suitable for all kinds of websites. Personal blogs, static websites and even a corporate site or an online store can be hosted using a shared hosting plan without problems. Most shared hosting plans are also capable of handling large amounts of traffic as long as you stay within the allocated monthly bandwidth quota.

Although shared hosting plans are very appealing and affordable, they do come with limitations. The server is used by multiple accounts, so the performance of your site may be affected by other websites operating on it. If another site is experiencing a spike in traffic, for example, your site can also be affected.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting bridges the gap between shared hosting and dedicated servers. You get a set of server resources virtually allocated to your account, but the server is still shared between multiple VPS accounts. A huge advantage offered by Virtual Private Servers is the compartmentalisation of server resources; VPS accounts will not be affecting each other, even when they are hosted on the same server.

VPS hosting is slightly more expensive than shared hosting, but you get a substantial boost in site performance in return. You can also host more websites on a single account without having to worry about running out of bandwidth or the sites becoming slow under heavy traffic.

WMT Content Timeline – Powerful Content Display

May 17, 2023June 2, 2016 by Webmaster Tips

WMT Content Timeline is a powerful and lightweight responsive jQuery/HTML5/CSS3 Joomla Module designed for displaying any organized Joomla content.

WMT Content Timeline – Joomla Module

1. Install WMT Content Timeline

WMT Content Timeline installs like any other Joomla Extension. If you are not familiar with Joomla Extensions installation, you can watch a short video tutorial about how to install Joomla extensions.

Navigate to Extensions –> Extension Manager. In the Upload Package File area, click on Browse, select extension archive file and click on Upload & Install button.

2. WMT Content Timeline Configuration

WMT Content Timeline has an administrator configuration component where you can add new items (slides) to the timeline.

Top 5 Tips for People That are New to Website Building

May 17, 2023March 4, 2016 by Webmaster Tips

1. Choosing the Right Domain

Regardless if you choose .com, .net, or .biz, it is extremely important at this point to pick a name that matches your business and has relevant keywords. It will be a lot easier to rank a domain EliteDogTrainingServices.com than it will be to get anyone to find TamiLovesDogs.com on the web. Think long-term, too, because this domain name will be something connected to the business for years; get it right now so potential customers can quickly associate the two.

2. Planning the Website

Think in terms of your potential buyers’ needs. Will you be selling a product, will you be providing information, or will you build a website that encourages interaction between the guests? Choose the right design platform carefully and utilize a template that will enhance the customer experience. One thing to consider here, too, is consistency. If you have a logo and color theme already in use at your brick-and-mortar store or on your
business stationery, make sure to use them throughout the website design to tie everything together and strengthen your brand.

3. Outline the Website Content

Don’t make the mistake of rushing to get your website online without having a clear outline in place. Regardless of the platform, the website is going to need basic components like an eye-catching homepage, information about-us page, relevant products or services page(s), and an easy-to-find page that has all of your contact information.

5 Fresh Templates for your Website

May 17, 2023February 22, 2016 by Webmaster Tips

A website template is like a blueprint for the construction trades. Like the blueprint, a website template is a plan for construction, the construction of a website. It’s a design guide showing what goes where. An image goes here, text goes here, a video goes here, and a menu goes here. More importantly, the template might show the size of the image, the font of the text, the purpose of the video, and the character of the menu.

If a new home builder follows a blueprint, the end result should be a beautiful new home, and in the same way, if a website builder follows a template, the end result should be a beautiful new website. For someone who has never built a website before, a template may be indispensable, but even experienced website builders will sometimes rely on a template for inspiration and guidance.

The history of website templates essentially mirrors the history of the Internet. As the Internet came to fruition in the early 1990s, along with it came the development of templates. They were primitive, clunky, pure HTML templates in the early days, but a start was certainly born.

The development of the website template scheme continues to this day, and now even the most highly developed website might very well start with a template. In 2016, there are thousands of templates to choose from, HTML, WordPress, Joomla, and more.

Some are free, but many are for sale. Those for sale may sell for as little as just a few dollars to as much as a few thousand dollars. Generally speaking, website templates are easy to use so that even a novice can use one to build an impressive website, but some still require advanced skills and even a little bit of coding. Building a website with a template can provide a valuable learning experience and even the novice will gain skills and knowledge while building a website.

Webmaster Tips : Web Development, Design & Marketing