| |
| |
|
Go Back | About | Contact | Web Design News | |
|
|
|
Creating a Basic Web Design Template
A "template" is simply a design format which you can apply to all (or most) of the pages in your web site. The first advantage of using a "template" system is that it allows you to make your most important design decisions at the beginning, and then just focus on content. The second advantage is that it allows you to quickly create new pages based on your standard design. The disadvantage is that many template-based websites look homogenized and seem to lack a unique character. Designers who sell templates tend to use the same formats over and over again, insert the same generic images, and use the same techniques. Just as important, templates are often not ready-to-go right out of the box. They almost always need modification, and often modifying a professionally prepared template is difficult because the designer will have used techniques you may not fully understand or are specific to the tools he or she used to create it. So it is preferable not to think of a web template as the kind of thing you buy from an online template store. Rather just think of it as a basic page format that can be used over and over again. The best template is therefore one that uses "standard" techniques that can be modified without the use of specialized tools or programs (like Front Page or Dreamweaver). Creating a Basic Template If you are not familiar with web design, try working with a "bare bones" template to begin with. There are two ways you can go. You can work with basic html and tables, or you can create your basic template with CSS. Since CSS is rapidly becoming the new standard, it is probably better to begin with CSS -- especially if you have not yet become used to constructing web pages with tables. CSS stands for "Cascading Style Sheets", but at the beginning it is not important to understand what that means. What is important is to understand that CSS allows you to create a set of formatting parameters in a "style sheet" (a seperate file) which you then can very easily apply to your individual pages. In other words, you seperate the "style" from the "content". A simple style sheet can contain just three or four design elements. Here is an example which you are free to copy (right click and "Save target as" to a location on your hard drive, then change its name to "sample-1.css".) Style Sheet Sample (be sure to change its name to "sample-1.css"). This template contains a definition for the body text, a header component (with a background image), a "navbar", and a definition for two headline styles, h1 and h2. Now that you have a style sheet you can begin building your web site by creating a basic home page. Here is an example which embeds the style sheet referred to in the previous paragraph. You can get the html code by just opening the page in a browser window, looking at the "Source" code, and saving the resulting file on your hard drive as, for instance, "sample-1.html". Now you should have two files in the same location on your hard drive -- "sample-1.css" and "sample-1.html". You can get the image file by just right clicking on the image in the sample page and saving it to the same location on your hard drive. Your second step will be to create the pages referenced in the "navbar", so make sure you think of names for these pages before proceeding (e.g., howitworks.html, products.html, about.html, sitemap.html, contact.html). Then build your hyperlinks into the navbar. (Look at the code of the sample file to see how it is done.) Once you have your basic home page with links, this then becomes your template. Just save it as "howitworks.html", "products.html", etc., and make the changes to the specific pages. The result (once you upload it all to your host server) will be a basic, functional website containing a number of properly interlinked pages. It will also be search engine friendly because the design is not cluttered with scripts, and the most important elements are clearly laid out at the top of the page. For more web design tips and techniques see the Linknet Marketing Resource Library. Rick Hendershot is a marketing consultant, writer, and internet publisher who lives in Conestogo, Ontario, Canada. He publishes several websites and blogs, including The Linknet Network of Websites. This network provides an inexpensive way to advertise your website, and get as many as 100 low cost links.
MORE RESOURCES:
Web-Design - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Keep Them Coming Back - Update Your Site If you are anything like me, your website is a reflection of yourself. It contains your thoughts and communications, exposed to the entire world at all times. What You Should Ask a Web Designer Before You Hire Him You've thought about it and you're ready to go. You're ready to give your business an online presence. Website Design Mishaps - How to Avoid Costly Errors That Can Crush Your Chances of Success Designing your website can be a difficult task especially if you decide to do it on your own and you have no experience. There are many websites and web hosts that provide tools to allow you to build your website, but if you have no knowledge of what works and what does not work in web design, you could be setting yourself up for a big fall. Why is a Logo so Important to Your Business? Well, a logo for your business. Why is it important? Does it matter what it looks like? Is Yours Professional?These are some good questions to ask when you are considering to get a logo design or already have a logo for your business. A Landing Page is Not an Order Page (and why it matters) To explain my point I need to first confuse the issue a bit (you'll see why): While a landing page is not an order page, it can, and in many cases should, contain the order form.So what is the difference? Is this just a question of semantics? Actually, there is a big difference and it can have a big effect on your conversion rate. KIS - Keep It Simple There are many ways to add fancy bells and whistles to your website, but most of them are not going to do you any good. In fact they will slow down the time it takes to load your website and take up valuable space that you are paying for. Technology vs. Usability When JV Media Design was formed, the year was 1995 and the Internet was a very different place than it is today.The first websites we created used simple layouts, a modest amount of graphics, standard "web safe" colors, and no javascript. Converting Traffic into Sales Making a successful online business can be a long and tiresome adventure. For most new online business's this can just lead to failure and a website that just isnt making sales despite a high number of visitors. Save Time and Boost Profits with Free Content Public domain gives you a head start creating ebooks, ecourses, newsletters, teleconferences, website content and email registration incentives you need to keep in constant touch with clients and prospects.Public domain refers to information free from copyright protection. 404 Error - The Page Cannot be Found A "404 Error" happens when the web server you are on cannot find the page that you requested. This type of error is quite common and is seen all over the place. Transforming A Site From Good To Excellent One of the challenges of moving a web site up from good to excellent is transforming it from just a bunch of web pages and graphics to an interactive experience. Another term for this is community - a place where people can come to communicate with others. Using Your Personal Website To Clinch That Job! With an increasing number of employment portals emerging, it is apparent that internet tools do help bring the job-seeker and the potential employer together. A sophisticated job search engine enables the job-seeker to have a smaller sample of relevant job openings instead of going through countless newspaper advertisements. Hexadecimal Color Notation on the Web When designing elements for your webpage, you will often be called upon to specify a color. For example, the code for a span shown below specifies that the color of the text within the span will be yellow. What Content to Publish on Your Website Many businesses want a simple website where they tell people what their business is about, some information on the products they offer and a means of contacting them.However, content is vital in the growth of your Internet presence. Choosing Your Web Design We would all like to have the best looking website, that's a fact - but if we keep in mind that our main objective is to finally sell our product or service online, we'll realize that maybe design is not the most important factor when it comes to achieve this objective.Professional design is probably the most time consuming part of the web development, so my first tip would be, before you are contacting a Web Design Company, to browse the Internet for companies which offer similar services and products - you will find probably hundreds of them - save in your Favorites four or five websites which you really like, print out these, and show the printouts to as many people as you can, especially to your existing customers, and ask them which one it's more likely is to make them take an action (contact, buy, subscribe) on the site. Website Registration Roadmap - How to Create Your Own Website in 7 Easy Steps Creating your own website is actually easy in today's world of affordable and free web hosts and website building software. Fortunately, even if you have no Internet experience at all you can simply follow directions and build your own website in seven easy steps. 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website When designing your website, remember to avoid useless and confusing features, however "cool" they may seem to be. Usually, keeping things simple and consistent are the best way to go. How To Create A Stunning Drop Capital Effect On Your Web Pages Drop Capitals are frequently used in many newspapers, books and magazines in the offline world. You will frequently see the large capital letter sinking down into the first paragraph of articles, stories and chapters in the majority of publications you come across. 7 Web Site Design Mistakes That Will Lose You Clients In today's world, a web site is virtually mandatory for any successful business. But there are web sites that will win you customers, and there are web sites that will lose you customers. How To Use Color Effectively When You Create A Web Site Colors are powerful, and create strong feelings. They can also make your web site look professional - or look like a circus.
|
ChicagoAnimation's Acquisitions: Market Polls - 1pennyStock.com
Sponsors: Paving | VTL's | Religious Statues
