The Internet and World Wide Web

The Internet is a worldwide collection of networks that links millions of businesses, government offices, educational institutions, and individuals. Data is transferred over the Internet using servers, which are computers that manage network resources and provide centralized storage areas, and clients, which are computers that can access the contents of the storage areas. The data travels over communications lines. Each computer or
device on a communications line has a numeric address called an IP (Internet protocol) address, the text version of which is called a domain name. Every time you specify a domain name, a DNS (domain name system) server translates the domain name into its associated IP address, so data can route to the correct computer.

Understand Ways to Access the Internet

You can access the Internet through an Internet service provider, an online service provider, or a wireless service provider. An Internet service provider (ISP) provides temporary Internet connections to individuals and companies. An online service provider (OSP) also supplies Internet access, in addition to a variety of special content and services. A wireless service provider (WSP) provides wireless Internet access to users with wireless modems or Web-enabled handheld computers or devices.

Employees and students often connect to the Internet through a business or school network that connects to a service provider. For home or small business users, dial-up access provides an easy and inexpensive way to connect to the Internet. With dial-up access, you use a computer, a modem, and a regular telephone line to dial into an ISP or OSP. Some home and small business users opt for newer, high-speed technologies. DSL (digital subscriber line) provides high-speed connections over a regular copper telephone line. A cable modem provides high-speed Internet connections through a cable television network.

Identify A URL

The most widely used service on the Internet is the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web (WWW or Web) consists of a worldwide collection of electronic documents called Web pages. A browser is a software program used to access and view Web pages. Each Web page has a unique address, called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) that tells a browser where to locate the Web page. A URL consists of a protocol, domain name, and sometimes the path to a specific Web page or location on a Web page. Most URLs begin with http://, which stands for hypertext transfer protocol, the communications standard that enables pages to transfer on the Web.

Recognize How Web Pages Use Graphics, Animation, Audio, Video, and Virtual Reality

Many exciting Web pages use multimedia. Multimedia refers to any application that integrates text with one of the following elements: graphics, sound, video, virtual reality, or other media elements.

A graphic is a digital representation of information such as a drawing, chart, or photograph. Two common file formats for graphical images on the Web are JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) and GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), which use compression techniques to reduce the size of graphics files and thus speed downloading.

Animation is the appearance of motion created by displaying a series of still images in rapid sequence. One popular type of animation, called an animated GIF, uses computer animation and graphics software to combine several images into a single GIF file.

Audio is music, speech, or any other sound. A common format for audio files on the Web is MP3, a popular technology that compresses audio. More advanced Web audio applications use streaming audio, which transfers audio data in a continuous and even flow, allowing users to listen to the sound as it downloads. Video consists of full-motion images that are played back at various speeds. Video files often are quite large in size. The Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) defines a popular video compression standard. Streaming video allows you to view longer or live video images as they are downloaded.

Virtual reality (VR) is the use of computers to simulate a real or imagined environment that appears as a three-dimensional (3-D) space. A VR world is an entire 3-D site that contains infinite space and depth.

Types of Web Pages

Advocacy Web pages established for political candidates, called “e-campaigning,” has become an important part of politics. Surveys show that more than 50 percent of Internet users turn to the Web for information about political topics.

Business/marketing Web pages used for shopping on the Internet are increasingly popular. In 1999, 17 million households shopped online. This figure is expected to grow to 49 million by 2004. A survey of back-to-school shoppers 34 years old and younger showed that 17 percent planned to shop online for their children’s school needs. Perhaps more significant, only 6 percent of surveyed shoppers reported being uncomfortable with buying on the Internet.

Educational institutions frequently publish informational Web pages. Today, most colleges have Web sites that offer course descriptions, information about the student population, and registration costs and deadlines. When shopping for college, surveys show that high school seniors use the Web more than catalogs or guidebooks; about 80 percent of college-bound students start looking at college Web sites as sophomores.

News Web pages are the most popular Web sites among Americans with access to the Internet. Although these Web sites often are associated with newspapers, magazines, television stations, or radio stations, some are published only online, without a related print or broadcast media.

Portal Web pages often offer the following free services: search engine, news, sports and weather, free personal Web pages, reference tools, shopping malls, e-mail, instant messaging, newsgroups, and chat rooms. The dictionary defines a “portal” as a door or gateway. Portal Web pages are gateways to a host of services.

Personal Web pages sometimes use Web cams to provide minute-by-minute views of life in a dorm room, an apartment, a new-born baby’s crib, or even the inside of a refrigerator. One devotee of these personal Web pages says visitors often develop a sort of “relationship” with the Web page developer. Perhaps this observation is true; some personal Web pages receive more than 1,000 hits a day.

 How Web Pages Use Multimedia

Multimedia can bring a Web page to life, increase the types of information available on the Web, expand on the Web’s potential uses, and make the Internet a more entertaining place to explore. Because Web pages with multimedia take longer to download, most browsers allow users to turn off some multimedia elements (such as graphics) and show a text-only version, speeding the display of a Web page.

WEB PAGE DESIGNING: THE BASICS

When it comes to running a successful business you need to use every marketing avenue possible. One of the ways you can promote and market your business is by having a web page. You can start by learning the basics of designing a web page.

Web page designing is fairly simple when you know the basics. You should approach the project just like you would any other design project. Remember, that the finished product needs to be informative and creative. The webpage will also need to have a layout that is easy to navigate. When they are too complicated, the attention of the user is lost. Users want to get information quickly and easily. When designing your web page remember the design basics, space and layout, colours and font and that ultimately you need to make sure that you are presenting your business in the right way.

Before you can become a master at web design you need to understand the basics. These basics will be the foundation of any website. This includes:

Good design. This is the first step to think about before building a web page. Think about what you want your it to say about your company and how you can accomplish that through the overall design. It is important to understand how many pages you will need for the overall website, which will be determined by the following points.

Structure. The structure of the web page and the design are not the same thing. The design is the concept and the structure is the back bone of the web page. This will include the navigation (which should be as simple as possible for the user). In basic terms, the structure is the way in which you choose to position different elements on the page. The way in which you choose to display your content and how your users will interact with the site will be determined by the structure. The main portions of your web page are divided into three sections, these are the header, the footer and the content.

Fonts. Choosing the correct font for your website can be extremely difficult. Remember that the content on your page needs to be easy to read, which is why a simple font is better. The content of your page will determine whether you attract business or not. This means that the content needs to be simple to read, easy to understand, informative and interesting. When it comes to the headings and important titles you can choose a more stylized font that will echo your businesses image.

Colours. If you have a specific colour that represents your business, for example the colours of your logo, these should be worked into the general colour scheme of your website. Remember, that some colours do not work well on a web page, if your colours are too bright or too dark it will be off putting to the user.

WEBSITE

A website, also written as web site, or simply site, is a set of related web pages served from a single web domain. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address known as a Uniform resource locator. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web.

A webpage is a document, typically written in plain text interspersed with formatting instructions of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML, XHTML). A webpage may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors.

WebPages are accessed and transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption (HTTP Secure, HTTPS) to provide security and privacy for the user of the webpage content. The user's application, often a web browser, renders the page content according to its HTML markup instructions onto a display terminal.

The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a simple Uniform Resource Locator (URL) called the web address. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although hyper linking between them conveys the reader's perceived site structure and guides the reader's navigation of the site which generally includes a home page with most of the links to the site's web content, and a supplementary about, contact and link page.

Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription websites include many business sites, parts of news websites, academic journal websites, gaming websites, file-sharing websites, message boards, web-based email, social networking websites, websites providing real-time stock market data, and websites providing various other services (e.g., websites offering storing and/or sharing of images, files and so forth).

Overview

Websites have many functions and can be used in various fashions; a website can be a personal website, a commercial website, a government website or a non-profit organization website. Websites can be the work of an individual, a business or other organization, and are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose. Any website can contain a hyperlink to any other website, so the distinction between individual sites, as perceived by the user, can be blurred.

Websites are written in, or dynamically converted to, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and are accessed using a software interface classified as a user agent. Web pages can be viewed or otherwise accessed from a range of computer-based and Internet-enabled devices of various sizes, including desktop computers, laptops, PDAs and cell phones.

A website is hosted on a computer system known as a web server, also called an HTTP server. These terms can also refer to the software that runs on these systems which retrieves and delivers the web pages in response to requests from the website's users. Apache is the most commonly used web server software (according to Netcraft statistics) and Microsoft's IIS is also commonly used. Some alternatives, such as Lighttpd, Hiawatha or Cherokee, are fully functional and lightweight.

Static website

A static website is one that has web pages stored on the server in the format that is sent to a client web browser. It is primarily coded in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML); Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used to control appearance beyond basic HTML. Images are commonly used to effect the desired appearance and as part of the main content. Audio or video might also be considered "static" content if it plays automatically or is generally non-interactive.

This type of website usually displays the same information to all visitors. Similar to handing out a printed brochure to customers or clients, a static website will generally provide consistent, standard information for an extended period of time. Although the website owner may make updates periodically, it is a manual process to edit the text, photos and other content and may require basic website design skills and software. Simple forms or marketing examples of websites, such as classic website, a five-page website or a brochure website are often static websites, because they present pre-defined, static information to the user. This may include information about a company and its products and services through text, photos, animations, audio/video, and navigation menus.

Static web sites can be edited using four broad categories of software:

Text editors, such as Notepad or Text Edit, where content and HTML markup are manipulated directly within the editor program

WYSIWYG offline editors, such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver (previously Macromedia Dreamweaver), with which the site is edited using a GUI and the final HTML markup is generated automatically by the editor software

WYSIWYG online editors which create media rich online presentation like web pages, widgets, intro, blogs, and other documents.

Template-based editors, such as Rapid Weaver and iWeb, which allow users to quickly create and upload web pages to a web server without detailed HTML knowledge, as they pick a suitable template from a palette and add pictures and text to it in a desktop publishing fashion without direct manipulation of HTML code

Static websites may still use server side includes (SSI) as an editing convenience, such as sharing a common menu bar across many pages. As the site's behavior to the reader is still static, this is not considered a dynamic site.

Dynamic website

A dynamic website is one that changes or customizes itself frequently and automatically. Server-side dynamic pages are generated "on the fly" by computer code that produces the HTML and CSS. There are a wide range of software systems, such as CGI, Java Servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP), Active Server Pages and ColdFusion (CFML) that are available to generate dynamic web systems and dynamic sites. Various web application frameworks and web template systems are available for general-use programming languages like PHP, Perl, Python, and Ruby, to make it faster and easier to create complex dynamic web sites.

A site can display the current state of a dialogue between users, monitor a changing situation, or provide information in some way personalized to the requirements of the individual user. For example, when the front page of a news site is requested, the code running on the web server might combine stored HTML fragments with news stores retrieved from a database or another web site via RSS to produce a page that includes the latest information. Dynamic sites can be interactive by using HTML forms, storing and reading back browser cookies, or by creating a series of pages that reflect the previous history of clicks. Another example of dynamic content is when a retail website with a database of media products allows a user to input a search request, e.g. for the keyword Beatles. In response, the content of the web page will spontaneously change the way it looked before, and will then display a list of Beatles products like CDs, DVDs and books. Dynamic HTML uses JavaScript code to instruct the web browser how to interactively modify the page contents.

One way to simulate a certain type of dynamic web site while avoiding the performance loss of initiating the dynamic engine on a per-user or per-connection basis is to periodically automatically regenerate a large series of static pages.

Multimedia and interactive content.

Early web sites had only text, and soon after, images. Web browser plug ins were then used to add audio, video, and interactivity (such as for a rich Internet application that mirrors the complexity of a desktop application like a word processor). Examples of such plug-ins are Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flash, Adobe Shockwave, and applets written in Java. HTML 5 includes provisions for audio and video without plugins. JavaScript is also built into most modern web browsers, and allows for web site creators to send code to the web browser that instructs it how to interactively modify page content and communicate with the web server if needed. (The browser's internal representation of the content is known as the Document Object Model (DOM) and the technique is known as Dynamic HTML.)

HTML AND PHP

HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is the standard markup language used to create web pages.

HTML is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags enclosed in angle brackets (like <html>). HTML tags most commonly come in pairs like <h1> and </h1>, although some tags represent empty elements and so are unpaired, for example <img>. The first tag in a pair is the start tag, and the second tag is the end tag (they are also called opening tags and closing tags).

The purpose of a web browser is to read HTML documents and compose them into visible or audible web pages. The browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses the tags to interpret the content of the page. HTML describes the structure of a website semantically along with cues for presentation, making it a markup language rather than a programming language.

HTML elements form the building blocks of all websites. HTML allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes and other items. It can embed scripts written in languages such as JavaScript which affect the behavior of HTML web pages.

Web browsers can also refer to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define the look and layout of text and other material. The W3C, maintainer of both the HTML and the CSS standards, encourages the use of CSS over explicit presentational HTML

PHP

PHP is a server-side scripting language designed for web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language. As of January 2013, PHP was installed on more than 240 million websites (39% of those sampled) and 2.1 million web servers. Originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994, the reference implementation of PHP (the Zend Engine) is now produced by The PHP Group. While PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page, it now stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

PHP code can be simply mixed with HTML code, or it can be used in combination with various templating engines and web frameworks. PHP code is usually processed by a PHP interpreter, which is usually implemented as a web server's native module or a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executable. After the PHP code is interpreted and executed, the web server sends resulting output to its client, usually in form of a part of the generated web page – for example, PHP code can generate a web page's HTML code, an image, or some other data. PHP has also evolved to include a command-line interface (CLI) capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications.

PHP is free software released under the PHP License. PHP has been widely ported and can be deployed on most web servers on almost every operating system and platform, free of charge.

IMAGES

What is the difference between JPEG, GIF and PNG?

JPEG is a standardized image compression mechanism. JPEG is designed for compressing either full-colour (24 bit) or grey-scale digital images of "natural" (real-world) scenes.

It works well on photographs, naturalistic artwork, and similar material; not so well on lettering, simple cartoons, or black-and-white line drawings (files come out very large). JPEG handles only still images, but there is a related standard called MPEG for motion pictures.

JPEG is "lossy", meaning that the image you get out of decompression isn't quite identical to what you originally put in. The algorithm achieves much of its compression by exploiting known limitation of the human eye, notably the fact that small colour details aren't perceived as well as small details of light-and-dark. Thus, JPEG is intended for compressing images that will be looked at by humans.

A lot of people are scared off by the term "lossy compression". But when it comes to representing real-world scenes, no digital image format can retain all the information that impinges on your eyeball. By comparison with the real-world scene, JPEG loses far less information than GIF.

Quality v Compression

A useful property of JPEG is that the degree of lossiness can be varied by adjusting compression parameters. This means that the image maker can trade off file size against output image quality.

For good-quality, full-color source images, the default quality setting (Q 75) is very often the best choice. Try Q 75 first; if you see defects, then go up.

Except for experimental purposes, never go above about Q 95; using Q 100 will produce a file two or three times as large as Q 95, but of hardly any better quality. If you see a file made with Q 100, it's a pretty sure sign that the maker didn't know what he/she was doing.

If you want a very small file (say for preview or indexing purposes) and are prepared to tolerate large defects, a Q setting in the range of 5 to 10 is about right. Q 2 or so may be amusing as "op art".

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)

The Graphics Interchange Format was developed in 1987 at the request of CompuServe, who needed a platform independent image format that was suitable for transfer across slow connections. It is a compressed (lossless) format (it uses the LZW compression) and compresses at a ratio of between 3:1 and 5:1

It is an 8 bit format which means the maximum number of colours supported by the format is 256.

There are two GIF standards, 87a and 89a (developed in 1987 and 1989 respectively). The 89a standard has additional features such as improved interlacing, the ability to define one colour to be transparent and the ability to store multiple images in one file to create a basic form of animation.

Both Mosaic and Netscape will display 87a and 89a GIFs, but while both support transparency and interlacing, only Netscape supports animated GIFs.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics format)

In January 1995 Unisys, the company CompuServe contracted to create the GIF format, announced that they would be enforcing the patent on the LZW compression technique the GIF format uses. This means that commercial developers that include the GIF encoding or decoding algorithms have to pay a license fee to CompuServe. This does not concern users of GIFs or non-commercial developers.

However, a number of people banded together and created a completely patent-free graphics format called PNG (pronounced "ping"), the Portable Network Graphics format. PNG is superior to GIF in that it has better compression and supports millions of colours. PNG files end in a .png suffix.

PNG is supported in Netscape 4.03 and above. For more information, try the PNG home page.

When should I use JPEG, and when should I stick with GIF?

JPEG is not going to displace GIF entirely. For some types of images, GIF is superior in image quality, file size, or both. One of the first things to learn about JPEG is which kinds of images to apply it to.

Generally speaking, JPEG is superior to GIF for storing full-color or grey-scale images of "realistic" scenes; that means scanned photographs and similar material. Any continuous variation in color, such as occurs in highlighted or shaded areas, will be represented more faithfully and in less space by JPEG than by GIF.

GIF does significantly better on images with only a few distinct colors, such as line drawings and simple cartoons. Not only is GIF lossless for such images, but it often compresses them more than JPEG can. For example, large areas of pixels that are all exactly the same color are compressed very efficiently indeed by GIF. JPEG can't squeeze such data as much as GIF does without introducing visible defects. (One implication of this is that large single-color borders are quite cheap in GIF files, while they are best avoided in JPEG files.)

Computer-drawn images (ray-traced scenes, for instance) usually fall between photographs and cartoons in terms of complexity. The more complex and subtly rendered the image, the more likely that JPEG will do well on it. The same goes for semi-realistic artwork (fantasy drawings and such). JPEG has a hard time with very sharp edges: a row of pure-black pixels adjacent to a row of pure-white pixels, for example. Sharp edges tend to come out blurred unless you use a very high quality setting. Edges this sharp are rare in scanned photographs, but are fairly common in GIF files: borders, overlaid text, etc. The blurriness is particularly objectionable with text that's only a few pixels high. If you have a GIF with a lot of small-size overlaid text, don't JPEG it.

Plain black-and-white (two level) images should never be converted to JPEG; they violate all of the conditions given above. You need at least about 16 grey levels before JPEG is useful for grey-scale images. It should also be noted that GIF is lossless for grey-scale images of up to 256 levels, while JPEG is not.

GIF Images

Use GIF files for images that have a small, fixed number of colors. GIF files are always reduced to no more than 256 unique colors. The compression algorithm for GIF files is less complex than for JPG files, but when used on flat color images and text it produces very small file sizes. The GIF format is not suitable for photographic images or images with gradient colors. Because the GIF format has a limited number of colors, gradients and photographs will end up with banding and pixelation when saved as a GIF file.

JPG Images

Use JPG images for photographs and other images that have millions of colors. It uses a complex compression algorithm that allows you to create smaller graphics by losing some of the quality of the image. This is called a "lossy" compression because some of the image information is lost when the image is compressed.

The JPG format is not suited to images with text, large blocks of solid color, and simple shapes with crisp edges. This is because when the image is compressed the text, color, or lines may blur resulting in an image that is not as sharp as it would be saved in another format.

PNG Images

The PNG format was developed as a replacement for the GIF format when it appeared that GIF images would be subject to a royalty fee. PNG graphics have a better compression rate than GIF images which result in smaller images than the same file saved as a GIF. PNG files offer alpha transparency as well as animation.

PNG images, like GIFs, are not well suited to photographs. It is possible to get around the banding issue that affects photographs saved as GIF files using true colors, but this can result in very large images. PNG images are also not well supported on older cell phones and feature phones.

Definition:

A graphics format initially developed as an alternative to licensing issues with GIF, PNG or Portable Network Graphic offers numerous advantages over GIF files. Several years back there was limited support for PNG from both browsers and graphics (and other) applications. That is not the case today. PNG is widely supported.

PNG (pronounced ping) is not just a replacement for GIF (or even JPG) images on the Web. It also offers certain advantages over the TIFF format for print. Like GIF, JPG, and TIF it is a bitmap or raster format.

Some of the most touted advantages of PNG over other formats include:

·      Variable transparency through alpha channels.

·      Gamma correction that helps PNG looks better cross-platform than some other images.

·      Lossless, patent-free compression that produces slightly smaller files than GIF

·      Interlacing/progressive display.

·      Supports 48-bit true color, grayscale, and 8-bit color.

One thing that GIF does that PNG does not is animation.

Question: Which Graphics File Format Is Best To Use When?

JPEG, TIFF, PSD, PDD, BMP, PICT, PNG, and GIF Explained

Answer: Here are some general guidelines:

·         If the images are for the Web or online, use JPEG, PNG, or GIF.

·         If the images are for print, use TIFF.

·         If you want to keep a version that remains editable, choose your software's native file format. (PSD for Photoshop, PSP for Paint Shop Pro, CPT for Corel Photo-Paint, etc.)

Here are brief descriptions of common graphics file formats, with links to follow for more information:

JPEG - JPEG is best for photos when you need to keep the file size small and don't mind giving up some quality for a significant reduction in size. JPEG is not suitable for images with text, large blocks of color, or simple shapes, because crisp lines will blur and colors can shift. Only JPEG offers the options of Baseline, Baseline Optimized, or Progressive.

Baseline (Standard) - This JPEG format is recognized by all Web browsers.

Baseline Optimized - This JPEG format option provides optimized color and slightly better compression. It is supported by all modern browsers, but was not supported in the very earliest of Web browsers. It's your best choice for JPEG files today.

Progressive - Creates a JPEG file that displays gradually as it downloads, starting out blocky, and gradually getting clearer as it downloads. It doesn't make the image download any faster, but it can give the illusion of speed since the blocky image is loaded right away on a slow connection. With the majority of internet users on high speed connections today, Progressive JPEG is rarely used.

TIFF - TIFF is good for any type of bitmap (pixel-based) images. TIFF produces large files, but there is no loss in quality. TIFF also preserves layers, alpha transparency, and other special features when saved from Photoshop. The type of extra information stored with TIFF files varies in different Photoshop versions, so consult Photoshop's help for more information.

PSD, PDD - PSD and PDD are Photoshop's native format. Use PSD when you need to preserve layers, transparency, adjustment layers, masks, clipping paths, layer styles, blending modes, vector text and shapes, etc. The PDD extension was used in Adobe Photo Deluxe (now discontinued), but it is identical to PSD format and the two can be used interchangeably.

BMP - Use BMP for any type of bitmap (pixel-based) images. BMPs are huge files, but there is no loss in quality. BMP has no real benefits over TIFF, except you can use it for Windows wallpaper.

PICT - PICT is an old, Mac-only bitmap format, similar to BMP for Windows. PICT is not often used today.

PNG - Use PNG when you need smaller file sizes with no loss in quality. PNG files are usually smaller than TIFFs, in my experience. PNG also supports alpha transparency (soft edges) and was developed to be a Web graphics replacement for GIF. Note that if you want to retain full transparency, you will need to save your PNG file as PNG-24 and not PNG-8. PNG-8 is useful for reducing the file size of PNG files when you don't need transparency, but it has the same color palette limitations as GIF files.

GIF - Use GIF for simple Web graphics having limited colors. GIF files are always reduced to 256 unique colors or less and they make very small, fast-loading graphics for the Web. GIF is great for Web buttons, charts or diagrams, cartoon-like drawing, banners, and text headings. GIF is also used for small, compact Web animations. GIF should rarely be used for photos.

Biggest Mistakes in Web Design

1. Believing People Care about You and Your Website.

Write these two sentences where you can see them as you're working:

·         The only reason my website exists is to solve my customers' problems.

·         What problems does the page I'm looking at solve?

Nobody Cares About You Or Your Site. Really, what visitors care about is solving their problems. Now, most people visit a website to solve one or more of these four problems:

·         They want/need information

·         They want/need to make a purchase / donation.

·         They want/need to be entertained.

·         They want/need to be part of a community.

Too many organizations believe that a website is about opening a new marketing channel, getting donations, promote a brand, or increase company sales by 15%. No. It's about solving your customers' problems.

2. A Man From Mars Can't Figure Out What Your Website Is About In Less Than Four Seconds. You should be able to look at the home page of any site and figure out what the site is about in less than four seconds. If you can't, the site is a failure.

3. Contrast. According to Wikipedia: "Contrast is the difference in visual properties that makes an object (or its representation in an image) distinguishable from other objects and the background." According to Vincent Flanders: "Without proper contrast, visitors to your site can't read the text and if they can't read it, they will leave it."

4. Navigational Failure. All web navigation must answer these questions:

Where am I?

Where have I been?

Where can I go next?

Where's the Home Page?

Where's the Home Page?

Navigation must be simple and consistent.

5. Your Website Lacks Heroin Content.

How do you create Heroin Content? The answer depends on the likes and dislikes of your audience. Remember, it's what your audience wants that counts. What I consider Heroin Content is somebody else's Quinine Content.

Here are some thoughts about web content.

·         Does your content solve your customers' problems or does it create problems?

·         Does your content match your audience's expectations?

·         Have you determined the purpose of your site?

·         Do you know your target audience?

Ask yourself: "What content do I have that would cause anybody in their right mind to visit my site a second, third, or fourth time?" This is extremely important. You might con (seduce) someone to visit your site once, but why would they want to come back a second, third, or fourth time? If you can't answer this question, you really shouldn't have a web site.

·         Is the content technically correct?

·         Does your customer need to know the content you're presenting?

·         Is the content current and updated frequently?

·         Can people find the content they're looking for?

·         Does my site have Heroin Content?

7. Too Much Material on One Page.

Yes, it's called a web page, but that doesn't mean you have to cram all your material on one page — just like this page does <grin>.

It's very easy to keep adding material to your home page until it gets out of control.

With so much content vying for attention, it’s difficult for the eyes to find the focal point. People get confused and they leave. A long web page means you have failed to organize your site properly — probably a combination of not planning your site and poor navigation

Animation - Definition

The word “animation” is from “animate,” which means to bring to life.

Thus when a multimedia developer wants to bring an image to life, animation is used

Animation is a graphic representation of drawings to show movement within those drawings.

 A series of drawings are linked together and usually photographed by a camera. 

The drawings have been slightly changed between individualized frames so when they are played back in rapid succession (24 frames per second) there appears to be seamless movement within the drawings.

Animation is derived from the Latin word “anima”, the “animating principle”, the vital force inside every living creature

It is often used as a translation for the Greek word “psyche”, and related to the Christian concept of soul.

Animation is the technique of giving”soul” to inanimate objects, drawings.

TYPES OF ANIMATIONS

Using Animation on a Web Page

There are things to consider before deciding to use animation on a Web page. You need to know if it add value to the page or detract from using the page. There are also certain rules to keep in mind when adding animation to a Web page.

Questions about using Web animations are:

•        When does animation add value?

•        When does it detract from the page?

•        What rules should we keep in mind?

This lesson will answer those questions and explain about using animation on a Web page. There is a mini-quiz at the end of the lesson.

Reasons and detractions of animation

Reasons to have motion on a Web page are to:

•        Draw attention

•        Demonstrate something

•        Entertain

•        Assist in navigation.

USES OF ANIMATION

The above mentioned 3 basic types of animation have brought a new era of amazing technology in the field of Internet (Website design and graphics),Film industry and media. In addition, Animation is one of the popular Internet marketing strategies that make visitors stay on your site for long time

12 Benefits of Having a Website

Some of the goals that can be achieved by launching a website include the following:

1. Far Cheaper and Much More Flexible Than Print Advertising

The Internet is extremely different from print advertising in that space is cheap, your advertisement is accessible for a longer period of time, the content can be changed without having to ask someone to do it for you (if you use a content management system) and you can potentially reach a wider audience.

This is not to say that you should not use other forms of advertising at all   You can use it to entice people to visit your website and find out about your company and potentially open two-way communication between the potential customer and a sales person.

2. Market Expansion

The Internet has allowed businesses to break through the geographical barriers and become accessible, virtually, from any country in the world by a potential customer that has Internet access.

3. Diversify Revenue Streams

A website is not just a medium for representation of your company, it is a form of media from which everybody can acquire information. You can use this media to sell advertising space to other businesses. A recent trend has risen where businesses feature their very own directory of complimentary services, where the visitor can search for information on a business that will enhance the use of your service. The business sells complimentary businesses a listing in their directory.

A good example is a catering company featuring a directory with businesses such as event co-coordinators, electronic equipment rental companies, etc.

4. 24 7 365

No more turning customers away when its time to close shop, putting up a note saying  closed for public holiday , or leaving an irritating message on your answering service specifying your trading hours   tell them to visit your website for information they are looking for.

5. Offer Convenience

It is far more convenient for a person to research a product on the Internet than it is to get in a car, drive somewhere and look for or ask someone for information on a product. Also, a potential customer won t have to judge a call centre agent to determine whether he/she has their best interests in mind, or just wants to make a sale. The potential customer can visit your website whenever they like in their own privacy and comfort, without the stresses and distractions that exist in the real world.

Your website is a self-service medium   for example, instead of having to wait in a long cue to pay your TV License; you can now do it electronically through the TV License website.

6. Add Value and Satisfaction

By offering convenience, a point of reference and that touch of individualized customer service, you ultimately add value to your offering and your customers experience a higher level of satisfaction. Your website can add value in other ways too, by featuring tips, advice and general interest content you can  entertain  your customers. This will also help them remember you better.

7. Standardize Sales Performance

By looking at which approached / pitches have worked in the past and those which have not, you can produce the ultimate pitch and use it with your website, so that you use it on every customer. No more training of sales people and waiting for them to get a feel for your line of trade.

8. Improve credibility

A website gives you the opportunity to tell potential customers what you are about and why you deserve their trust and confidence. In fact, many people use the internet for pre-purchase research so that they can determine for themselves whether a particular supplier or brand is worthy of their patronage, and won t take them for a ride.

The Internet also allows for Viral Marketing   where your website visitors spread positive word-of-mouth about your business - your customers do your marketing!

9. Promote your Brick n Mortar Presence

Getting lost trying to find a place can be frustrating for a potential customer. You can publish what they call a dummy map on your website, which shows directions and landmarks graphically, and the potential customer can print it out when looking for your Brick n Mortar premises.

You might advertise a promotion on your website encouraging the visitor to visit your Brick n Mortar premises (e.g.  At a branch nears you! ).

Also, if you recently moved to a new location, you will have to wait for the next 'phone directory to come out before people figure out where you currently are. Because a website is flexible   you can change the content as you like   you can change you contact details instantly and lower the risk of losing customers when moving to a new location.

10. Growth Opportunity

A website serves as a great place to refer potential investors to, to show them what your company is about, what it has achieved and what it can achieve in future.

11. Two-Way Communicative Marketing

Customers can quickly and easily give feedback on your product and/or marketing approach.

12. Cheap Market Research

You can use features on your website such as visitor polls, online surveys and your website statistics to find out what your customers like more and how they feel about certain aspects of your business to determine how you can improve your product and the way you do business.