Web Design
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Can I learn to manage my own website?
Written by jason gallagher
“I'm a business owner who would like to manage my own website. Can you teach me?”
This is a request that I get at least a couple of times per week. It's nothing unusual for site owners to be unhappy when it comes to depending on a web developer to make the changes and updates they need. It makes perfect sense. These days, websites have evolved to be much more than an online business card. They are now rich publishing platforms which require continuous updating to feed and inform our information hungry customers. Because of this, it has become very unwieldy to keep relying on an external company for content updates and simple changes.
Luckily, technology has been quickly evolving to make things easier, less expensive, and at the same time offer a greater level of control then ever before.
Open Source, the Dreamweaver killer?
Written by jason gallagher
Up until a couple of years ago, if you would have tried to tell me there was anything better for building websites than Dreamweaver, I would have had trouble hiding the grimace from my face. I have always enjoyed the creative aspects of design, and code was the ultimate symbol of geekdom (I never wanted to be a geek). Like many others who weren't born with left brains much larger than a pea, I fought for a long time to stay in my comfort zone of drag and drop.
However, if you take a quick look around at the web design world today, you'll know that a lot is changing very quickly. It used to be easy for a print designer to slap together a design in Photoshop, make some rollovers, slice it up then export to Dreamweaver. But that was before the world cared about good website design. That was before clients were concerned about those little things like budget, turn-around time, ease of maintenance and interactive features. It was the hey day of poor usability, bloated designs with pixelated graphics, scroll bars everywhere and look ma, I can do a Flash splash screen too...
Search engine secrets
Written by jason gallagher
SEO (search engine optimization) is a broad topic. To get very good SEO, it’s going to take time, maintenance and care from everyone who creates copy for the site. In my contracts, when I design a site I build a good foundation for SEO right from the beginnning and offer a basic level of SEO optimization. Coding the site well, creating relevant copy, adding a sitemap, etc. are great first steps. But earning good page rankings in the search engines (and keeping them) takes ongoing work and some trial and error.
The best time to consider SEO is right from the very beginning. Here is a basic list of must do’s for SEO when you are building your site. If your site is established, try and do as many of them as you can. Like anything else, you will get as much out of something as you put into it.
Your Feedback
I know this is an old article but I think DW still has it's place, yeah ...
As a online business owner myself I like to control the content and othe...
Good post for people introducing in this topics! After you get over this...
Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their cont...
Hi Bruce, just noticed your comment as I'm running out the door... but y...
Thank you, Jason and Tim. Your replies are pretty much what I was afraid...