Web Site Design Tips

There are thousands of writers, paid and unpaid, online and offline, who are putting their works to the public World Wide Web to witness. This is a wonderful opportunity for unknown talent to give a chance for literary acceptance, and it is also a way for established authors to share their stories, their works are readily available, and encourage others to develop their writing skills .

Before building your website, here are some tips that will help you launch your words online.

Domain Name Domain names are less than ten dollars a year, so they are quite affordable. What will you say to your friends online on your website? The most obvious choice would be your own name or title of your book, magazine, journal, subject / area of ​​expertise, or a combination of words that represent exactly what you do in writing-wise. Make it memorable, and not just a series of numbers and letters. I spoke with a representative of a web hosting company and learned that one of their customers had a complex series of letters and numbers, when decoded, revolved around the birthdays of family and pets ! If you have a common name and is not available, consider what you want your site to represent. Do you specialize in articles? Books? New? scholarly works? Screenplays? Children's books? This is where you will need to evoke a dynamic, descriptive name that will be online for a long time.

Free websites are on a tight budget may limit your ability to buy the services of a web hosting company. Be warned that you might end up with a site that sends pop up ads and displays many uncontrolled banners, usually other free sites and sites may even porn. Another alarming feature is the balance of cookies and / or spyware that may result from these types of sites. You will be limited in what you can add, and how many photos or graphics will be allowed, as the bandwidth is very limited. This is acceptable if you plan to maintain a small site or do as a way to get your starting line. Remember, you can always upgrade. fee-based websites Whether you add a page to the Internet or thousands, you must decide what web design program to use. Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe are three of the most popular web design software programs. However, there are many others and some of them are free when you sign up for a web host. Make sure you are comfortable using the software. While web design software programs come with books, it is advisable to purchase additional reference books, or check the library. For more information, search various online articles about your chosen web design software. This accommodation If you currently have a reliable internet service provider, such as AOL, MSN, Earthlink, Adelphia, Yahoo, etc., your next step is to find a place where you can launch your site. These ISPs provide web hosting for various prices, but you need to compare the hosts.
Here are eight items you should consider.

Monthly cost - Be aware of the number of limitations and restrictions that you will meet. If a web host free ad space, it could in fact say that this offer is only for a short period or time, or it is hidden in the small print [if at all] on the website of the hosting company.

Setup fee - Sometimes a hosting company will charge a small fee to time, other times they will have a heavy load. The more services you require eg multiple email addresses, a cart, forums, audio / video streaming, additional disk space, etc., plus the amount.

Disk space - How many MB [millions of bytes] do you need? You can get as little as 5MB and up to 1000 for less than $ 20 per month.

transfer rate - GB [billions of bytes] of pictures, text, etc. you are allowed to download to your site per month. It also applies to what a visitor to your site will look and if you have an exceptionally high rate of traffic, you'll have to pay for it. Note: please do not expect a lot of visitors just after your site is online unless you are appearing on a TV show or your movie is in theaters.

the availability of technical support - Whether through email, online chat or toll-free, this service is that many consider essential, especially if they have no experience with websites.

Reliable availability - If your host is on downtime means your site will be unavailable to anyone. Look for a host with no less than 99% availability.

Are all promotional packages be included or is it free?

If you use a program such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, will be responsible for additional web hosting company for this service?

Navigate around your website

Consider how to get from your home page [or index page] to other areas of your site via providing text or pictorial links. Many sites use a row of well-labeled navigation buttons and / or text links on the top or side. Some use both top and bottom for additional ease of use.

Since you create a showcase for your work [s], remember that having a "long" page where the viewer has to scroll a lot is annoying. Create your homepage to have a link to each section of your site. Be careful about adding images, as they can slow things down. Keep pictures in JPG, JPEG, or GIF formats and as small as possible megabyte-wise, ideally under 50K. I went once the site of a writer with a huge picture BMP. He slowed down considerably the page load time, even with a broadband connection, and after waiting for several minutes, I left. You want to invite viewers to stay and explore your site, not to put them to sleep as they wait for a single item to be deployed.

Maybe you've written numerous articles, whether on a subject or more. Instead of slapping on your homepage / index, treat them with respect, allowing each its own page. The more pages you maintain, the more likely both search engines and potential readers find you. In the online world, more is indeed merrier, but there is also the excellence that will bring guests to your site. You're a writer, you should be able to inform the public breezily online your website is to visit - and come back again and again.

Grammar and spelling Nothing shouts louder than the amateur bad grammar and spelling on a writer's website rank. Yet I have always seen things like this wonderful excerpt: "Heres the deal to buy a copy of 'Title' by me and give an honest reveiw of your opion and you could be the lucky winner / owner of a signed copy of another six poems that were originally cut from the book and will be featured in my next collection 'Title # 2' "And yes, this author was" published "by a certain scam vanity press.

Please write your text in a word processing program and publish it on your website. Even if you do not have the latest version of Word or WordPerfect, use Notepad as your text editor. Then read what you've written aloud, as is how you can resolve problems that you might not otherwise find. Make sure your prose has a natural flow to it - as if you write a letter to a close friend.

Colors of the Web Your literary works / extracts should stand out, but fortunately not on a starry "Lost in Space" black background with a shimmery silver font. Neither you always want to use a white background and black font. Simple, contrasting color combinations work best as a pastel color background with black font. How you react to colors when the see online should be your guide. Green indicates not only money, but of nature. Light blue is soothing, but some find rather depressing. Pink is a very feminine color, while gray and beige are pleasingly neutral hues, which appeal almost equally to men and women.

Knowledge fonts You can use a larger font, to a point 14, as will be ideal for Internet weary travelers who are more used to playing in Verdana or Arial 8 points. Do not use a font table because it looks unprofessional and can cause readers to have more difficulty reading your words. Do not use too many colors on a given page because this makes it confusing to the eye and is distracting. The biggest mistake an amateur web design can do is use a script font such as Amazon or TypoUpright BT BT and put them in all capital letters. Try it as an experiment and notice how awful it looks. Your fonts reflect your words - choose wisely.

Brief biography Tell the world who you are in a few short paragraphs. How did you start writing? What are your qualifications to write about your subject [s]? Register your writing credits and provide links to them if possible. Do you have a unique hobby that makes you stand out? Is your hobby something you wrote about?

Adding a photo depends on how you show people what you look like. Photography is like writing - it's an art. If a professional takes your photo, there are chances that it will improve your site.

You'll want to include excerpts from your books, poems, plays / scripts, etc. on your website. Do not publish your entire 499 pages novel about the Civil War on page 6 point Times New Roman font! If you want to give your book away as an eBook, then please buy a copy of Adobe Acrobat Writer and format correctly.

Guestbook Most guestbooks show how many people, usually friends, relatives, colleagues benevolent, and / or other unpublished writers, have added things about web design and / or literary skills. Sometimes people will add some frank remarks, leading to delete them, thus wasting time that could be spent writing. If someone really needs to get in touch with you or is moved by an article on your website, they will contact you by email.