Building a web site or a blog is really the easy part, relatively speaking. The hard part is getting people to see the site, getting the site noticed by Google: generating traffic. This article over at Blog Rankers has some excellent tips to do just that. The article is aimed mostly at blogs, but the same principles apply to any web site. Rember “if you build it, they will come” doesn’t always hold true for your web site!
1st Web Designer has a great article on every freelancer should know about initial client meetings. What to bring with you, how to present yourself, and even how to decide if you should even accept the job.
Tags: Web Design
One of my favorite web design based site is Vicent Flanders’ Web Pages That Suck 3.0. As Flanders himself says, you can learn a lot from looking at bad designs. What has always fascinated me about WPTS is not merely the pointing out of bad designs, but that some of these pages are so horrifically bad that I cannot imagine the person who thought it was really a good idea. Case in point, the Worst Websites of 2010. Look at your own risk.
Wordbooker is a great, FREE, WordPress plug in that automatically posts entries from your WordPress blog to your Facebook page and/or any FB fan/business pages you may have. I just installed it–it took about 5 minutes–and it works perfectly.
1st Web Designer has a great collection of 60+ FREE handwritten style fonts to add a more personal looking style to your website. I am always a sucker for free fonts. The right font can really make or break a design.
Anybody involved in web development know how important a social media presence is in this day and age. Beyond Facebook and Twitter, many sites are integrating YouTube to display videos for a variety of purposes. Few are really taking advantage of customizing the look and feel of their YouTube page. This article by 1st Web Designer offers some tips and some great examples of how this can be done.
Tags: inspiration, Links, Social Media, Web Design
Ronnie Lebow has posted a great, thought provoking, article on how much a Logo design is worth and how much a designer should charge for their time and skill. Are we, as an industry, under-valuing ourselves?
Tags: Graphic Design, Logo Design
Google maps is a very useful tool to find businesses and attractions in any area. You can also include Google maps in-line on your website to help people find the location of your business quickly and easily without having to do a separate search. This article has an excellent step by step tutorial on how to add this great functionality to your web site!
1st Web Designer has a great article with some awesome examples of good web site navigation. Many will argue what the most important piece of a web site is, but the navigation menu has to be near the top of the list. If people cannot navigate through your site and easily find the information they need, then it doesn’t matter how good it looks or how functional the other aspects are. The examples given are good, easy to use navigation menus, that are also eye-catchingly creative.
1st Web Designer: Eye-Catching Websites With One-of-a-Kind Navigations For Inspiration
Tags: Inspirations
Welcome to the first post in the Leys Web and Graphic Design blog. We’ll be posting here often with updates on our company as well as news, tips and tricks from the world of Web Design! We hope you enjoy your visit and come back soon!
-John W. Leys
