Building a website for PPC is a much different process than building a search engine optimized website. Although a profitable website should be balanced to function well for PPC and SEO, since with PPC you’re spending your hard earned money on traffic, you need to make sure that your web design is achieving results. Read more

Now that we have the basics of our web page template set up, we need to prepare it for expansion. Here is some final house cleaning that will make it ready for prime time: Read more

Validating your code is very important. Part of building an effective website is making sure that it runs effectively on all web browsers, operating systems, etc. Also, one of the disadvantages of hand-coding HTML is that there is virtually no guarantee that the code you write is validated without special tools. Many of the programs we’ve discussed earlier in the book comes with a HTML and CSS validation plug-in, like Macromedia Dreamweaver, but there are tests you can run that will ensure that your website is effective is running HTML. Read more

Now that you’ve built a website in your graphics editor, the last step you need to take within your editor is to make a web page out of the layout you’ve created. This is an important step toward getting your content ready for coding in the next book. Adobe Photoshop and Gimp both have different ways of achieving this. Guillotine is an extension to GIMP, which you will have to download and install first, that allows you to slice your design into multiple images that you can place into a page. Here is Adobe Photoshop and the GIMP ways of accomplishing this: Read more

Now that you’ve learned the basics of graphic design and what your graphics editor is capable of, you are now ready to begin moving the idea that you’ve put together in Chapter 2 to good use. As I’ve described before, a website is developed in parts: a navigation menu, header, body, and footer (in whatever layout you chose to use). Here, I’m going to walk you through building a design for a client of mine. Read more

Now that you have a graphics editor installed on your computer whether it is Adobe Photoshop (which I will be using in this book) or GIMP (the OpenSource solution), I would like to guide you on a journey to the basics in graphic design. Building a design is actually easy, but there are tools that designers use to make their work more interoperable, editable, and practical. These tools include layers, channels, paths and shapes, brushes, patterns, and gradients. As we build a simple graphic design, I will introduce you to all of these important features, which will help you become the best graphic designer you can be. Read more

Do you have dreams of building beautiful websites, filled with color, vibration, and passion? Do you want to learn a skill that you can use while working from home that is both rewarding and profitable? I’ve created Amazing Design Secrets for you then! In this book and video series, I give you everything you could ever possibly need to become the best web designer you can possibly be. These are skill that they don’t teach you in other tutorials and courses, including: the insider secrets (the professionals don’t want you to know about), the art behind the project (which is very satisfying when you’ve completed your first website), and all of the shortcuts needed to create powerful online presences—as cheap and quick as possible—while still having time to spend on the other passions in life. These lessons will unlock the magical creative side to your technological knowledge, even if you have no computer experience whatsoever. The magic starts now. ? Read more

Many of my students frequently ask me for a squeeze page template for them to use on their website. It’s commonly accepted these days that squeeze pages are a great way to promote a single product and to make a conversion quickly and easily. However, a lot of people struggle writing the HTML and CSS required to make their squeeze pages really pop! What I’ve done is put together a valid XHTML page with a great CSS style-sheet that’s easy to read and edit for you to use on your own website. Simply create a header graphic called ‘header.jpg’ and drop it into the images directory. Read more

If you’re interested in becoming a web designer, I would like to recommend that you take my Amazing Design Secrets course. To learn HTML, graphic design, and everything you need to know about web design, I’ve included it inside of my course. I wanted to write an article for you about the pay that web designers can make and how this course can help you achieve the pay you’ve always wanted (if you chose to make a career move). Here are a few figures from Salary.com in the United States targeted to a major city (Washington, DC). Read more

Getting your website together on a budget can sometimes become a grueling task, but it is certainly possible. You don’t need expensive web page editors and you don’t need to spend a lot on graphic design software. You don’t necessarily need to learn html and you don’t have to be very computer savvy. What you need is an idea and you can always go from there. With my book, Amazing Design Secrets, I teach you how to accomplish this without spending any money at all out of your own pocket. Read more

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