Really Simply Syndication, or RSS, feeds are an easy way to bulk up your website content or actively promote your website material on other sites. With RSS, content is delivered through a feed to another website, email or web browser. RSS can deliver any number of content offerings from your site including promotional material, articles, new blog posts, or alerts readers or other sites. The use of RSS feeds has expanded dramatically in the last decade and has become instrumental in syndicating content.

RSS is especially useful to pull feeds into your website. This bulks up your site with content offerings and article titles from other related sites. RSS can also be used to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) as it makes your site more visible to search engines and generates traffic and incoming links. Finally RSS can be a connection between you and your customers letting them know when new material is offered through your website.

To use RSS feeds, consider the following:

• Plan the content the RSS will contain. A RSS feed can contain many forms of content. The feed can publicize articles or blog posts, product reviews, press releases, announcements or any combination of the above. The contents of your feed should be interesting to readers, and centralized to retain the interest of your initial audience. The more specific and interesting your feed, the more likely it will be picked up by other sites or individuals. Read the rest of this entry »

There are many different markup languages for webmasters to choose from these days. All have their own standards dictated by an organization known as W3C. In this article we are going to look at four of the most common markup languages and their standards. The markup languages that will be covered in this article are HTML, XHTML, XML, and CSS.

HTML:

Intro:

In the first section of this article, we will look at HTML. HTML is the oldest of the four languages and stands for Hypertext Markup Language. Its main purpose is to structure a web document by denoting sections of the document with certain tags. In HTML, there is usually a header section, which contains the title and description as well as some META tags for search engine spidering purposes. Next there is a body tag which contains the main content of your document. Paragraphs, descriptions, and pictures would usually go in this section. Last of all, there is a footer to an HTML document. This is usually there additional links or any additional information that does not belong in the body go.

History:

Although HTML has been expanded and changed since its initial creation, it was originally created by physicist Tim Berners Lee in 1980 while he was working as an independent contractor for CERN. Since the world wide web at that time was mainly a way for scientists to share research data, HTML did not gain much notice until the end of the 80s and into the 90s. It was not until 1990 that the World Wide Web (W3) was proposed and accepted by CERN. The year 1991 marked the first year where an HTML standard was made public. This early version of HTML had relatively few tags(some which are still available today), such as the basic “href” link tag and the “img src” image tag that could be used to define parts of a webpage and where certain elements could be inserted into an HTML document. HTML continued to improve and expand throughout the 1990s. People began to take more and more notice of HTML standards as the World Wide Web gained popularity among the masses. HTML specifications have since 1996 been maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C). In 2000, HTML standards became international and spread across the globe. The latest version of HTML that is widely accepted is 4.01.

Advantages and Disadvantages:

There are two flavors of HTML standards, strict and transitional. The difference between them is that transitional is much more of a loose standard and ignores many things that strict would consider errors or warnings. Transitional is widely accepted and is favored among most webmasters and designers as it allows for more elements in the document than strict. The advantage that HTML has over other standards is that it is the easiest to follow and one that most webmasters should be familiar with. HTML knowledge is generally considered a requirement to build any kind of website, no matter how complex or simple. The disadvantage of HTML is that by itself it is quite limited is what it can do. It does not provide the variety of descriptive tags and elements that something like XHTML or XML can provide. While beginners may be content with HTML, more advanced designers will want to learn other markup languages and standards. Read the rest of this entry »

Custom web design is pricey yet desirable. A website designed from scratch especially for your online purposes is the ideal for many webmasters. What many fail to realize however, is that there is a much better solution to customized site design. Using a web template can generate a tremendous amount of savings and still be customized to suit your specific needs.

Custom Web Design
A quality web designer is highly skilled and knows that his services are worth a great deal. His rate can be very high for custom work, which is a deterrent for many starting new websites. He might also be unreliable. Many designers are pulled in many directions; they have their own websites to build as well as client work.

You pay a high price for a designer that may be hard to speak to when you are ready for a status check or have questions. In addition, the final product does not always meet your expectations. It can be extremely difficult to explain to another person your vision of colors, fonts and layouts. In today’s global marketplace, the difficulty of explaining your ideal design is complicated further by language barriers. The finished product, once it meets your expectations, will cost plenty of time, frustration and dollars. Read the rest of this entry »

A web template can be defined as a pre-defined schematic or pattern which you can re-use to fulfill you own requirements. A template can be of various types ranging from a formula based electronic calculator to a web design. It is a ready to use design created by web designers and sold for profits. Web templates are similar to any other website that allows the integration of text, audio, video and various other applications with it. A web design also makes use of certain strategies with which it can be deployed and distributed using the internet as a medium. A web design system is a methodology used to develop web templates. Web design systems are meant to work three functional levels; the principles to carry out these functions are pre-defined.

The core principles or functions can be listed as follows:

1. Web design systems work towards saving development time
2. Web design systems also work towards building a cost effective website or a cost effective online presences
3. A good web design system ensures that a webmaster or the owner of the website needs to spend very little time on maintaining his website

Web templates are a result of these three requirements. A web design system can enable you to produce a large number of replicas quickly and accurately, similarly, web templates can be used to create as many web pages and web sites as possible without having to worry about extra development costs. Read the rest of this entry »

Social media depicts the online skills and techniques that everyone uses to provide outlooks, viewpoints, ideas, perceptions, information, entertainment, etc. These skills may be portrayed through technologies like blog messages, scraps, videos, podcasts, web pages, wikis, communication boards, etc. The freely accessible worldwide encyclopedia for reference (Wikipedia), social networking websites (Orkut, Myspace), business networking (ryze.com), video sharing sites (YouTube), etc are various mediums of social media.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) uses web marketing techniques for achieving brand marketing and awareness. It blends branding tricks through the social media. The branding and advertising needs and trends may be different for different organisations. While one tries to generate brand awareness, another may be looking for product visibility or market penetration. It may also take the form of online brand image management. The marketing strategy here is unlike the traditional hard selling techniques. Social media marketing requires tactful marketing of a particular product or service in a particular community or group to achieve maximum referrals. Identifying the target audience and adopting marketing strategies targeted at them, is the right way. It all starts with selection of the right medium and using it resourcefully to appeal to the target audience. A blend of information, leisure, hilarity, debate can do the trick.

Social media marketing is much like: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Word-of-Mouth Marketing, and Social Media Optimization (SMO). Many people consider that SMO applies the principles of SEO to social media websites. SMM takes a more vigorously premeditated role hinting at the community to unite with the content. Read the rest of this entry »

The web 2.0 is a phrase which was first used in 2003 by a company called “O’Reilly Media” to define a new version of the World Wide Web, its main characteristics were:

1- It made the WWW public, generating and distributing web content began to be more common, users could participate in the sites data creation and create their own pages, threads, blogs, videos and auctions. These sites such as Wikipedia, Ebay, and Youtube have now become the leaders on the WWW and contain big usercommunities which update their sites data consistently.

2- Categorization and organization of content, such as the deep linking, site owners organized their content in a more comfortable, user freindly way using the back slash (/). The sites appeared more clear on search engines and the user could just type www.site.com/news instead of browsing the whole site to find this section.

3- And the last, most important thing was the “Dot-Com boom” (1995-2001), in which many new Internet-based companies began their work as their owners saw their potential on the Internet, companies such as Google and Ebay had been founded in the early beginning of the “boom” and became the great success of today.

The uses of Web 2.0

Web-based applications and desktops:

These “online desktops” are similar to a PC environment and function as application platforms giving the user the feeling his is at his desktop, not online, today this service is mostly used when a user wants to enter his desktop from another computer, all he/she needs to do is to sign up to one of these services and the problem is fixed.

Rich Internet applications:

Client-side software

Web 2.0 gives the users an option to work with data stored on servers, a simple example of it is an online html form which can be found anywhere these days, this forms are made using the scripting languages such as javascript, Java or flash, the forms are very helpful for site owners who can easily browse the form with all the details included inside and sort it or make further uses out of it (such as export it and store it on a side-server).

XML

XML is a fee-free open standard. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across the Internet. XHTML and RSS are written on the XML language by adding semantic constraints.

RSS

The RSS is another Web 2.0 feature giving the users an option to make other uses of a sites data.
The RSS is used to publish content updates such as new headlines on news sites or blog entries.
The user can enter and see the updates made on his chosen site and the chosen section (News/Music/Jokes) without
the need to search for them by himself.

Web protocols

Web communication protocols are supported by the Web 2.0 structure. These protocols such as the REST and SOAP involve some form of XML coding in them.

Paying for an extremely well crafted Flash website can prove to be costly. So at the same time as you are hunting around for a flash designer, it is always recommended to consider ready-made Flash Templates. These are previously planned semi-completed Flash web pages that just need to be made to order to your modified preferences. These kind of Flash templates already integrate theme-based graphics, course-plotting scheme, action effects, tune and sound effects. If you’re successful in picking up the right template for your website, it could save you thousands of bucks on effective web design. Read the rest of this entry »

Presently there are a few irrefutable advantages to properly designed Flash web page. Profound importance is given to the well framed content with the raged Flash technology. Without a strong regulation and exceptional coding, implementing Flash could turn out to be really atrocious and might cost you a lot of prospective customers. But, in this era where everything seems to be a blind maze it is advisable to install flash applications for your website or your template only if it satisfies the genuine need and intention with no explanatory troubles. Coming to a conclusion of when and how to exercise Flash are the larger concerns at this point. Above and beyond esthetic expressiveness and skilled rules of coding there are a number of incredibly sensible requirements to be understood in the greatest Flash webpage. Read the rest of this entry »

A web directory is very different from a search engine. Directories are categorized, typically organized by subject or topic, where a search engine is just a tool for accessing one page in a database of many. In the 1990’s, Yahoo! exploded onto the directory scene, and maintains a large market share to this day. Still, Google remains the tool of choice for people to locate information on the web. So why are directories important?

Google is certainly an excellent tool for finding specific pages. Searching by website name will typically find the site immediately, but what if you want to browse through a list of shoe retailers? You could search for “shoes,” or “buy shoes,” but your results will only reflect pages that have been visited by thousands of people. This is great for a large manufacturer, but if you’re looking for a smaller shop, you may be hard pressed to find it. A directory would let you browse shoe retailers, perhaps by selecting retail, then apparel, then footwear, depending on the organization of the directory. Read the rest of this entry »

CSS vs. Table Based design has been one of the hottest topics of debate in the web design field. Scores of sites proclaim the benefit of good CSS coding, flaunting load speed, standardization, and search engine optimization as the greatest benefits. Advocates of table design often downplay these benefits, claiming less than stellar improvements to a convention that may not need fixing. Combined with the overall utility and widespread acceptance of table design in the development community, table based design has a strong case of its own. So which should we use, tables or CSS? This is where the debate falters. Both sides are able to make a strong case because both sides have valid points. Tables and CSS do many of the same things, but each can also accomplish different things at different levels. A valuable perspective involves a consumer focused approach. Most developers have someone in mind, be it an audience for a personal or corporate webpage, or a client looking to promote their site to an audience. At the end of the day, a good developer must be able to answer to those who pay the rent. Read the rest of this entry »