When you open a site you are most likely to see some kind of flash animation on the site. Some of these animations can be annoying, while others informational and interesting. The common uses for flash applications are:

•  Small “eye candy” animations
• Banner Advertising
•  Corporate presentations
• CD business cards
• Demos and tutorials for web and CD applications

When using flash you can intertwine:

• Animation
• video,
•  sound
• music
•  voice over’s
•  And connect to a database for personalized interactivity or calculations.

Some benefits of flash pieces are that flash be designed for both CD and web applications, this allows for the piece to be used for direct mail and online. If you decided that your site was going to be a full flash site it would be more streamlined, and the look of the site would be more cohesive. It is harder to emulate the same look and feel/ interface using flash and HTML.

However, not everyone has the flash application and so some users may be required to download this application or they could have the wrong version of flash. Sometimes to much flash and music can be distracting and will make the site load slow when the flash is streaming. Also, the search engines won’t be able to properly read a flash intro and unless you have a link to the home page on this flash peice the search engine won’t be able to rate your site.  There are also a lot of sites with flash intro’s that have no purpose, Just because you CAN do it doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it!

 Downsides:

1.   If you don’t have the patience to learn the ins and outs of desing, then you probably don’t have the patients to run a web based business.
2. Free templates can cause significant design flaws and can end up causing significant damage to your web business image.
3. If using a fee web page template, your files are often distrubuted freely around the internet and is used by thousands of web sites.

Problems with SEO:

1. Many templates are only optimized for one or 2 web browsers (the most popular is Microsoft Explorer), this means that a user that is not using the certain browser that the template site is not optimized for they most likely will not be able to access your site. 

How to protect yourself if you do use a template:

1. Modify any CSS fukes that are included and rename or replace any image files.
2. Test the template across a number of popular browsers ( This is a very effect and fast way to test a template site)

I suggest not setting up and using a template site, instead use a template site for inspiration to build your own site. Use templates for inspiration instead than the solution. Some good inspirational template sites are www.opendesign.org or www.oswdshots.org . If you want a website up and running quickly and don’t mind your site looking similar to other sites, then a template site could be for you. On the other hand, if you don’t make changes to the template file and test it in various Web browsers then you should forget about using them altogether. If your web site is vital to your business, then you should hire a web designer to create a personal, professional, and unique site.

 There are a couple different kinds of ways that you could use flash. There are complete “flash sites” where the whole site is complete flah integrated site, although it can be effect most users find that there is too much flash on the site.  You could also add some flash to a simple HTML designed site. These sites are recommended by the usability experts, if you want to add flash to your site.  Some flash only sites are accomadated by non-flash sites, to cater to a wider variety of users. A few other ways that you can use flash mutltimedia is in banner advertising and interactive button advertisments.

So should you use flash on your website? My answer would be yes. But consider a few of these details:

• Flash content is not properly indexed on search engines - Although search engines are able to index information from flash animation, I would not recommend putting important information in a flash animation. Most search engines pass up the information because they can not properly index the information
• Complex flash animation can introduce usability issues - For example, a user may try to use the back button on their browser to return to the previous page, but it will just restart the animation! This is something a desinger will nee to consider when building a flash interface.
• You can’t be sure that all you visitors will see the flash content - Pretty obvious, you will want to have alternative content for when the flash does not load.

96% of web developors have flash mutltimedia on their browsers! Does this prove that flash is something that you need to use? No!  There are a few questions that you consider before you decided if you need flash:

• Will flash help me communicate with my audience? - The first thing that you need to consider is if flash makes sense to use. Will you be able to convey your point better to the audience in how you will adress their concerns, as well as keep the users needs and perspectives in mind.
• Will my audience have the right plug in? - The estimate is that 85% of users have the flash capabilities, with new browsers being shipped with flash already built in. But that still leaves 15% of people who don’t have the capability or have an outdated version.

Now the big question is, Is flash a friend or a foe? I would say both. There are some ups and downs of the use of flash and it is hard to decide when you need to use it or not. I hope though, that I have informed you enough for you to make the right decision for your website.

Firstly your site needs to look good, which is the most obvious of all of the details needed.   A good looking website needs to portray your company and keep people interested. But don’t go over board! I have seen some sites that use too much flash or change colors on each page. Flash is always nice, but with a hefty amount on your site it will take the user longer to understand who you are, what you do, and how you do it. Also, If you use to many colors, or change a pages color layout it may confuse the user into thinking that they have been directed to another site and will leave.

Another thing to consider is the load time of your site. The longer your site takes to load the less and less people will visit your site.  Often this aspect is not considered, I strongly suggest considering your loading time.

In another one of my blogs I wrote about stickiness and making your site easily navigated. Your site MUST be easily navigated for your users. If your site confuses users or makes them work harder than they need to they will leave your site. Ultimately, they might be going to your competition for the services they are searching for.

I bet when you first decided that you were going to build a website there was one major goal that the website was suppose to accomplish.  Weather the site was to have potential clients contact you or produce more sales and awareness of your business, make sure that your site meets the major goal that you had in mind and easily channels users towards that goal.

When it comes time to update your site, as most sites information becomes outdates and incorrect, you will want your site to be easily updated.  When a great website is built it was built with the ability to easily update when needed. Make sure that you consider this when you build you site.

Of course you will want your site to have great rankings on search engines, as everyone benifits from good ratings. Make sure that your site is easily accessable by the search engines spiders. This will allow them to better read and rate the content in your site.

Finally, you want to be able to have you site work with a variety of different web browsers.  Some of these web browsers you would/should include but not limit to  FireFox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla and netscape. You also should consider that every web browser will render your page differently, and there are other ways to access the internet other than using a computer now so your site might need to be compatable for those options.

Of course, these are not the only things that you will need to create a wounderfule site. These are the ones that I think are the most important to consider.  Your website will need to able to be compatable with search engines, easily navigated, achieve it’s goals, be easily maintained, and be easily updated. Creating a site that can be created with all of these site abilites takes a lot of skills and you may not find a web designer that can offer you all of the services required.

1.How many years has your company been building web sites?
Of course, this is the most explanatory question. Usually, a company that that  has  more experience in the business knows what you want and what needs to be done for a successful web site. If you already know the question to the answer or the company is well known, you should be asking them how technologically up-to-date the company is and if they are designing web. 

2.Where can I see samples of your previous work?
A company with a portfolio online can display past projects to the public, this is a valuable asset to you so that you can see the past products and quality.

3.Can the company provide you with Flash animation?
You don’t ever want to have to much flash animation on your site, but it will add an extra edge to a website.

4.What industries have you created websites for?
If the company is familiar with your industry it can be beneficial to the build of your site. They can help add ideas and information that will be helpful and keep users coming back to your site.

5.What is the largest project you have worked on and why?
A company with well known clients are more credible for their work, this is also like a portfolio of their work online.

6.Do you offer web hosting?
If they do offer web hosting, it will usually be offered at a discounted price because they designed your web site. Normally, it is a good idea to go with the company that builds the site for you because they will offer you hosting at a lower rate then what you would find on your own.

7.Do I have to host my web site with you?
If you do find another site that can offer you cheaper hosting you should be ale to. You have the right to host your site wherever you want to.

8.What do I have to provide to you?
Usually you will have to provide the text, images, and feedback. If you can not or do not want to, you can ask if the web design company can offer these services to you from their stock photos and copywriting.

9.Are they able to offer the option of an online shopping cart?
If you do plan to do an e-commerce in the future, but you are putting the plan on hold for the first couple of stages, be sure that they have the resources to provide this service.

10.How do you measure success of you website?
Some companies will measure the success by the actual site itself; others measure it by the amount of traffic the site gets. This will all depend on what you are looking for.

11.Will I own the code after completion of the project?
You paid for the codes therefore you should own it, make sure that the answer is YES.

12.Do you have a formal project process?
If the company really has everything together they will have an easy process that will be organized and easy to follow.

13.What is the payment structure?
Usually there is a down payment of roughly 33%. Normally they require another 33% during the development and the final payment is due when the site is finished or goes online.

14.How will we communicate about this project?
I hear all the time about how people gave a designer a lot of money to get the project worked on, and then they couldn’t get a hold of the developer. Make sure that you can communicate by e-mail, which is usually more convenient and more effective. However, you can address your needs also by telephone.

15.  What browsers do you test the site on?
Testing should be done at the minimum of these four browsers
 

                                  1.Microsoft Internet Explorer
                                  2.Mozilla
                                 3.FireFox
                                 4.Netscape

16.Are your codes clean and up to date with open standards?
If the code is clean, it will load faster. Also that are more portable if you ever decide to switch to another designer in the future.

17.How long will it take?
A typical small business website takes roughly a month, but it usually depends on how involved you are in the project.

Normally the designer you are looking for has a good reputation and can offer you the services that you are looking for. If you do find one or two things that you do not like about a web designer, continue to search for one you are happy with but don’t completely scratch that company out. Not all the companies that you will speak with can offer you exactly what you are looking for, weather it be for the companies rules or their software they work with.

The long story is that PHP orginally derived from Personal Home Page tools, which is now known as PHP:HyperText Preprocessor.  It was created as an alternative to Microsofts Active Server Page (ASP) technology. PHP and ASP both are scripts that can be embedded into a web page with HTML. Before it can be viewed by a user, the web servers “calls” PHP to interpret and perform specific operations for the PHP script.PHP code can query databases, create images, read and write other files and of course talk to remote servers. The possibilites are endless.

PHP can support environments such as Apace and MySQL, this futhers its popularity. however, it is primarily used in Linux web servers.  It can also work in other environments and is supported by an extensive list of databases and web-servers.  PHP popularity has risen due to the different approaches we are taking now to publish sites (Web-publishing).

If you are curious as to how much money you are going to have to dish out for this specific language, the answer is none. PHP is free and offered under an open source license.  It is a great script for use, and if you can I would suggest trying it out.

 These types of tags (meta description and meta keyword) are not seen by the users of your website. Rather they are read by the search engines, for the purpose of providing meta document data.  There are some important tags that you should know:

• meta http-equiv tag
• meta refresh tag
• the meta robots tag
• the meta copyright tag
• meta author tag

These tags are used to give search engines “spider directions” to other parts of your site or other sites.

The next question on your mind might be what do meta tags look like? There are a lot of different types of meta tags, a general tag may look something like this:

<META name=”something” content=”something else”> 

However you do not need the</META> at the end of this tag, like some HTML requires such as a <B> BOLD </B>. Just make sure that there are no breaks because some search engines are a bit testy with breaks. 

Remember that there is no need to file every single page of your website, you only need to do the important or relevant ones. Also, make sure that your description tag does not simply restate your title page, but what the page is about almost like a summary in just a couple of words. Finally, a tag can be in the creation of dynamic documents.

ISP 

First, you must have and Internet Service Provider (ISP) to use the Internet with you site. ISPs are a small amount of free web space to create web pages quickly and easily.  An ISP site is perfect for people who want a small site with low traffic. These sites are normally personal sites,  or sites that are put up for testing and preparation of another site. ISPs normally have rate restrictions and most don’t offer a lot of features with their web space.

Free Web Hosting 

 If you have and ISP that doesn’t offer web space, then I suggest that you consider free web hosting. There are many free hosting providers who can offer additional services. Free web hosting is normally supported by advertising on the site.  This type of hosting is beneficial for personal sites as well as small business sites, because they are supported by advertising. I do not suggest using free hosting if you are serious about conducting business on your site. You may however utilize a free hosting service for running test and preparations on pages.

Standard Paid Hosting 

Standard Paid hosting, need I say more? Usually you will pay a monthly fee for a space and services on providers site. Payments can range from $1-2 to several thousands of dollars, normally though it depends on what type of services you will require. This is a great option for most web-based business.

Domain Hosting 

If your business is small and you don’t have a lot of money to spend on web hosting, I suggest taking the route of Domain Hosting. It can be hard to understand at times, but instead of paying for a web space you would pay for your domain. Then you can have you site hosted wherever you would like. Domain hosting is also known as URL redirection. You can user your ISP or free hosting service and can still accrue the benefits of having a personal web site URL.

Colocation 

A great option for small to medium sized business’s that want to be able to control their own hosting company would be Colocation. The server would be put in a machine room of a larger company and can be connected to their high-speed Internet connection. There are two types of colocation: Managed and Unmanaged. Managed Colocation is like having an IT department in your company, even if the company is small.

Direct Internet Access 

If you company has a large database of information or is interested in  controlling every aspect of their web and Internet access should consider Direct Internet Access. This allows you to host your site yourself. However you are required to have:

1. Web Server Computer
2. Software
3. High-Speed Internet with a dedicated IP address

This options offers most control over a web server. Just be sure to contact you ISP before setting up a direct connection on a DSL or Consumer ISP connection. Direct Internet Access does also require that you spend a lot of time maintaining and updating your information and web site yourself. If you do not have a lot of time to spend, I do not recommend this specific type of hosting.

Each company has different ideas on how they want to use their site. When you do decide what you want your site to do, you then must decide how much money and time you want to spend on your web hosting. I hope that this will aid you in making your decision on what type of hosting would be beneficial to you.

There are six phases and 5 roles and responsibilities for content management:

Phases:

1. Create
2. Update
3. Publish
4. Translate
5. Archive
6. Retire

Roles and Responsibilities:

1. Content - Responsible for creating and editing content ( phase 1)
2. Editor - Responsible for fine tuning the content and the style of the delivery, including translation and localization ( Phase 2)
3. Publisher - Responsible for releasing the content for use (phase 3)
4. Administrator - Responsible for managing access permission to folders and files (normally by assigning access rights to users groups and roles) as well as assit and support in various ways (phase 4 and 5)
5. Consumerm, Viewer, or Guest - Person who reads or otherwise takes in content after it is published or shared

The last two phases are the phases in which the content is changed, or saved and replaced by better more updated content. 

You may be asking yourself know “What may I need to update?” which is simple. If you are creating an e-commerce site, you may need to change information on pricing, availability, and/or styles. If your site is not an ecommerce site, but more of an informational site, you could need to change the information about your company like location, phone and fax numbers, products or services offered etc.

Updating a site youself, usually is very beneficial for changing and updating information about your company and its site. However, I do not suggest updating your site if you do not plan on making more than 2 changes a year. If you don’t, it would be a wise decision in my opion if you allow the company who build/hosts your site to do it for you. Not only would it be cost - effective, but it doens’t make sense to learn to do it just to do it a couple of times a year, if even at all.

Extra words take up space, with the words just being there it suggest that you need to read everything just to understand what you are trying to convey.  Thing will seem more complicated then they really are and people will be less likely to stay on you site because they do not want to have to think and read a lot when on a site. People will find your pages to be more daunting then they really are.

Krugs third law of usability states that you should get rid of half the words on the page, and then get rid of half of what’s left on the page.  Benefits:

•  Reduces noise level  on the page
•  Makes the useful content more permanent
• *The pages shorter, allowing users to see more of each page at a glance with out scrolling

Reduce your Happy Talk, this is introductory text to a site that is supposed to welcome you to the site, also the Happy Talk is there to inform you how great the site is and what you are going to preview on the site. Happy Talk is self-congratulatory promotional writing, stating nothing useful. Its main focus is to boast about how great they are and not delineating what makes them great. You can have a small amount of happy talk, but try to stay away from too much.

If you do omit the useless words on you site, your viewers will stay longer and continue to return to you site. I recommend the rules that I have given you to best optimize your page and make it user friendly.