Website competition reports

Running an online business is very competitive no matter what industry you are in; therefore it always pays to know what your competition is up to. Now this could become a very time consuming activity checking all your competitor's websites for press releases and news everyday.

Free competition reports

Wouldn't it be better if you received an email every time one of your competition released a new product or updated their news? Well you can, using Google Alerts, simple enter a subject you would like to be informed about, like a competitors business name, and set how often you would like to receive them, as it happens, daily, weekly or monthly. Every time Google finds some new information on that subject they will email you, and best of all this service is free!

Try Google alerts

More detailed information on competitor websites

Find out more details about your competitors websites.

How to get a website address?

To get a website address, also known as a domain name or url, is really easy and cheap. You need to do something called registering a domain, you can register it for as long as you like, but it is normally done for two years. Expect to pay £5 for two years for a .co.uk and £20 for a .com for the same period.

Check availabilty of website address

.co.uk.name.org.uk.me.uk.com.net.org.info.biz.tv.cc.uk.com.uk.net.eu.com.gb.com.gb.net.web.com.jpn.com.us.com.qc.com.de.com

Bare in mind that 93% of words in the English language have already been registered, so you will need to be creative to come up with something, try this for inspiration..

Website address ideas

Important

Once you have your website address you also need to get some where to store it, this is called web hosting.

Find low cost web hosting

Adding html in Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver is a great tool for designing web sites, it allows beginners and professionals alike to design and edit any site, its easy to use because it's a WYSIYWY [Define], however sometimes you still need to add the html directly in Dreamweaver.

For a lot of people adding html in Dreamweaver can be daunting, but don't worry it's a very easy thing to-do with Dreamweaver, we'll explain how.

Adding html in Dreamweaver step by step

Step1. Open your web page

Open the web page you wish to add the html to, now we are assuming Dreamweaver is in design view, which means you are looking at the page how it will be shown in the browser [Define]. To make sure go to the top menu, which has File, Edit, View etc in and select View. From the drop down menu select Design. Dreamweaver is now in design mode.

Step2. Select where to add the html

With Dreamweaver in design view select on the page where you wish to add your html, your mouse cursor should now be flashing on the location you selected. Now go to View in the top menu again and select Code. This will display the html of the page and more importantly the mouse cursor will be flashing in the location you wish to add your html to. This means you don't have to try and work out the entire html to find the location you wish to add your html to.

Step3. Paste your html into the page

We are assuming you already have some html you wish to add, if not copy the below html and paste it into your page

<p><a href="http://giantmouseblog.blogspot.com">Adding html in Dreamweaver</a></p>

This html will put a link on your web page to this one.

Now with some html to add copy and paste it into the location where your mouse is flashing in Dreamweaver. Save your web page and view it in your browser by press f12 on your keyboard. Hey presto you have added html using Dreamweaver.

Need more help?

If you are new to html it will be worth reading learn about html.

When to use Flash

You will read in a lot of places not to use Flash [Define] on your website because it isn't accessible for all visitors, doesn't help you pages rank well in search engines etc, which all has some truth behind it.

However Flash is one of the most powerful web design tools you can use, it is designed to make visually interesting interactive animations, like games and adverts. So if you need some like this is on your website you should use Flash.

Great Example of Flash

Here is a great example of using Flash, it is for the British National Lottery and it helps you pick 6 random numbers. By clicking on the chicken it produces a random number, which isn't technically difficult to do in Flash if you know what you're doing, but works brilliantly, go on give it a try!

Great use of Flash

Learn more about web design

Is your website bleeding?

Web design is driven by new technologies and techniques, which allow websites to achieve new things never thought possible. A bleeding web site uses the latest cutting edge technologies so much so that it is bleeding, meaning using the latest technologies for the sake of it.

The point of these new web design technologies is to achieve something new, not just using it because it is there. Using them when you don't need to detracts from the main aim of the site and lowers the value of your site to visitors.

How to stop your website bleeding

If you think your website is bleeding you need to re-evaluate it. Does that Flash movie [Define] need to be on every page? Did you really need to spend a week working out how to use Google's dynamic maps API to show the location of your company, when you could have just linked to Googles dynamic maps in minutes?

To avoid your website bleeding to death set the aim of your website, then work out how to achieve it, then work out what technologies you need to use to reach that goal. Don't just use them for the sake of it, because it will more then likely make your site harder to use.

We are not saying don't use the latest technologies; just use them for what they were designed for.

Get more out of your website

Website conversion rate calculator

One of the most important figures you need to know for your website is the conversion rate. Your conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who perform a desired action, such as buying something, or signing up to a newsletter.

To calculate your website conversion rate you need 3 things...

1.Number of visitors to your site (Learn more)
2.The amount of conversions on your site (i.e. purchases)
3.Website conversion rate calculator

Click the website conversion calculator and input the above figures, it will calculate your conversion rate.

Dreamweaver button to close window

A close window button on your website is a great feature to have especially if you are using popup windows for any reason, and using Dreamweaver makes it very easy to add it to your site.

Switch to code view in Dreamweaver and copy the below code into the location you want the button to appear..

<a href="javascript:window.close()" title="click here to close the window">Close window</a>

This will display "Close Window" once clicked will close the window.

Step by step tutorial to add close window button in Dreamweaver

Stylish web design

Style is doing something well, a stylish web site is not one with all the latest bells and whistles on like podcasts [Define] and Flash [Define]. A stylish web site is one that fulfils it purpose well.

Getting a stylish web design

First set the goal of your web site, take for example the goal of this site, it is to teach web design beginners tips the professionals use. Once you have set your goal you need to work out how best to achieve it. Ask yourself what information do I need on my web site to fulfil that goal? We needed tips from professional web designers that were explained in a none technical way.

Stylish design

To get a stylish design, keep the look simple. Stand back from your final design and look at every element of the page and ask yourself two questions...

What does that add to the page?

Do I need that?

If the answers are nothing and no, remove it. This will help you get a lean website that does it job well, making it stylish, because style is doing something well.

More web design advice

How much does a web site cost?

If your looking for a quick ballpark figure answer, then they can cost anything from £200 to 100's of thousands, even millions of pounds. For those of you who want a more accurate realistic answer read on.

It all depends on what you want your website to do. If it is a simple 6 page brouchure style, it will be on the lower end of the scale, if it's more complicated you are paying for the amount of time it takes to develop it.

Learn more about web design cost

This weeks top 10 searches

The most searched for things this week...

1.MP3
2.Jennifer Aniston
3.Jo Guest
4.Ebay
5.Chat
6.Games
7.Insurance
8.Paris Hilton
9.Jobs
10.Abi Titmuss

Source 50.lycos.co.uk

What does this mean to you?

By optimising your website to rank highly in search engines you can attract lots of people looking for your site.

Learn how to get to the top of Google.

Better search results

Google, Yahoo and MSN search are the big players in the search engine market, however they all return different results, wouldn't it be great if all three search results were combined so a website that ranks well in not just one search engine, but all 3 came up at the top? This would give you more relevant and useful results.

Well good news you can get these better search results, they are called Meta Search Engines. The two big players in this market are www.mamma.com and www.dogpile.com. Go on give them a try.

www.mamma.com
www.dogpile.com

Did you get more useful search results from these search engines? If you did, leave a comment and tell us about your experience.

Add search to your site the easy way

Find a website owner?

Ever wanted to know who owns a website but couldn't find out from the contact us page? Well there is a very simple way to lookup who owes a website, it's called a Whois lookup.

Find UK website owners - i.e. website.co.uk go to...

www.nominet.org.uk

In the bottom right, under WHOIS, enter the web address without the www. For example website.co.uk

Find American and international domains - i.e. .com .net

www.whois.sc

Type in the web address and click the search button. Scroll to the bottom of the results page, where the address of the owner is shown.

Useful?

If you found this useful try these great web design tips

Quicker Internet

Here is a really useful tool, it will help you use the Internet quicker. They are called mouse gestures. They allow you to control your browser [Define] with out having to click the buttons at the top, for example by right clicking your mouse and dragging it left sends you back a page, right click drag up takes you to your home page. This means you don’t have to keep moving your mouse to the top left of the screen every time you want to do something.

If your use the Internet a lot you will realise how much time you spending going up to the top left corner of your browser browser [Define] to click back or home buttons, mouse gestures will save you some time and rather then being a gimmick are actually really useful.

Get Mouse Gestures

To get mouse gestures you need to install a free extension for your browser [Define], which is really easy to do, just follow the instructions on the below links.

Internet Explorer mouse gestures

Firefox mouse gestures

More useful web design tools

Search Engine Marketing Facts

Search engine marketing is promoting your website through search engines, so people searching for a subject related to your website can find you. Here are some facts about search engine marketing...

93.4% indicate that they would use the Internet to research a business purchase

of which 63.9% would use a Search Engine first

Source: MarketingSherpa

Search Engine marketing cost only 16.5p as opposed to 28.5p for e-mail marketing and £1.14 for buttons and banner campaigns

Source: US Bancorp Pipar Jaffr

How to get to the top of search engines

Best web design font

When designing a website you should choose one main font for the text, this will keep it looking consistent. The best font for websites is Verdana, because it designed to be displayed on screens, making it easier for your visitors to read no matter the font size.

What are web safe fonts?

Has MSN search found your site?

MSN search is Microsoft's answer to Google and is third largest search engine behind Google and Yahoo. MSN search receives a lot of traffic and if it doesn't know about your website it can't send people to it who are looking for you.

To find out if MSN search knows about your site go to www.msn.com and search for the following...

Site:www.yourwebsite.co.uk

Replace www.yourwebsite.co.uk with the address of your website, remembering to keep the : with no spaces otherwise it won't work correctly. This will show you all the pages from your website MSN search knows about.

Get in to MSN search

If MSN hasn't found your website it may be that your site is very new, if it is more then a couple of months old you need to get another web page that has been found by MSN search to link to your website. To do this search in MSN for something related to your site. Then email one of the websites that come up in the results kindly asking them to link to your website. MSN will find this link to your site and include. A month after the link has been added go back to MSN and do the site:www.yourwebsite.com search again, it should now be included.

Getting to the top of MSN

Just because MSN search knows about your site doesn't mean it will place it at the top of its results. Web site owners work very hard to be listed at the top of search results.

Learn how to get to the top of search engines