Gimp - GNU Image Manipulation Program

1. Gimp - Gimp 2 is a powerful free image editing program which contains many advanced features normally found in high end image editing software applications. With the ability to download and install new plugins, you can extend your graphic design knowledge and creative flair. Our web designers also use Gimp to enhance our client website solutions.

2. Inkscape – Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features, markers, clones, alpha blending and more. Inkscape has a clear and user friendly  interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. Inkscape provides a feature rich set of image tools similar to popular application such as Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X. Why not try out Inkscape today !

3. Pixlr – Pixlr is a great free online based image editing tools. Sometimes you simply need to edit an image away form your main computer so why not try a free online editing application for basic image manipulation.

4. Picasa – Picasa is a free photo editing application from google. Use Picasa to design and print beautiful photo collages, fun video slideshows, add photo text and mich more.

5. Paint.net – Paint.net is a useful image editing tools for complex and simple tasks. It  features an user friendly interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools and plugins.

6. Karbon – Karbon is a powerful and free vector drawing application with a simple and clean user interface. Karbon is great for creating vector logos, illustrations and other vector based images.

7. Skencil – Skencil is a free Free Software interactive vector drawing application which runs on Linux and Unix operating systems. I use Skencil for diagram flow images, why not try Skencil youself if you also user Linux?

8. Blender – Blender is a 3D modelling and animation application which is free to download ans use. Blender is available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. At DCP Web Design Agency we use blender to render high quality 3D modeling images for our website projects.

9. Terragen – Terragen is a great tool for rendering scenery for website backgrounds and content. It is available for Windows and the Mac OS. Terragen is free for personal, noncommercial use.

10. Which application do you think should go here? – post you answers below !

Did you know submitting your website to “Web Directories” can improve your website ranking?

I was recently contacted by a client asking how she can improve her websites Search Engine Ranking. I explained there are many techniques which can be used to improve a website ranking on Search Engines and explained the best techniques for submitting her website to web directories. I have documented the relevant information below to help you in your Search Engine Optimisation strategy.

Step 1 – Prepare your written content

Most web directories will require a set of specific business information. It would make sense you first write this content before visiting web directories. Why? – let just say cutting and pasting is a lot quicker than tying the same information again and again. Web directories will normally require the following information:

• Website Title (should contain keyword which relate to the services you provide)
• Website URL (this is your website address)
• Website Short Description (should be no more the 250 characters)
• Website Main Description (Should be no more the 500 characters)
• Keyword Phrases (should relate to the products and services you provide)
• Email Address (used to confirm your submission)
• Your Full Name (used in the display of your directory submission)

Below I have listed the directory details I use when submitting to web directories:

• Website Title – Website Design by DCP
  • You will notice in my website title I have used the key phrase “Website Design”
• Website URL – http://www.dcpweb.co.uk
• Website Short Description – DCP Website Design Agency provides Professional Website Design, Internet Marketing and Graphic Design solutions.
  • Again take note that I have listed all my services in the short description.
• Website Main Description – Different Colour Productions is a London website design agency providing Professional Web Design, Internet Marketing and Graphic Design solutions for a diverse range of clients. Our Web Designers, Project Managers and Graphic Designers have over 5 years experience in developing business website solutions.
  • Again take note that I have listed all my services in the main description.
• Keyword Phrases – Website Design, Website Designers, Web Content Management Systems, Ecommerce Website Design
  • You guessed it – also contains my services as keyword phrases
• Email Address – info@dcpweb.co.uk
  • This should be a valid email address as some web directories will send a confirmation email.
• Your Full Name – Pankaj Shah

Step 2 – Submit your details to Web Directories

To help you along I have listed some popular directories below which accept free submission. You need to visit website, find the relevant category for your business and then select “Submit Link”. You will see a form which will request the information you prepared in Step 1 above. You can simply cut and paste in the information.

• http://www.bestcatalog.net
• Business Directory – B2B Index – Online business to business directory
• Webmaster Directory – SEO Web Development Webmaster Resources UK
• www.pageupdirectory.com/
• Portfolio Showcase
• http://directory.dassnagar.co.uk
  
• UK Web Directory
• World Website Directory
• UK Small Business Directory
  
• 1America Mall Business and Shopping Directory.
• http://1stw.com
  
• Website Directory – Pedsters Planet – A keyword-driven web site directory, includes a search box and the ability to submit your site to our directory
• http://www.1americamall.com/
• SurfGopher – internet search engine
• Web Design | UK Web Designers & Developers
• Directory World
  
• http://www.suggestlink.co.in
• GlobalGateway
• http://www.azlisted.com
• Internet Services Directory – UK directory of Internet services and Internet providers
• Free Info Directory – We have made our Free Info Directory to help our visitors to find out solutions for their promblems. Browse our directory and find more free information.
• http://www.freelinksdirectory.net
• Free SEO Directory
• http://www.premierdirectory.org
  
• EVMINA – Web Directory and Searhengine
• Slash Directory
• Search engine friendly directory
  Bring valuable traffic to your site by adding your domain to our free search engine friendly directory
• u-Hits Directory – A high-traffic, human edited & SEO friendly general web directory.
• http://www.wura.co.uk
• Free Web Directory
  Including Web Design and Development Resources, Offer automatic, instant and free directory submissions.
• http://www.roask.com
• Free web directory
• www.freelinksdirectory.net
• Free Directory Submit – Submit your site for free in this search engine friendly web directory to expose your quality website to the world.
• Dmegs Web Directory
• Free RSS Feeds Directory
• Ablaze Directory
• eWolf.info – Best Web Directory
  
• Earth Directory
• Dirozo Web Directory
• A1 Web Links – Internet Service Resources
• Directory Free
• Reviewed Web Directory – Online Web Directory. ReviewedWeb is one of the large-scale & editorial based online business directories. Reviewed web directory provides free web site submission for your business.
• Suggest Link Directory
• http://www.linkaddurl.com

Listed below are some important website design tips:

Meta Tag Data – There are three types of meta tag data:

Title Tag – The title tag is important for website design search engine optimisation. The title tag is used to form a part of a search engine result. It is important to keep your title tag short but also try to list the most common keywords in your web page title
tag. Each web page on your website can contain a different title tag.

Keyword Tag – The keyword tag contains words or phrases that potential visitors will use in search engines to find your business website. The main text on your website should also contain these keywords. Each page on your website should focus on a specific keyword and the text information on this page should reflect against this chosen keyword.

Description Tag – The description tag is normally placed under your title tag and should contain a short description about your business. This is an opportunity for you to sell your products and services to your potential clients. Search engines use the description tag to form a basic description of your business in search results. It is advisable to keep your description tag short and straight to the point. Get your message about your business within the first two lines of description text.

Some other useful tips:

Keep your website up to date. A good idea is to build an archive system so you can keep old information but also provide your visitors with up to date information.

Split your information in to pages if you need to have a lot of text information on your website.

Make sure your website is visually appealing. In most cases what you like in terms of design and not be the same for your client base. Get you designer to create an example home page as a graphic file and have the file sent to via email. Send this file to at least 10 other people, some related to your business and people outside of your business and get some feedback. Based on the feedback you will be in a better position to direct your web designer.

Change the images on your website at least once a every three months. If you use images on your website try to update them with new images every three months. People who visit your website often will see that you are keeping your website up to date. Use the alt tag to add a text description of the image, the is an opportunity to add more keywords to the main body of your website.

Description from Skype:

To create a twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/

Home page – An introduction to your business, services and / or products
About page – An overview of your business, future vision
Services / Product page – An overview of your services / products
Contact page – Provide all your business contact information, address, email, telephone, fax

There are many other web pages which you can add to your website but these pages will be determined by the type of business you own. Below are examples of other pages you may require for your website:

Resources page – A resource page can be used to structure information in to categories, this information can then be downloaded by website users. You can also charge a fee for users which want to obtain this information. In most cases free download information is a very useful method of driving web traffic to your website. The resources can be in different formats such as a word document, pdf document, video clip, audio clip, graphic file, power point presentation, there are many formats which can be used to deliver information to your website users. Informative download information is a great way to advertise your business, especially if the information your provide is free, this is also know as viral marketing.

Image gallery page – An image gallery page is a good way to visually present your business, for example if you are a property developer you may want to show before and after images of a property development or if your are a photographer you may want to compile a gallery of images in to categories which would provide a good method of demonstrating your work.

Payment processing page – A basic payment processing page can be a useful mechanism for accepting payments from your clients. More advanced payment processing is know as ecommerce. There are many payment processing providers such as PayPal or Google checkout. In most cases these payment processing providers will only charge a fee if a payment is made. Most banking payment processing has a monthly fee so you should consider and research which is the most cost effective for your business.

The above pages listed are only a few example of how you can create more interacting on your website. A good way to find out what else you can achieve is to simply look at what your competitors are doing.

Listed below are some of the most common requirements for an effective website:

Meta Tag Data – meta tag data is used by search engines to find and correctly catalog your website. It is very important that the meta tag data you add to your website is relevant to your business. There are three main types of meta tag data:

Title Tag – The title tag is important for website design search engine optimisation. The title tag is used to form a part of a search engine result. It is important to keep your title tag short but also try to list the most common keywords in your web page title tag. Each web page on your website can contain a different title tag.

Keyword Tag – The keyword tag contains words or phrases that potential visitors will use in search engines to find your business website. The main text on your website should also contain these keywords. Each page on your website should focus on a specific keyword and the text information on this page should reflect against this chosen keyword.

Description Tag – The description tag is normally placed under your title tag and should contain a short description about your business. This is an opportunity for you to sell your products and services to your potential clients. Search engines use the description tag to form a basic description of your business in search results. It is advisable to keep your description tag short and straight to the point. Get your message about your business within the first two lines of description text.

Fonts – Keep your fonts (text type) simple. I would recommend Verdana or Arial font types. These fonts are easy and clear to read. Avoid fancy fonts which are difficult to read as this will only distract a user from the key information you are emphasising.

Colours – Use high contrast colour combinations on your website, for example if your background is a light colour use a dark colour for the text. I would recommend an off white colour for the background and a dark grey (all most black) colour for the text.

Compress your images – When adding images to your website it is advisable to compress the images using a graphic application. Your images should be set to 72dpi (dots per inch) for displaying on a computer monitor, high resolutions on a website pages will not affect the quality of the image being displayed. You should save your images using , .jpg or .gif format which are the most common format used when adding images to your website. .jpg images are suitable for complex images and .gif are suitable for simple banner of title images.

Designing your website template – In most cases it is advisable to design your website for 15” monitor which use an 800 x 600 screen resolution. Although you may have a large screen monitor, many of your website visitors may have a smaller screen size, by creating a website based on a smaller resolution you will be giving all your website users access to a website which can be viewed on any monitor size. In some cases you may require more space for your website so I higher resolution design will be required, this is OK but you should always consider the end user (website visitor) before making this decision. It is also possible to create a website which dynamically changes size based on the monitor size of the user but you normally loose a lot of control over the content layout when creating such a solution.

The above comments are only the basic considerations you should make before developing a website. Below I have listed some informative websites where you can obtain more information. A good web development company will provide free consultancy at the initial stages of developing your website.

• http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
• http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/html/
• http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/

You can find many other website development resources by simply visiting your favorite search engine and typing in “website development help”.

Information about the author of this article
Pankaj Shah is the webmaster of Different Colour Productions Ltd (Web Design London), a UK (London) based website development business. Feel free to republish this article provided you keep this resource and the above url link.

A Website Content Management System is useful only if you are going to update your website on a frequent basis or require more control over the information on your website. You will also be saving cost in the long term as you will not be reliant on a web developer / designer to update your website on your behalf. In the sort term Website Content management Systems are more expensive than standard plain html based websites but the advantage to you is the ability to grow your website yourself. Most ecommerce solution use some type of Content management Systems for example giving you the ability to add new categories and products to your ecommerce store. Content Management Systems can be used in website development in many different ways and are not secluded to ecommerce stores.

Website Content management Systems also give you the ability to identify administrators and set content management roles, in simple terms you can give specific privileges to different members of staff within your organisation and restrict members of staff from specific Content Management functions which do not apply to their role.

In some cases your Website Content management Systems can have the ability to archive information. Creating an archive system is an effective way of retaining information for internal or external reference. A good example would be a portfolio of clients which you have worked with, once your client project is complete, you can add informative information to an archive system allowing internal or external users to view this information, enabling a user to see what you have completed within the remits of your business.

A Content Management Systems normally consists of a user website, a database to store information and a secure control panel allowing to you update the information on the database. Content from the database is used to compile the information displayed on your website. The information on the database is accessed or manipulated using a programming language. In simple terms you are updating the database and your website is displaying content from the database to form your website pages. This type of system is also know as a three tier website application:

Data Tier – This is where your website information is stored.
Application Tier – This is where information is processed.
Client Tier – This is where information is displayed.

There are many different technologies available which enable a Website Content management System to be created. The most cost effective solution is a combination of the following technologies:

Mysql Database – An open source database application
Linux Server – An open source operating system
PHP Programming – An open source programming language

You can find hundreds and thousands of websites on the internet using the above technologies. There are many alternatives to the above technologies such as Microsoft based technologies, but these tend to be more expensive to maintain and develop.

It is recommend before you commission a web development company to create a Website Content Management System, you first find out what technologies the web development company will be using and if these technologies are cost effective.

Information about the author of this article
Pankaj Shah is the webmaster of Different Colour Productions Ltd(http://www.dcpweb.co.uk), a UK (London) based website development business. Feel free to republish this article provided you keep this resource and the above url link.
Tags: meta tag, web designer, content management systems, images, website navigation, many different ways, web developer, privileges, ecommerce store, ecommerce solution, content management system, frequent basis, management functions, management roles

Listed below are some important website design tips:

Meta Tag Data – There are three types of meta tag data:

Title Tag – The title tag is important for website design search engine optimisation. The title tag is used to form a part of a search engine result. It is important to keep your title tag short but also try to list the most common keywords in your web page title tag. Each web page on your website can contain a different title tag.

Keyword Tag – The keyword tag contains words or phrases that potential visitors will use in search engines to find your business website. The main text on your website should also contain these keywords. Each page on your website should focus on a specfic keyword and the text information on this page should reflect against this chosen keyword.

Description Tag – The description tag is normally placed under your title tag and should contain a short description about your business. This is an opportunity for you to sell your products and services to your potential clients. Search engines use the description tag to form a basic description of your business in search results. It is advisable to keep your description tag short and straight to the point. Get your message about your business within the first two lines of description text.

Some other useful tips:

Keep your website up to date. Old information contained on your website is OK but new information is always more informative. A good idea to is build an archive system so you can keep old information but also provide your visitors with up to date information.

Do not write an essay about your business. Try to get your text information concise and informative. Split your information in to pages if you need to have a lot of text information on your website about your business.

Make sure your website is visually appealing. In most cases what you like in terms of design and not be the same for your client base. Get you designer to create an example home page as a graphic file and have the file sent to via email. Send this file to at least 20 – 30 other people, some related to your business and people outside of your business and get some feedback. Based on the feedback you will be in a better position to direct your designer / developer.

Change the images on your website at least once a every three months. If you use images on your website try to update them with new images every three months. People who visit your website often will see that you are keeping your website up to date. Use the alt tag to add a text description of the image, the is an opportunity to add more keywords to the main body of your website.

Information about the author of this article
Pankaj Shah is the webmaster of Different Colour Productions Ltd (London Website Designers), a UK (london) based website development business. Feel free to republish this article provided you keep this resource and the above url link.
Tags: search engines, google, title tag, meta tag, web page title, web design company, search engine google, search engine optimisation, search engine result, straight to the point, hundreds and thousands, design search engine, web development companies, web design industry