Web Design Articles Index

Articles on the Web Design Site Listed by Subject

General HTML

6 Ways to Get Unblocked
Web designers, like any creative person, can suffer from writers block. But because of our work, there are many ways you can learn to deal with the blocks and get unstuck. These six suggestions have worked for me to get new design ideas in the past and will work again.

10 Tips to a Great Web Page
Simple ways to enhance your Web pages.

Abbreviations and Acronyms on Web Pages
Abbreviations can be really useful, but if your readers don't know what they stand for, you can have trouble. Using the abbr and acronym XHTML tags will help prevent that problem.

Absolute and Relative Paths
Learn how to link to pages and images using full domains, absolute and relative paths.

Accessible Frames
Unless you're careful, using frames is a poor accessibility experience for customers with screen readers. If you must have frames, do what you can to make them accessible

Accessible HTML - Allowing Other Viewpoints
Creating Web pages that can be viewed by people with different abilities.

Accesskey Attribute - Forms and Accesskey - Links and Accesskey
The accesskey attribute is a powerful accessibility tool in your Web toolbox, as it lets you set up keyboard shortcuts for links and form fields on your page. If you're creating a Web application, this is one more trick to make your application look and act more like an offline application.

Add and Edit Images in Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver MX 2004 adds a new feature to images - editing. Now you can use Dreamweaver MX 2004, Dreamweaver 8, or Dreamweaver CS3 to edit your images without needing to move to a separate image editing program. This tutorial shows you how.

Adding and Uploading Images
Putting an image on a Web page is a great way to make your site more fun, but if you don't upload and link to them correctly, you'll just end up with a page full of broken graphics. Learn how to upload and link to your images with ease.

Adding Images to EBay
Your EBay advertisement will be much more effective if you include a photo of what you're selling. And it's much easier to do than you think.

Adding Streaming Audio Files
Add RealAudio streaming audio to your Web site. Use it for newsfeeds, information, music, and much more. Learn to stream from a streaming server or an HTTP server.

Alignment in Web Page Layouts
Most Web developers, when they think of alignment think of the align attribute or the CSS float property or something like that. But the alignment of the elements on your page is just as important as whether your text is justified or your image is floated to the left. Alignment provides the structural framework of a design. The alignment can affect the mood of the page as well as how effective it is at getting its message across.

Alignments
Most Web pages that have fancy layouts use tables, but there are several simple attributes of tags used in nearly every Web page that can create fancy page layouts.

Alt Text: Describing Your Images for Better Web Accessibility
Alt text allows you to do more than just describe your images for when someone puts their mouse over it. This article describes alt text and how to use it as well as how you might use alt text in different situations and how alt text assists with Web usability and Web accessibility.

Alt Text - Not Alt Tag
The term alt tag is actually an incorrect term that refers to the alt text or alt attribute on images, applets, and input elements to define what is in those elements. Alt text is used to help accessibility and to provide a little more information on the Web page.

Alt Text on Image Maps
One of the biggest problems with image maps is that they can be very inaccessible. One way to make them at least a tiny bit better is to add alternative text to each item. With alt text and titles on the image map clickable areas, your maps will be better received by your customers.

Anatomy of a Blog: The About Web Design Weblog
There are specific formats that all blogs share, the About Web Design/HTML blog is no exception. Whether you want to learn more about weblogs in general or the Web Design/HTML blog in particular, this article delves into the anatomy of a Weblog.

And the Attributes
When people think of HTML they often think only of the tags, but the attributes are a vital part of the equation. These attributes are for commonly used tags, that people often forget about.

Are Web Designs and HTML protected by copyright?
Web designers and developers work hard to create their Web pages, and it can be very infuriating to spend days or weeks on a design only to find it being used on some other site a few months later. HTML, CSS and the designs they create are protected by copyright.

Are Your Web Pages Color Sensitive?
Creating a Web page that is accessible to color blind people can make a big difference in how your pages are perceived. As much as 12% of men in the US are color blind, and if your pages don't reflect that, they might not be seeing your pages at all.

The Back Button - How People Use Web Sites
The back button is the most important button on a Web page, and it's not even part of the page itself, but the browser.

Baking Up Some HTTP Cookies
Learn how to use cookies on your own site.

Blog FAQ
Learn more about blogs and weblogs through this FAQ answering the basic questions about weblogs or blogs

Book Review: The Design of Sites by Van Duyne, Landay, and Hong, second edition
Using design patterns is a great way to create a site that works and is easy for your customers to use. The second edition of the book The Design of Sites, by Van Duyne, Landay, and Hong provides a huge number of paterns.

A Brief History of the World Wide Web
The Web has it's roots in the telephone and telegraph industry, but it really all started in March 1989, when Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal for managing information that became the World Wide Web.

Bringing Backgrounds to the Foreground
Learn how to use background colors and images to enhance the look of your Web pages.

Browserisms - Two Browser Specific Tricks
Iframes and layers allow you to tailor your pages to IE or Netscape specifically.

Building a Web Page for the Totally Lost
In order to learn HTML, there are a lot of things that you will need to know. This pre-beginning tutorial will help you to assess how much you know and teach you the basics of creating a Web page with HTML.

The Business Case for Editor Types
Most well-run businesses require justification and reason before making decisions, especially for large purchases that may cost a lot of money or impact the company materially. The company Web site is a serious business investment, and making sure you have the best tool for the job is important.

But I Want That Font - Standard Fonts on Windows and Macintosh
Changing the font family to your favorite font will make the page look great in your browser, but if your readers don't have that font, you might be surprised at what it looks like to them. Use the fancy fonts as you please, but you should always have a standard font near the end of your list, and a generic font choice last.

Check Links with Dreamweaver
You can use Dreamweaver to check the pages on your Web site for broken links, external links, and orphan pages.

Choosing a CMS
Choosing your content management system CMS is a big step for any site, but there are a lot of things you need to consider, to be sure that you're getting the best you can. From the backend server information through what the CMS costs and what it supports you need to know these things to choose the CMS that's right for you and your site.

A Closer Look at Content Management Systems
Find out all the different things that CM systems do beyond just managing content.

Colocation Bandwidth Billing
Bandwidth is the typical way that colocation providers bill for their services. But unlike ISPs or other hosting services, it's not usually just a simple straight number. The billing for bandwidth in a colocation situation can be tricky and this article by Mark Kyrnin should help clear it up.

Colocation Extra Fees
Besides bandwidth there are other fees and options that can jack the cost of your colocation service if you're not careful. But this article by Mark Kyrnin explains what some of the more common costs are and why you might or might not want to add them to your service.

Colocation Rack Space
In order to understand colocation you need to understand what they mean when they say rack space. This article covers the basics of rack space and how to find the colocation provider that has exactly what you need.

Comments in Internet Explorer
Microsoft Internet Explorer has a number of proprietary tags and features that can extend how you use the browser. This article discusses conditional comments and the comment element.

Comments on Comments
HTML comments allow you to write notes about the code, hide old information, and hold reminders on the page. Comments are not seen by the people viewing the page, but they show up in the HTML code.

Common Myths and Facts About Modern WYSIWYG Editors
WYSIWYG editors have been much maligned but are they still as bad as they ever were? I look at the common knowledge about WYSIWYG editors and determine which ones apply and which ones don't.

Common Validation Problems and How to Fix Them
HTML validators can be very intimidating to the novice Web developer. But if you learn a few simple steps you can turn the W3C validator and others like it into a valuable tool for solving problems with your Web pages.

Content Management for the Masses
Weblogs, or blogs, are an easy way to get content up on a Web site, and there is more to them than just online diaries.

Content and E-Commerce
Examine three popular e-commerce sites to see how you can bring repeat visitors to your site, and from there, sales.

Content Management
Maintaining a large Web site with multiple content developers can be easy if you have the right tool.

Copyright on the Web
Just because you can easily copy images and text from a Web page does not mean you're not violating copyright law. Learn some of the common misconceptions about copyright and the Web.

Create a Web Photo Album in Dreamweaver
It's easy to use Dreamweaver to create a Web photo album of all the pictures in a directory. The Dreamweaver Web Photo Album wizard makes it easy.

Create Your Own Dreamweaver Shortcuts
Dreamweaver is very customizable and one easy way to customize Dreamweaver is to create keyboard shortcuts for the commands and actions you do all the time. Use custom Dreamweaver keyboard shortcuts to make your work easier and more efficient.

Creating Online Education
Learn how to use your Web site to create online education for your employees and customers. E-learning is a powerful tool to help reduce costs and retain employees.

Data Driven Web Pages
Using a database to create a Web page makes your site more dynamic, and easier for you to maintain.

Definition Lists
When people think lists, they usually think of numbered or bulletted lists, but there is another type of list that can be very useful to Web designers - the definition list. This article covers when to use the definition list and how to style them so that they look nice on your Web page.

Do We Need Web Standards?
Standards compliance is nearly there in Web browsers, but now we need to look to authoring tools to create more standard Web pages.

Don't Tell Your Readers What Browser to Use
Don't expect your readers to change browsers. What if they put in a DVD and the player said I'm sorry, this DVD won't play unless you have the Sony Trinitron HDTV player and 42inch receiver. Your Web page shouldn't be doing that either.

Does Your Web Site Have a Content Management Problem?
Many larger Web sites do, but there are content management systems available to help. Find out if your site has similar problems to this case study.

Don't Catch a Virus from Your Web Page
Spammers and virus writers are getting ever more clever in finding email addresses to mail. Learn how to protect yourself and build a Web page that still has contact information your readers can use.

Dreamweaver 8 Walkthrough
Learning Dreamweaver can be tricky, but this walkthrough will take you through the standard panels and what you can expect from Dreamweaver.

Dreamweaver Behaviors
A list of the behaviors that are included in Dreamweaver and what they do

Dreamweaver CS3 New Files Menu
Creating a Web page in Dreamweaver CS3 can be overwhelming because there are so many choices in the New Files menu. This gallery will show you how to get the most out of the Dreamweaver CS3 new files window.

Dreamweaver Workspaces (for Windows)
How to change the workspace in Dreamweaver for Windows.

Finding a Web Hosting Provider
The first step to building a Web page or website is to find a Web hosting provider. There are a number of things you should think about when choosing your Web hosting provider

Going Beyond Plain Text
Learn how to use special characters in your Web pages to display more than just what's on the keyboard

Google Copyright Infringement Letter
A copy of a letter you can send to Google to fight copyright infringements on Blogger or Picassa.

HTML Pet Peeves
Some tips to improve your pages, by avoiding annoying habits.

First Things First - Where to Start When Editing a New Page in Dreamweaver
When you start to build a page in Dreamweaver, there are a lot of properties that you'll want to control about the basic aspects of your Web page.

Five Easy Steps to Starting Your Web Page
Learn what you need to do to get your first page up on the Web.

How to Add CSS Style Sheets in Dreamweaaver
It's easy to use Dreamweaver to add CSS style properties to your Web pages or create entire CSS style sheets for use on your Web site.

How to Add CSS Style Sheets in Expression Web
It's easy to use Expression Web to add CSS style properties to your Web pages or create entire CSS style sheets for use on your Web site.

How to Add Meta Data to a Dreamweaver Page
Adding meta data in Dreamweaver is a bit hidden, but it's possible to add any meta tag you need in Dreamweaver and then edit them later right from your design view.

How to Add RSS Feeds to a Web Site with Dreamweaver
Sometimes, it seems like the only way to get an RSS feed is to have a blog or to write the RSS by hand. But there is a Dreamweaver Extension you can use to build RSS feeds for your Web site. This extension will build feeds manually or take content from your existing Web pages to build the feed.

How to Add Styles with Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver comes with a very easy to use style sheet editor. The trickiest part is finding how to add your styles.

How can I create a variable-width container without a table?
The display: table; CSS property is not supported in IE. This means that the only way to get the look of a table with CSS is to use a table.

How Cookies are Used by Web Pages and Web Browsers
Cookies are used to store bits of information. Cookies can only get the information that the Web browser can get or that the person browsing gives to the cookie.

How Do I Include One HTML File in Another Using Dreamweaver?
The Dreamweaver library function is one of the best things about the editor, because it allows you to create include files for your site without having any actual include functionality on the server.

How Do you Stretch a Background Image in a Web Page?
Stretching a background image seems like something that would be fairly easy to do, but until CSS 3 properties are more widely supported, we have to use a workaround.

How to Add Anchor Links with Dreamweaver
Anchor links or internal links are a way to link to various sections of a Web page. These are easy to add using Dreamweaver.

How To Add a Dreamweaver Behavior
It's easy to add Dreamweaver behaviors to the elements we need to

How to Create a Dreamweaver Template
Dreamweaver templates help you to maintain sites by creating editable regions and regions that are maintained by the template.

How to Create a Rollover Image in Dreamweaver
It's easy to create a rollover image with Dreamweaver. This tutorial shows how to do it in Dreamweaver CS3, but the instructions are identical for versions back through Dreamweaver MX, including MX 2004, and Dreamweaver 8.

How to Customize the Dreamweaver Favorites Insert Bar
Make Dreamweaver easier to use by putting the insert buttons you use the most on the Favorites bar so that they're always available to you.

How to Fight Copyright Violations
Fighting copyright theft can be frustrating - if the site owner doesn't have contact information or refuses to remove the content, it can seem like there's nothing you can do. But you often have more recourse than just one simple request. This step-by-step tutorial will take you through the process of fighting copyright theft, from simple initial requests through more complicated processes when initial requests are ignored.

How to Preview Your Web Pages
Testing your Web pages is a critical part of Web development. But many novice designers don't realize that they can test their pages before they ever go up on the Web for other people to see. It's important to get into the habit of testing your Web pages in as many browsers as possible.

How to Set up Dreamweaver to Transfer Files
In order to use Dreamweaver to transfer files from your hard drive to your Web site, you need to set up Dreamweaver to do file transfer. The most common method of file transfer is FTP, and this tutorial will show you how. There are also several other methods that Dreamweaver provides to help you manage your files, and this article will show how they are set up.

How to Use HTML Codes for Special Characters
It's easy to include special characters in your Web pages, even if the characters aren't on your keyboard layout. Simply use Unicode and HTML character entity codes to define the characters on your Web pages.

How to Write Web Pages for the iPhone and Other Wireless Devices
If you're going to build Web pages that can be viewed on cell phones like the iPhone, you should be aware of some of the drawbacks to these devices so that your site is not impossible to use. These tips will help you build Web pages that are either designed solely for cell phones and wireless handheld devices or help you design pages that adapt depending upon what type of device is viewing it.

How Useful is Your 404 Page?
Most Web servers have a way for developers to edit and maintain their 404 page. In many cases, you can even set up 404 pages for different areas of the Web site and to suit different purposes. But it's easy to create a 404 page that is basically useless.

How much programming does a Web Designer do?
Is it important to learn C++ or Java or some other programming language in order to be a successful Web developer?

How to Convert Word to HTML with Dreamweaver
When you use Word to save as HTML you end up with a lot of strange codes that can make the page look wrong on your Web site. Plus the HTML is a lot larger than it needs to be. Luckily you can use Dreamweaver to convert Word documents to HTML in just a couple of steps.

How to Create a Dreamweaver Image Placeholder
Dreamweaver image placeholders make it easy to create a new design without needing the images for that design until you're ready to build them.

How to Create a New Web Site Using Macromedia Dreamweaver
This visual tutorial will help the beginning Dreamweaver author create a new site using the site builder tool in Dreamweaver.

How to Install Apache, mySQL, and PHP on Windows (WAMP)
Building Web pages in PHP with a MySQL database can be challenging, but if you set up a test server on your local hard drive, you'll be able to test your changes before you push them live. This article explains how to install Apache, MySQL, and PHP on a Windows machine using the WAMP installer AppServ.

How to Install the Apache Web Server on Linux
Learn how to install the Apache Web server on a Linux system from source files.

How to Install the Apache Web Server on Windows
Learn how to install the Apache Web server on a Windows system.

How to Protect Your Digital Photos from Being Copied
Protecting your digital photos from people using them without your knowledge is essentially impossible. But there are some ways that you can make it more difficult.

How to Set Up a PHP/MySQL Site in Dreamweaver
It's easy to set up Dreamweaver to work with a testing server so that you can create dynamic websites using PHP and MySQL.

How to Set up a Webcam Web Page
Learn how to setup a Webcam Web page with the correct HTML codes in the document and the Web cam image on the page.

How to Use an Accessibility Validator
Unlike HTML validators, accessibility validators require that you do a bit more manual work to make sure that your sites are accessible. This document will help you understand how to use an accessibility validator so that your site actually is accessible.

HTML and CSS in Email
HTML email is very widespread. Most email clients use it and it makes email a lot easier to read and understand the messages. But HTML email can have drawbacks. If you use HTML to write or format messages you should be aware of the issues and make an informed decision.

HTML vs. What's On the Screen
It can be difficult to understand that what you type in a Web editor is often very different from what displays on the Web browser. Learn to tell the difference between HTML and Web pages.

HTTP Cookies
Learn how cookies are used and what they are for. They are only as dangerous as you make them.

Images Should be Clickable
Graphics on Web pages are one of the places that customers tend to gravitate towards, they want to click on them. So you should make them clickable.

Improving on the Image Tag
Using images is key to having an interesting Web page. But there is more to the IMG tag than just the source of the image. Learn how to use it effectively.

Introduction to Dreamweaver
Learn how to define a Web site in Macromedia Dreamweaver MX so that you can edit it and manage it with Dreamweaver.

KompoZer 0.77 Walkthrough
If you've never used a WYSIWYG editor before or are not familiar with nVu or KompoZer, this walkthrough will give you a good idea of the capabilities of this free editor.

The Legalities of Linking
Is it legal to link to sites outside your own? What are the legal ramifications to linking to other sites?

Let Your Organization Reflect Your Site Layout
Use the organization of your directories and your 404 page content to help your readers navigate your site.

"Link Rot" Are You a Culprit?
Do you you move your pages? Reorganizations and other changes to a site can cause links to go bad when they don't have to. Stop link rot at the source, don't change your URIs.

Links: How Your Readers Get Places on the Web
This article covers the basics and more advanced aspects of linking on a Web page. Beginning Web designers will get resources to learn how to create links and more advanced designers will learn how to style links effectively and check for problem with their hyperlinks.

Low Vision Web Page Layouts
Because the Web is primarily text, people with low vision often only need to expand the size of your text to be able to read it. However, even with the most flexible layouts, there can be problems when the reader zooms in using the Web browser. So some designers developed the idea of creating alternate style sheets that were written specifically for low vision readers.

Making Spaces
Using the non-breaking space ( ).

Managed vs. Unmanaged Colocation
Managed and unmanaged colocation are two of the options you need to understand if you're going to choose to colocate your Web server. This article by Mark Kyrnin will help you to understand the differences.

More on International Pages
It's important to think about dates, phone numbers, and the platform your readers are on. Global sites can be challenging to run, there is a lot to remember.

Nesting HTML Tags
When you write HTML from scratch, it's very common to need to put multiple tags around one block of text. This is called nesting. But it's easy to do it incorrectly if you're not paying attention, and this can result in invalid HTML and sometimes pages that don't display correctly.

A New Year's Resolution
Make the resolution to build or improve your Web site. These tips will help.

Opening a Link in a New Window
There are two ways to open new windows when your readers click on links.

Organize Your Site
Spring cleaning is for more than just your house. Whether you have a large site or small, it's always a good idea to reorganize and make it easier to manage.

Overcoming Resistance to Content Management
A closer look at why people might not want a content management system, and what you can do to overcome these issues.

Perfect HTML Painlessly
Using online HTML validators to clean up your HTML.

Playing with HTML Codes
You might be surprised at the various HTML codes that are available. Use these special characters to dress up your page or just include more correct language.

Playing with Lists
There are many attributes of lists that you might be unaware of that allow you to create more flexible lists.

Pre-Processed HTML
Enhance your Web pages while reducing your workload with HTML pre-processors.

Pretty HTML
Even if you use a WYSIWYG editor to write your Web pages, it can be a good idea to look at the code once in a while. If you need to pass along your HTML to another developer, you should make sure that it is easy to read and review.

Pros and Cons of Image Maps
Image maps used to be extremely popular. But now you hardly ever see them. It could be that they became less popular as other features such as CSS came into the foreground. Or it could be that they are useful only in certain situations and should generally be avoided.

Put up a Page on About.com
You want to build a personal home page, but you don't know where. Look no further than About.com. It's easy to build a home page, you can have one up in about 20 minutes.

Putting Together a Web Site: Part 1
When you're thinking of creating a Web site, you need to know where you're going to host it.

Putting Together a Web Site: Part 2
Once you have a place to host your site, what tools will you use to create it?

Putting Together a Web Site: Part 3
HTML Editors aren't the only tools you'll need. You'll also want graphics.

Putting Together a Web Page - Part 4
Once you have the tools, you need to decide what to write about. Learn of some tools to help generate ideas and some Web cliches to avoid.

Questions and Answers
Answers to questions about SSI, caching, image loading, and more.

Secure Web Sites and Servers
Security on Web sites is important. It is an easy way for crackers to break in to your computer, but there are some simple things you can do to make it more difficult.

Separating Content from Design: A CMS Standard
ne of the common themes among content management software professionals is the need to separate content from design. This article discusses this concept and provides an argument for why that will never work effectively in many CMS implementations.

Sending HTML Email
Why send plain text email when you can send formatted email with images, links, forms and more?

Share Your Content - With Copyright - Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a great way to share your artwork, photos, writing, or other works protected by copyright. You don't lose the copyright when you use Creative Commons, you are simply providing a way for others to use and share your work while providing you credit. It's like open source for things other than software.

The Size of Your Pages
While bandwidth is getting higher, download speed is still a concern.

Small Caps - A Font Variant
Fonts vary in either small caps or regular. You use the font-variant style property to set the font variant.

Solving Problems in Web Design
Building Web pages can be very challenging because of all the possibilities for problems. Having a plan for finding the problems and fixing them makes them easier to deal with when you come across problems.

Sounding Off
Using sound on your Web pages.

Spanning the Division
Learn to use the SPAN and DIV tags on your site.

Speeding Up Your Web Page
Tips to make your Web site download faster and keep your readers happy.

Specifying Language in XHTML and HTML Content
When you specify the language of your XHTML documents, you are making your Web pages more useful to many different applications. This article examines the W3C's Internationalization Best Practices, and gives suggestions for how to implement them in your HTML and XHTML documents.

Syntax of the Font Property
The CSS font property has a lot of great features that make it easy to use. Plus CSS 2 adds a bunch of additional features that you might not be aware of.

Tabindex: Making Your Pages Accessible
Tabindex is a seldom used attribute that could make Web pages so much more accessible and usable if only it were used more frequently. Tabindex provides an order for the clickable elements on the page so that someone using a keyboard does not have to resort to the mouse to get to the more important links.

Taking Great Pictures for Web Sites
Taking photos for your Web site is very important - but you can completely destroy the effect if your photos are bad. Make sure that your photos are saying what you want them to say.

Tagging: What is Tagging and Why Should We Do It?
Understand what tagging is so that you can add more meta data onto your pages for easier searching and navigation.

Tags for One Browser
There are many tags that work in just one or two browsers.

Templating Your Web Pages
Use SSI, PHP, ASP, JavaScript, or other technology to include portions of HTML on many pages of a Web site.

"Thank You for Your Patience"
Comparing the reasons why someone might wait on hold for over two hours but only wait 10 seconds for a Web page.

Thanks Mom!
I became a Web developer because of my mother. And she helps me improve my site. Who inspires you? She learned HTML from me, which is the least I can do for all that she's done for me.

The Title Attribute
The title attribute allows you to annotate your document elements with titles that explain things about that element. It is primarily used on the anchor (a) or link tag, but is valid for many tags within XHTML. Used in the anchor tag, it acts like a tool tip when your readers mouse over that link in modern browsers.

Time to Switch from IIS
If you're running your Web site on an IIS Web server, it might be time to switch to one that is more secure.

The Top of Your Pages
When you're working on your Web pages it's easy to get distracted by the content and forget about the hidden information at the top of your Web page. Learn what that information does for your page.

Transfer Your Files (FTP)
It used to be difficult to move your files to your Web site, but now with easy to use FTP clients and upload forms, it's easier than you think.

Types of Web Files
There are many different extensions on Web sites, and they all mean different things. Find out the difference between .htm and .html and what a .shtml file is, as well, as lots of other Web file types.

Types of Web Hosting
When people think of Web hosting, they often think that it's a very simple thing - you just have space on a machine that hosts your Web site. But there's more to it than that. You can get standard Web hosting, free Web hosting, colocation, ecommerce, and dedicated or shared hosting. And these all mean something different.

Use Headings to Structure Your Web Pages
Headings in Web pages have specific HTML tags that you should use to define those headlines. There are many advantages to using heading tags for headings instead of larger fonts or images. There are also advantages to using headings in structured order. In fact, the W3C recommends that you use heading tags to structure your documents.

Use Your Search Statistics to Improve Your Site
Many Web developers use their website statistics to evaluate how their pages are doing and improve their sites. But one statistic that is often overlooked is the search results. The statistics your search engine provides can be a valuable tool for improving your website.

Using Search and Replace in Dreamweaver
It's easy to use Dreamweaver to do a search and replace over either the current file, or every file in your Web site. Follow the instructions in this tutorial to learn how to make changes to one page or your entire Web site.

Using Search and Replace in Expression Web
It's easy to use Microsoft Expression Web to do a search and replace over either the current file, or every file in your Web site. Follow the instructions in this tutorial to learn how to make changes to one page or your entire Web site.

Using Search and Replace in FrontPage
It's easy to use Microsoft FrontPage to do a search and replace over either the current file, or every file in your Web site. Follow the instructions in this tutorial to learn how to make changes to one page or your entire Web site.

Using Search and Replace in HomeSite
It's easy to use HomeSite to do a search and replace over either the current file, or every file in your Web site. Follow the instructions in this tutorial to learn how to make changes to one page or your entire Web site.

Using Web Pages with Excel
It's easier than you think to convert Web pages into Excel spreadsheets. It's just a matter of formatting your data so that Excel can read it.

Using an HTML Validator
Problems with your Web page often are caused by incorrect HTML code. HTML validators are available to help you write correct HTML code.

Using Non-English Letters
If you're going to write a Web site in a language other than English, then you need to know how to use non-English special characters. Learn why there are special characters and how to use them.

Validating for Accessibility
Creating accessible pages is easy if you have the tools to check your site. With Bobby, you can make sure that your pages are accessible to all.

Web Images that Display at Home and on the Web
One of the most common problems beginners have is with getting their images to display both on their local hard drive and on the Web site. Learn why this happens and how you can fix it.

Web Style Guide
This Web style guide is intended to help Web designers and Web developers work within a Web style format that is easy to edit and use. Web style guides help you maintain consistent code and thus consistent pages.

WebTV HTML
If you design pages to look good in both Netscape and Internet Explorer, then you should probably think about the ramifications of a new browser out there. WebTV provides interesting challenges for the Web Developer.

What do the Accessibility Guidelines Mean to Me?
With the government and the W3C coming up with accessibility standards for the Web, it's more and more important to follow them. And the good news is: It's Easy!

What do Your Links Say and Where Do They Lead?
When you click on a link, you want to know where you're going. If your link text doesn't match what's on the page the link goes to your reader can get confused and possibly lose trust in the Web site where they clicked.

What HTML Can't Do
HTML has a lot of features, but there are things that it just isn't built to do. Learn how to password protect, use forms, protect your images, and open new windows, all without using HTML.

What is a 301 Server Redirect?
It's better to use a 301 permanent redirect for your Web pages that redirect than to use a meta refresh tag.

What is Colocation and Why Would You Choose it for Web Hosting
If you're looking into getting a new hosting system for your Web sites or domains, you should look into colocation. There are many benefits to co-lo and this article discusses why you might choose colocation over other types of Web hosting.

What is a Dreamweaver behavior?
Use Dreamweaver behaviors to add scripting events to actions that happen on your Web page.

What is a Dreamweaver Design Note?
Use Dreamweaver design notes to describe and annotate files so that your customers won't see them, even if they view the source, but your team mates will.

What is HTTPS - Why Secure a Web Site
HTTPS or HTTP over SSL is a way to encrypt data sent and received over the Web so that monetary and other sensitive transactions are secure. If you are going to run a store on your Web site and collect credit card or other monetary data, you should use an HTTPS secured server so that the data is secure.

What is an IP Address?
IP addresses are the backbone of the internet network. They allow systems to identify and locate one another in a distributed environment. IP addresses are the mailing addresses of the Internet.

What is mod_rewrite and How Do You Use It?
Using mod_rewrite you can change the URLs that your customers are viewing on-the-fly. Your customer types in one URL and your Apache server interprets it using mod_rewrite to point to a different location or script. Custom URLs allow you to control and protect your Web site.

What is Text?
Writing HTML requires that you use a text editor. But what does that mean? Why can't you use Word to write Web pages? Text, to a computer, is different than you might think.

What's the difference between display: hidden and visibility: none?
These properties may seem like they do the same thing, but they actually act differently.

What's the Difference Between @import and link for CSS?
There are two ways to load an external style sheet into your Web pages - @import or link. But why would you use one or the other? This FAQ explores the original purpose of both methods of including style sheets and then explains some of the common reasons for choosing one over the other or using a combination of both.

What is the W3C?
Are you confused by the World Wide Web Consortium, or just want to know what it is? This article from the Web Design Guide will help you understand both the group that specifies the Web and the jargon that they use to do it.

What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 is a watchword for the new definition of the Web and the Internet. The idea is that Web 1.0 was a creation of Web pages that provided information to readers. Web 2.0 takes that information and interacts with the reader to allow the reader to find the information he or she wants in the format that is most useful to them.

What is Web Administration?
There is more to building Web pages than just learning HTML, but many Web designers and developers forget about the layer underneath the Web pages, the Web server, the security, and the programs that make your Web page work.

What Makes a Web Form Usable or Unusable
Online forms can be a pain for your readers to fill out, but they don't have to be. With some knowledge of HTML form tags, some CSS and JavaScript, you can create a form that your customers actually want to fill out.

What to Write About?
Content is important, but if you can't think what to write about, here are some ways to get ideas.

What's in a Title
The title tag is one of the most important tags on the page, but it is one that is often overlooked by beginners.

What's My URL?
Getting a page to the Web server isn't that hard, but how do you know what your URL is once the page is up? These tips will help you figure out what your URL is.

White Space in HTML Can Slow Your Pages
Creating pages that download quickly is always important to Web designers, but once you've moved all the scripts and CSS to external locations and optimized your graphics what can you do? Whitespace, whether you put it in deliberately or because of programming adds a lot of it, causes a longer download time.

Why are There Different Versions of HTML?
If you understand what the different versions of HTML mean you'll have an easier time writing HTML or XHTML that meets your needs and displayed correctly.

Why Databases?
Why would you want to create a database driven site?

Why People Plagiarize Web Page Content
Web writers are always fighting plagiarism of their content. This article is a compilation of some of the best excuses and responses to requests to remove plagiarized content - written by Elizabeth Weintraub of About.com Home Buying and Selling with commentary by Jennifer Kyrnin.

Why Rewrite Your Web URLs
It's easy to redirect your customers, and there are many good reasons to do so.

Why should I use DIV tags, standards, and validate my HTML?
A question from a reader about why beginning designers should spend the time it takes to learn standards-based design.

Why Validate Your HTML
HTML validators are a powerful and easy way to make sure that your HTML is viewable and looks right to most readers.

Wikis, Blogs, Weblogs, Web pages: Who CARES?
A Web site is a Web site is a Web site, whether it's a wiki, a blog, or something else. Why do many people get upset with the definition of their site when they should be worrying about what's on it and who's reading it.

Windows versus Linux for Web Page Hosting
Choosing an operating system for your Web hosting provider used to be a much bigger deal. Now it's less important.

Writing Great Alt Text
Alternative text is an important (and required) attribute on all your images. But it can be tempting to just write simple text or leave the attribute blank. Alt text is used for more than just accessibility, and if you get good at writing alt text, your pages will be more usable.

Writing HTML Code in Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver is more than just a WYSIWYG editor, it also has a very powerful HTML editor built in. These tips will help you maximize your efficiency when using Dreamweaver to edit HTML code directly.

Writing HTML in Notepad
Notepad is a text editor that comes free with every copy of Microsoft Windows. There is no need to get anything else when you want to write HTML. You can create complex and beautiful pages using Notepad.

Writing HTML for Specific Browsers
Should you do it? How to make your pages more friendly to your customers.

Writing a PDA Friendly Web Site
Learn tips and techniques to write a Palm friendly Web site.

Writing Web Pages that Meet Your Customers' Goals
Most Web pages are intended to answer a question or assist a customer with something. But if you're answering the wrong questions, you can end up annoying your customers more than you help them. Make sure that your content is focused on the goals of your customers, not the goals of your marketing department.

Writing Web Sites for a Global Audience
The Web is a global endeavor, but does your site reflect that? You could be getting customers or readers from around the world, but if you alienate them, they won't return.

Your Files are Not Secure
If you upload a file of any type, it can be found by a search engine. And if it can be found by a search engine, your competitors can find it.

Tables

Don't Forget the Missing Table Tags
Using the additional table tags like caption, thead and tbody as well as the summary attribute can make your HTML tables more accessible.

HTML Tables Tutorial
An introduction to using tables in your Web pages.

Simple Table Styles
Tables can be styled using CSS, but there are a few tricks you need to use to make sure they appear as you want them to. This article takes you through the basics of table styles to adding dynamic table row highlighting.

Table Tricks
There is more to tables than just columns and rows.

Tables FAQ
Tables are a challenge for the new HTML developer, but they can be done, and you will find that they are not as difficult as they seem. These frequently asked questions will help you get a sense of how to write tables.

Tables for Tabular Data - What is Tabular Data?
While you don't want to use tables for the layout of your pages, it is perfectly alright to use tables for tabular data. The problem is, what IS tabular data? This article attempts to shed light on this mystery.

Using Tables Part 2
Attributes used with the table tag.

Using Tables Part 3
Using tables to design Web pages that look good and load fast.

Frames

Browserisms - Two Browser Specific Tricks
Iframes and layers allow you to tailor your pages to IE or Netscape specifically.

Creating Framed Web Pages Part 1
An introduction to using HTML frames on your Web pages.

Creating Framed Web Pages Part 2
There are only three tags required to make a framed Web page. Do you know them?

Creating Framed Web Pages Part 3
Once you have a frameset, what do you do with the frames themselves?

Creating Framed Web Pages Part 4
Targeting your frames and the IE in-line frame.

Frames FAQ
Frames can be confusing, but some of the more common questions have fairly easy answers.

Frames and Search Engines
When you use frames, it makes it more difficult for search engines to catalog your pages. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't use them. Find out how to create a framed page that gains you hits, not loses them.

Frames Tips
Open your frames links in the frame you want them to open in. Plus, learn how to make your framed pages "friendly".

Frames -- Why and Why Not
Confessions of a frames turncoat.

How to Create a Frameset in Dreamweaver
HTML frames are complicated, but with Dreamweaver you can create new framed Web pages in just a few steps.

How to Edit Noframes Content in Dreamweaver
Dreaweaver hides the noframes area a little, but in order to create valid and useful noframes content, you want to be sure to edit your noframes page.

Noframes - The Key to Usable and Accessible Frames
Noframes helps you provide a site even if your customers can't use frames. Get help learning to use one of the lesser used frames tags - noframes.

Open Two Frames with One Link
Links usually open only one window, but with DHTML you can open two windows with just one click.

Why should I use frames rather than CSS?
Can CSS do all the same things that frames can do? Or does it make sense to use frames in certain situations?

Web Design

10 Tips for Good Web Writing
When you write for the Web you write differently than when you write for printed publications. Knowing some of the basic guidelines will help you to make better, more effective Web pages that people want to read.

Adding an IE Favorites Icon
When your readers bookmark your pages in Internet Explorer, do they get a customized icon to represent your site? Learn how to create one and add it to your site quickly and easily.

Advice versus Control - Web Designers are Not Print Designers
Print designers have very different requirements than Web designers, and if you're designing your Web site like a print project you'll fail

Are You Invading Your Customers' Privacy?
There are some requests that Web developers make that are needlessly invading the privacy of their customers. Does your site require these calls, find out why it still doesn't insure you'll get what you want.

Basics of Web Design
Web design is made up of some basic premises, and if you understand them you can design pages that will impress and illuminate your readers. These fourteen tips will help you create great Web designs that work with your readers and not against them.

Basics of Web Layout
It's one thing to know how to build a Web layout, but it's something else to know the rules behind designing a layout that works.

Before You Start Building a Website
Learn what you need in order to build a website for your business or for pleasure. There is more to building Web pages than just learning HTML and CSS. You need a hosting provider, a domain name, and there are legal and privacy issues to consider.

Box Elements
Box elements or block-level elements can be difficult to understand as they have different properties than standard in-line elements. Some commonly used box elements are p, div, and h1.

Browsing on the Bleeding Edge
Before you add the newest HTML technology to your site, have you thought about if you need it?

Building Your Home Page
Learn how to design a front page that explains what your business is and how it will help your customers. The first page is crucial to make a good impression and get off to a good start.

Changing the Design of a Page for Wireless Devices with the Handheld Media Type
First use a media type to define a style sheet for handheld or wireless devices. Then once you've decided on the style sheet, use these tips to create a page that is styled so that wireless devices get the most out of the design.

Changing Font Attributes
When you change your font type, you make your page more unique. This tutorial will explain how to change the color, size, and face of your text. All with one HTML tag.

Click Here: How to Write Links That Work
Web writing is a bit different from writing for print publications, and links are a huge part of that. This article is for beginning and advanced Web developers who want to improve the writing on their Web pages by improving the content of their links.

Color and CSS
There are several different ways to specify color values in CSS, the best known are with color names and color numerical values. But there are two other ways you can define colors in CSS 3 and once you understand how you can define your colors you'll have more options available in your color palette.

Color Harmony
Learning to put together colors in a harmonious fashion is one of the most important skills of a Web designer. Once you understand color theory, you'll be better equipped to create color schemes that really work.

Color Symbolism
Color symbolizes many things to different cultures, but it is easy to forget this when designing a Web site. If you use color on your site, then you should be aware of the different meanings different cultures attach to color.

Color Tips for the Web
These tips for using color include color shorthand, finding color triads quickly, and whether or not you should use the browser safe color palette.

Color Wheel and Color Theory
Web pages are designed in color, but if you don't understand how color works, you could end up with some really ugly pages. Understanding the basics of color theory will help you create better Web pages.

Colorizing the Web
Beginning HTML tips on adding color to your Web site.

COPPA Turns One
Protecting children online is important. Learn about the US law that protects them as well as other parental controls for the Internet.

Creating Better Links
Links are the mainstay of your site. If you don't have good links, people won't stay.

Creating a Great Web Page
With this checklist of items, you'll create a page that is well formed, and user friendly.

Creating a Web Color Scheme
Color schemes are important on Web sites, but it's easy to get carried away, especially if you like a large number of different colors. Use these standard color schemes to create a standard color scheme for your Web site.

Designing a War - Getting Attention With Your Site Design
Learn how to use different design techniques to get attention for unique events on your Web site.

Designing in Color
Learn how to write color codes and convert to hexadecimal from RGB.

Did You Know? - All Web Graphics are Square
Web graphics may look like they are round or have jagged edges, but they are all square. Once you understand the basic shape of a Web graphic, you can use it to manipulate the way your pages look

Differences Between Dreamweaver 8 and Dreamweaver CS3
Learn some of the practical differences between Dreamweaver 8 and Dreamweaver CS3 to help you decide whether or when to upgrade. What new features are must-haves and what features can you live without?

Do you Build Maintainable Websites?
Maintainability is not something many Web designers think about when building websites. But it can be a critical issue even just a short time later when you need to re-work part of the site or completely redesign it. These tips for creating a maintainable site will help you create sites that you look forward to re-doing, rather than dread.

Dynamic Fonts
Use TrueDoc or OpenType to display the fonts you want to display on your Web pages.

Effective Web Navigation
Designing effective Web navigation is crucial to create a Web site that your readers can get around on. If you don't have decent navigation, even if they like the site, they'll leave without finding all you have to offer. Learn how to design effective Web navigation.

The Elements of Design
The elements of design are the basic building blocks of all design projects. The elements of design include lines, shapes, texture, color, and direction.

Emphasis in Web Design
Trying to make everything on a Web page stand out means that nothing will stand out. Good designers learn to use emphasis wisely so that the important parts of the layout dominate without overwhelming and there is a visual hierarchy that leads the reader through the Web page. You do this through the use of design emphasis.

Fixed Width Layouts Versus Liquid Layouts
Web page layout has essentially two different methods: liquid and fixed width layouts. Learn the pros and cons of each, and how you can decide to use one or the other for your site.

Flash Websites - Pros and Cons
Writing a website in Flash only can have definite benefits - but it can also have large drawbacks. Use this article to determine if the benefits to your site outweigh the drawbacks. Use Flash when it adds value for your readers, not just when you want to show off your skills as a Flash developer.

Flow in Design - Layout and Artwork that Conveys Motion
Visual flow carries the viewer's eye through the document. Using obvious flow elements like arrows or numbers is the most common way Web designers use flow, but there are other types of elements that can be used and mis-used to direct your readers to move along a specific path. The steps in this tutorial will show you examples of good and bad flow and help you learn the vocabulary of visual flow in design.

Formatting Rules to Live By
Advice on how to format your Web pages so that people will read them.

Font Families - Serif, Sans-Serif, Monospace, Script, Fantasy
A guide for beginning Web designers and anyone who uses fonts on Web sites to find the right font for the right situation. This article will help you choose fonts for your site that show your originality but also work for your readers.

Font Style - Italics and Emphasis in Web Typography
The style of a font is whether it is upright or slanted. Most people think of the font style as italics.

Font Weight - Boldness in Web Typography
The weight of a font is how dark or light it appears. This also refers to the boldness of a font face.

Free Content Isn't Always What It Seems
There are a lot of free content and reprint sites available on the Web, but you should be aware that free can sometimes come with a hidden price tag - especially if the site is a reprinter that violates copyright. Even though you may have added the content completely unknowingly, if you are hosting plagiarized content, you could be held liable. Always check the sources of your free content - and beware of reprint sites.

Free Dreamweaver Tutorials
Free Dreamweaver tutorials make it easy to learn how to use Dreamweaver. These free Dreamweaver tutorials will show you the basics of Dreamweaver and also teach you how to use Dreamweaver for other effects.

Grab 'Em Quick
The first page of your site is where you hook your readers or lose them forever. Make it fit your site, your readers, and yourself.

How to Change the Doctype in Dreamweaver
It's easy to change the doctype in a Dreamweaver document.

How to Drive Away Your Readers
Are you trying to create a site that people want to read and return to? Or are you doing things that make them never return, and tell all their friends to avoid it, as well?

How to Evaluate a Web Editor
When you're looking for an HTML editor it can be easy to get suckered by the price - many people focus on free editors, while others assume that if it costs a lot it must be good. These are the criteria I use to rank HTML editors. Editors with more of the features or more of the important features get a higher ranking.

How to Set a Price for Web Design Work
Web design pricing is a hot issue for new designers - learn how to set your web design prices and charge your customers reasonable and fair rates and fees for web design work.

How to Use Dreamweaver Tracing Images
Dreamweaver makes it easy to go from a graphic design rendering of your Web page to the Web page itself using tracing images.

Is Your Site Cool?
Find out why Jared Spool says, "Cool doesn't cut it."

K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Silly!
When you are creating a Web site, keep your HTML simple. Tag bloat is difficult to read and modify later, and can create pages that are overly complex. The most common culprit is the <table> tag.

Large Web Sites Don't Change Much
If you've been visiting one of the larger Web sites on the Internet for a long time, you may have noticed that many of them don't do massive redesigns the way that smaller Web sites tend to. Redesigns can be very difficult for customers to get used to unless they are done in an iterative approach.

Little Web of Horrors
Design tactics that will often scare away even the most dedicated reader. These tactics are the worst of the Web - and should be avoided at all costs.

Manipulating the Cache
Caching helps speed up a page, but can prevent content from staying up-to-date. Web developers can control this caching.

Mathematics, Seashells, and Web Design
Many designers would like to believe that there is no way to scientifically quantify why things look good. It's just a feeling. But the Greeks came up with a formula for classical beauty that is used to this day. And if you use that same formula on your Web pages, you'll have a design that is pleasing and understandable to the majority of your audience.

Navigating Web Pages
If your readers can't find their way around your site, they won't try, they'll just leave.

Navigation Menus Using CSS Lists
Learn how to use CSS to style basic unordered lists into vertical navigation menus for your Web site.

A New Resolution
Web design often revolves around screen size and resolution. Take a look at your customers and determine if your site is designed with their resolutions in mind.

Old Aunty Eh-Leeas (anti-alias)
Images and fonts might have the "jaggies" on your page, if you aren't familiar with anti-aliasing.

Optimizing Images
Pages that download fast are more than just fast HTML, they have well designed images. Learn to optimize your images.

Paths of a Web Designer
Whether you've just decided to learn how to create a Web page or you've been designing pages for years, there is sure to be something new to learn - once you know where you are on the path, you know what you're ready to focus on next - from beginning HTML, advanced HTML, professional web designers and programmers, to XML.

Pixel Perfect Design Does Not Necessarily Equal Good Web Design
We all know that a Web page is not a printout, but it's still very common for designers who started in print media to attempt to make their pages look and act like printouts. However, if you decide to move away from the print beginnings, that doesn't mean you should throw away all design principles - you just need to be less rigid in your interpretation of them.

Pricing Web Projects
Learn to use forumlas to estimate both the base cost of a project and how much you need to earn to make a decent salary

Prioritizing Web Projects
What to do when everything you're working on has top priority. How to prioritize Web projects.

The Principles of Design
The principles of design are how you apply design elements to your page. These principles are some of the more accepted methods of design.

Quick HTML Refresher
Five quick tips to keep your pages looking good, loading quickly, and keeping your readers happy.

Safety on the Web
The Web is a wild and mostly non-regulated place, but you can build Web sites that have any content you would like, but are still rated age-appropriate and safe for children and corporations.

The Science of Web Design
Most people, when they start building Web pages, don't spend a lot of time thinking about the reasons why they use various techniques. Learn to be more scientific in your Web designs.

Splash Pages: Pros and Cons
Splash pages are a popular Web design feature, but if you put up a splash page, you may get more than you bargained for - or less page views.

Tabbed Navigation in Web Design
It's easy to add tabbed navigation into your Web pages with CSS and page identifiers.

The Three Layers of Web Design
Understanding the three layers of Web development can help site maintenance easier as well as give you focus on what you're working on.

Use Real Text for Testing Page Designs
Learn when to use lorem ipsum and when to use actual text that people can read when designing a Web site.

Using Browser Safe Colors
When you use browser safe colors on your Web site, you ensure that your page will look the same (color-wise) on the largest number of browsers.

Web Browser Window Size Matters More than Monitor Resolution
Monitor resolution is the most often used metric for determining what size to make a Web page, but is it the right one? At larger resolutions most people do not maximize their browser window, so assuming that it's maximized will force people to scroll horizontally.

Web Color Synchronization
Is it possible to ensure that your Web page colors will look the same browser to browser, platform to platform, and monitor to monitor? Web color synchronization can be challenging.

Web Criticism
Learn how to evaluate Web pages in an objective an useful fashion.

Web Design Basics - Placement and Position
The first thing you do when you design a Web page is you start with a blank page and you place elements on that page. Placement of your elements can be critical to whether your design works or is a dismal failure.

Web Design Software: Which One is Right for You?
If you're looking to find the right Web design software to meet your needs you should take this questionairre. After just a few short questions, you'll have a list of some of the best Web design software tools available to meet your needs and your budget.

Web Page Widths
Once you've moved beyond beginning Web design, you'll come across the most aggravating question for a Web designer: what resolution should I design the pages for? This also comes out as how to decide how wide your pages should be.

Web Pages Should Go Away, Eventually
When you move pages or take them down, it is often tempting to put up redirects so that your customers don't get lost or confused. This also helps prevent link rot. But is that really helping things in the long run?

Web Typography
Before CSS there were font tags to style the typography on a Web page, but now CSS allows you to separate how your fonts look from the actual text of the page, providing powerful tools for Web typography.

Web Writing Rules to Live By
Web writing is not as hard as you might think it is. Web writing is basically just saying as few words as you need to get your point across clearly. Use these nine tips to improve your Web writing.

What is a Font?
Font families can be hard to understand, especially when trying to develop a decent style sheet for a Web site. Once you understand what the fonts are, you can better use them to style your pages.

What is Graceful Degradation and Why Should Web Designers Care?
Creating a Web site with the most advanced features in Ajax, CSS, and XHTML can be a lot of fun. But the first time your page is viewed in IE 5 or a cell phone you end up with a page that is hideous at best, and often unusable. Your goal shouls be to write Web pages that degrade gracefully - they still work even on a cell phone or in older browsers.

What is a Printer-Friendly Web Page?
As Web pages get fancier and fancier, the ability to print out simple versions becomes more necessary. What makes a printer-friendly page printer-friendly

Why Won't My Page Display As I Wrote It?
Browser caching can cause your page to not display even after you have edited it and re-uploaded it. Learn how to fix this once and for all.

Writing Well for the Web
Good writing is essential to good content.

You Can't Get Every Page to Look Identical, So Stop Trying!
Do you work with graphic artists and print designers who are always criticizing your Web designs? Well, they need to learn that the Web is not a graphic and it's also not print. Flexibility is key to Web design.

Marketing Your Site

95 SEO Tips and Tricks - Over 90 Factors that Impact Your Site's Placement in Search Engines
Ninety-five things you should and should not be doing on your Web pages to make them rank higher in search engines. This list looks at more than just meta tags and the basics of SEO, so even if you've got some of the factors, you may not have everything. Scroll to the end of the list to look at the things you should never be doing, as well as the things you should always do at the top.

Are You Being Robbed?
With new technology comes new ways to cheat. There are now some software companies that are making advertising money off of the ads on your site, while you make nothing.

Attracting Advertisers
Advertising is still one of the only consistent revenue sources on the Web. But with the current advertising recession, you need to do all you can to find the advertisers and convince them to use your site.

Basic Meta Tags
Meta tags are a great way to get your site seen by search engines. But what are they exactly? What tasks do they perform and how do you use them?

Before You Write Meta Tags
There are many different types of meta tags, figure out what types you need before weighing down your site. Your site will be more effective, and search engines will spider your site.

Boosting Your Hits
How to increase the number of visitors to your Web site.

Building Online Communities
When you create an online community, you give people the sense of belonging. They'll want to return to your site.

Cloaking: What it is and Why You Shouldn't Do It
This article discusses the issue of cloaking and why some firms will recommend it as a way to improve your ranking in search engines. Web site owners who are working with search optimization firms should read this article so that they are aware of the issues surrounding cloaking.

Controlling Web Robots
Search engines and other systems use robots or spiders to automatically crawl through your Web site. They parse the pages and store the data. It's possible to control where those robots go and what they do on your site using the robots.txt file.

Even More Meta Tags
Use meta tags to prevent search engines from searching your pages, plus protect child viewers, and provide more information about the page.

Every Page is an Entry Page
If you want someone to find your Web site, does it really matter if they find your home page or some other page on your Web site? Many people focus so heavily on optimizing their home page for search engines, that they forget that other pages on their site might be easier to optimize and result in more page views.

GaGa for Google
Learn how to edit your Web page so that it works with the Googlebot and not against it. These tips won't guarantee you top ranking, but they will help.

How can you tell if a site is a link farm?
It's not a good idea to link to a link farm or to participate in creating one unless you don't care that your site may be banned from search engines.

How to Play a Sound on Click or on MouseOver
You can use this DHTML script to make a sound play when you mouse over a page element or click a link.

How to Use a Blog for Non-Diarists
It's possible to use a blog or weblog to improve your business, even if you think your business really isn't suited to blogs.

If You Build It, Will They Come?
Six tips to market your Web page and encourage repeat visits.

Magic with Meta Tags
Meta tags can help improve your standing in search engines. Find out if you're adding them correctly.

Meta Refresh Tag
There is a special tag in the <head> of your HTML document that will reload the current page, or force your readers to go to a new page.

More Meta Tags
You can use meta tags for more than just search engines. Move people around your site.

Pros and Cons of Adding Sound to Web Pages
Sound on Web pages can be a contentious issue. Some Web designers feel that it should never be used on Web pages, while others feel that there is always a use for sound to improve and enhance designs.

Pros and Cons of Pop-Ups, Pop-Unders, Overlays, and Intrusive Ads
Pop-up ads can be annoying, but there are reasons why people use them - And there are lots of pop-up blockers available to stop them - find out why to use them and why not

Search Engine Optimization Made Simple
Search engine optimization can be as simple or as hard as you want it to be. These five steps make search engine optimization easy and fun. You'll have your pages optmized for search quicker than you think. And you'll get more page views when you use these tips for search engine optimization.

SEO Checklist
This SEO checklist will help you evaluate every page on your site for effective search engine optimization. The SEO checklist is divided into 5 sections - high priority, medium priority, and low priority SEO tips, things to avoid doing, and things to never do unless you want to be banned from search engines.

"Sticky" Web Pages
Focus on more than just getting people to come to your site. Get them to stay and browse through your site.

Useful URLs
If your URL is short and easy to use, people will return to your site, as they will remember the address.

Useful Meta Tags
Meta tags are often thought of as only a tool for search engine optimization (SEO), but ironically, this is one of their least useful uses. Meta tags are not heavily used by search engines. But there are a number of meta tags that you can use to add value to your Web pages - either for your readers or for your development team.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
If you want your Web page to rank well in search engines, you need to learn how to do search engine optimization or SEO. Search engine optimization is a technique where you make your pages as easy to read by search engine robots as it is for your customers to read. And once your pages are easy to read by the robots, they can determine what your page is about, and rank it in their database.

What is a Web Robot?
Robots often visit Web sites, and they can be beneficial to you or possibly harmful. Understanding how robots work and how they interact with your site can help you rank higher in search engines and get more pageviews.

Why Create an Online Community
Community is a great way to increase interest in your site, and keep people coming back.

Will Community Work for You?
Building Web community used to be considered crucial to every Web site, but the reality is that it's not appropriate for everyone. Learn when community works and when it doesn't.

Web Conventions

Conference Notes: Web 98
Day one of Web 98, "Welcome to the Summit".

Web Design and Development: Day Two
Today I learned about Web usability and how to design navigation.

Web 98: Day Three of the Convention
My final day was filled with product demonstrations and seminars.

Why Not Attend a Web Conference?
Web conferences are a great way to meet people learn new skills and find jobs. And there are many to choose from, all around the world, some coming up very shortly.

Cascading Style Sheets

Absolute vs. Relative - Explaining CSS Positioning
Positioning elements with CSS can be very challenging, as there is more to it than just tacking elements to the page. One of the most confusing parts is the concept of absolute and relative positioning and why you need this propery to achieve CSS positioning.

Adding Space to Web Page Text
Adding white space to HTML used to be fairly difficult, but now with CSS it's a lot easier to add spaces around objects, next to elements, and inside your pages. These CSS properties help you with indenting, outdenting, letter spacing, word spacing, line height, and white space.

Advanced CSS
Get the most out of your cascading style sheets. Learn how to use font and text properties and change the look of your HTML and XML.

Aural Style Sheets
Aural style sheets specify how your Web page will sound to customers who use audio browsers - especially for customers who are disabled and use assistive browsers for accessibility.

Avoid Inline Styles for CSS
Once you've learned the basics of CSS it can be tempting to do things that ultimately make your CSS harder to maintain and use. But if you follow best practices for CSS, you'll have Web pages that are accessible and easier to maintain. One of the basic best practices for CSS is to not use inline styles.

Beginning Cascading Style Sheets
CSS can help you control the look and feel of your site, with ease.

Borders - Learn How to Dress up the Edges of Your Elements
This article is for Web designers struggling to take their borders from basic to exciting. You'll learn how to do more with borders than just decide what the width and color should be. Use CSS to create borders that are dashed or dotted and that only show on specific sides.

Box Model Hack
The CSS box model has very specific rules for how wide a box should be when a width is applied and padding, borders, and margins are applied. However Internet Explorer doesn't follow these rules. So we need a hack to make boxes in CSS the same width or height (whichever is defined) in Internet Explorer as in other browsers.

Build a Master Stylesheet
If one of your goals in creating a Web page is to make it look as close as possible across browsers, then the first thing you should do is create a master stylesheet to remove default browser styling. That way, when you build your designs with your design stylesheets, you'll be starting from a clean palette.

Centering Stuff with CSS
Learn how to center text, images or blocks on your Web page with CSS.

Common Problems Using CSS Descendant Selectors
Descendant CSS selectors are getting much more popular in CSS style sheets because they give you a lot more control over precisely which elements you want to style. Add to that that child selectors and sibling selectors weren't widely supported until recently, and that adds to their popularity. But descendant selectors often select more than what you intend - with strange results.

Create a Pull Quote with HTML and CSS
Pull quotes can make your Web page content look more literary. A pull quote is something you see in magazines - where a short part of the content is pulled out and enlarged to attract attention to the content. You can make basic pull quotes with the blockquote element, but with CSS you can make it even more interesting.

CSS 2 Selectors
CSS 2 selectors extend the reach of CSS selectors to allow you more power and control over what you can style in your documents. Once you understand CSS 2 selectors you'll have more wildcards and depth of styles for your cascading style sheets.

CSS 3 Opacity
Opacity is a method of making elements transparent in CSS 3. It is not supported in all browsers, but there are ways to get around it in the browsers that don't support it.

CSS 3 Selectors That Work Right Now
CSS 3 is not yet complete, but there are some selectors already available that you can use to help improve your documents destined for a Mozilla/Firefox audience. CSS 3 selectors give you a lot more flexibility and power with your Web documents.

CSS Border Styles
Use CSS to change the style of borders around your elements.

CSS and Bulleted Lists
Learn how to get your unordered and Bulleted lists to look as you want them to.

CSS Cheat Sheet
When you're starting a Web page from scratch, there are some simple styles that you should define right away for your designs. With this sample style sheet and CSS cheat sheet, you can make sure you get the basic styles defined every time so that you're spending your time creating the custom styles that make your design unique.

CSS Cheat Sheets
These cheat sheets will help you learn to use CSS both for basic styles and to create great layouts for your Web pages. Free CSS cheat sheets for you to download and print out.

CSS Drop Shadows
Learn how to write CSS drop shadows without using any images. It's even possible to create drop shadows on text, but currently not in a standards-compliant or accessible way.

CSS Editing Software: Which One is Right for You?
If you're looking to find the right CSS editing software to meet your needs you should take this questionairre. After just a few short questions, you'll have a list of some of the best CSS editing software tools available to meet your needs and your budget.

CSS FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions About Cascading Style Sheets
There are many things that you need to know to learn to write Cascading Style Sheets. This FAQ will help answer some of the more common questions about CSS.

CSS Inheritance
CSS inheritance is what defines how styles will be applied to child elements in a document. Inheritance in CSS allows the Web designer to define one set of styles for a top-level, parent element and have child elements beneath it carry the same styles, without explicitly calling them out.

CSS Initial Caps
Learn how to use CSS to create fancy initial caps for your paragraphs. There is even a simple image replacement technique to use a graphical image for your initial cap.

CSS Media Types Create Print-Friendly Pages
Learn how easy it is to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) media types to define a printer-friendly page without actually building one.

CSS Outline Styles
The CSS 2 outline property is different from the border property in several ways. Primarily in that they do not take up space and they may be non-rectangular.

CSS Positioning
Use Cascading Style Sheets to position your HTML elements precisely where you want them.

CSS Selectors
CSS selectors are the basics of cascading style sheets. Once you understand CSS 1 selectors you'll be able to select many of the more common elements and situations to create a well-styled document.

CSS Specificity
CSS specificity is the way that Web browsers determine how two or more competing rules will apply in a given situation. If two CSS rules could apply to the same property, one will be more specific and so it will win over the other.

CSS Step By Step
Learn how to use inline styles, stylesheets in the header, and external stylesheets.

CSS Styles and Languages
When working with Web pages, you need to be aware of both the language your Web site is written in and the language encoding used by your customers. CSS can help affect the style of your text and determine the direction and how it works within Unicode.

CSS2 Generated Content
Sometimes you don't want content to be included in the document tree for some reason. Now, CSS2 comes with a way to include that content.

CSS2 vs CSS1 - What's The Difference?
What is the difference between CSS2 and CSS1? Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 offers many new properties and methods to control the look and feel of your documents in various different settings - not just Web pages.

Designing for IE - Design for Firefox First
It is often very difficult to design a Web site when you need it to look the same in both Internet Explorer and Firefox or Safari. The trick is to start with a different browser than you're probably used to starting with - design for Firefox first.

Displaying Stylesheets Dynamically
Learn how to use Dynamic HTML to use stylesheets that take advantage of the browser.

Divitis - The Habit of Using Divs for Everything in CSS Layouts
One of the most common mistakes a beginning CSS layout Web designer will make is to put everything in divs. Sometimes even down to the paragraph level. While this might make things easier to think about, it's not semantic markup, and it ends up being harder to maintain, as it's impossible to look at the code and know immediately what it's supposed to be.

External Style Sheets
External style sheets (CSS) allow you to use one style sheet on multiple Web pages - so when you change the look for your site, you chage the CSS in one location.

<font> vs. CSS
The font tag has been deprecated in favor of Cascading Style Sheets. Find out how to do all the same things as the font tag, and more with CSS.

"Framed" Pages without Frames
CSS positioning is a great way to create framed pages without using frames. CSS allows you to position your HTML elements including making it look like a frame.

Hiding Your Cascading Style Sheets
When you use CSS to style your Web pages you may notice that there are certain properties that don't work as you expect in all browsers. The most common way to deal with that is to write browser-specific cascading style sheets and then use JavaScript to browswer-sniff. But you can also use bugs in these same browsers to hide your style sheets from various browsers.

How to Avoid Deprecated HTML
It's one thing to be told to use CSS in place of deprecated HTML, but if you don't know what to use it can be difficult. This article will show you how to use CSS in place of those deprecated tags.

How to Build a 3-Column Layout in CSS - Step-by-Step
CSS layout requires that you think of your Web site layout as a whole, and then take the pieces and put them together. Use this tutorial to go from a simple wire-frame of a basic 3-column layout all the way to a Web page ready for content to be included.

How to Build an Internal Style Sheet
Learn how to create and use external style sheets on your site.

How to Style a Tag Cloud
The styles for a tag cloud aren't that difficult to master, but once you understand them, you can use them to create a tag cloud of anything on your site that is measurable.

Illustrated Box Model
What are the parts of the CSS box model. Learn about how the different parts of the CSS box model work and how they interact with one another.

Make Fancy Headings with CSS
Plain HTML headings are ugly. There's no getting around it. H1 is big, bold, and ugly, and h2 isn't much better. H3 isn't so bad, but since it's so close to bold it's kinda pointless, and h4, well, that really is bold. H5 and H6 are typically too small to read. So why use headings? Well, search engines like them. And with CSS you can make them look as pretty as you please with text styles, borders, and even images.

Making Web Columns Appear to Be the Same Height
When building CSS designs you may find that the columns end up all different heights, which can look bad. But there is a way to fake it so that the columns appear to all end at the same place.

Organizing Your CSS Files
Writing a CSS stylesheet is often just a matter of slapping all your styles into a document so that your pages look okay. But if you organize your stylesheet, your pages will be more easily maintained in the long run.

Playing with BLOCKQUOTE and CSS
When you use the blockquote tag it can result in pretty boring looking quotations. But if you use Cascading Style Sheets, you can dress up your quotations to get blockquotes that pop on your Web page.

Playing with the Cursor
Using the CSS cursor property you can change the cursor that displays on your Web pages. This can result in some interesting effects if you do it well. Learn how to change your cursors using CSS.

Rounded Corners Using CSS and No Images
Rounded corners on boxes is a popular way to make CSS designs look less boxy, but the most common method requires a large amound of images which can drastically increase the download time for your pages. This method uses stripes and inline elements to get the effect of rounded corners.

Safe CSS - Cascading Style Sheets For Most Browsers
Safe CSS properties are cascading style sheets properties that will display in most browsers.

Scrollbar Colors
Using CSS to change the scrollbar colors in Internet Explorer or Konqueror is not legal XHTML, but it can be interesting. Learn how to prevent other designers from changing your browser settings. And also learn how to change the settings of your readers.

Styles that Improve Your Text
CSS provides several properties for modifying your text so that your Web pages look more interesting. Text-decoration, text-transform, and text-shadow are useful properties to understand.

Styling Horizontal Rules with CSS
If you want to divide sections of your HTML, one way to do it is with the HR tag. But this tag can be really ugly if you don't style it. Learn how to use CSS to style your HR tags.

Styling Links with CSS
Don't let your links be boring, create links that are styled just like the rest of your Web pages. And before you think that just means changing the hover color - there's way more to it than that. When you're designing your page, don't forget to design your links.

Stylish Backgrounds
Use CSS style elements to change the backgrounds of your Web pages and elements within them. Set up things like watermarks quickly and easily.

Tableless Layouts
CSS Positioning helps you create Web pages that have a creative layout without the use of tables. This is often called tableless layout.

The Ten Most Important CSS Tips
Cascading Style Sheets or CSS may seem daunting to beginners, but there are ten simple things you should understand about CSS in order to create style sheets that work and styles that do what you need them to do.

Think INSIDE the Box
Use box properties of CSS to create boxes of text, and affect the layout of your page without tables.

Thinking About Positioning - Using CSS to Layout Your Web Pages
Understanding how to do CSS positioning is a lot different from understanding why you should do it. This article attempts to explain some simple tricks to help you learn to position your Web pages with CSS.

Tips and Tricks Using CSS
The biggest problem with CSS is that it is interpreted differently in every browser. But there are some methods to overcome this, without using JavaScript to create browser detection scripts.

Understanding CSS Float
If you understand how to use the CSS float property, you'll have a lot more control over how your Web pages are laid out and you can more easily join the ranks of CSS designers everywhere.

Using Cascading Style Sheets
Learn the syntax of styles and some of the commonly used attributes.

Using CSS Site Wide
The primary strength of CSS is to make your site consistent. This article shows you how.

Using Points, Pixels, Ems, or Percen