Mydepictions Web Design Resources

Mydepictions.co.uk was designed and hand coded using copy and paste technology in a simple text editor by Naj - an enthusiast with little formal training, except basic HTML web page design - proving almost anyone can do it!

Below Naj shares a selection of useful links to FREE web design resources on the internet for building your own web site, web page, or auction template. Here you will find some links to helpful html related and web design resources, handy tips and hints. You can also find tutorials and webmaster related posts on My Depictions blog. And, if you cant find it listed here, there is a Google search box at the foot of the page where you can search the web.

Links to Useful Free Online Resources

GENERAL COMPUTER & INTERNET REFERENCE

Sharpened Glossary of Computer and Internet Terms Know your onions! Do you know the difference between a browser and a search engine? Or a directory and a search engine? This glossary has easy to understand definitions of computer and internet terms.

Webopedia Another useful resource is Webopedia, an online dictionary and search engine for computer and internet technology definitions.


CHOOSING A DOMAIN NAME

Choosing a domain name is the first step to building your own web site. You can use the links below to check the availability of domain names. Domain names are typically taken very quickly, so it is better to buy a chosen domain the moment you find it is available. You may want to buy several versions of a chosen domain, to prevent competitor/inappropriate web sites which are similarly named.

Official Internet Registry for .uk Domain Names Here you can check if a .uk domain name is available or already in use.

Allwhois.com Use Allwhois to check the availability of any domain name, e.g. .com, .org.


HTML RELATED RESOURCES

Mydepictions.co.uk was hand built in good old-fashioned HTML 4.01 Transitional using windows Notepad, a simple text editor. Why bother to hand-code? Once you are familiar with a simple text editor, and have already coded some pages, it is often just a case of becoming proficient with copy and pasting technique. Compared to using a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editor, a hand coder will not encounter difficulties inserting and placing additional code or script later on, (e.g. such as the Google webmaster verification meta tag or, Google Adsense). Also there will not be a need to identify and clean up/remove the additional code generated by a WYSIWYG editor when it comes to optimizing your site. Whatever your choice of editor, a basic knowledge of HTML will always be helpful.

W3 Schools Free Online Web Building Tutorials The place to learn, reference and try out HTML code and more.

About Web Design Another good reference for HTML code and web design generally, includes free tutorials.

Tizag Tutorials Free HTML, and script tutorials, designed with beginners in mind.

HTML Colours Chart Quick reference page for HTML colours (also see W3 Schools).


FREE ONLINE SPELL CHECKER

Jspell International Spell Checker Useful for spell checking the content of your web pages. Can select British spell check.


GRAPHICS RELATED RESOURCES

GIFWorks.com Free Online GIF Image editor Simple to use free online resource for editing your GIF images.

Absolute Backgrounds and Textures Archive Free fully customisable backgrounds and textures.

Imageshack Image Hosting Service There are many good free image hosting services, but this one has been included because it is quick, simple, and does not require registration to use (although registration is an available option). Ideal if you are in a hurry.

Auction Orbits Tutorials on Watermarking an Image Easy to follow step by step tutorials on how to watermark an image using MS Paint, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Adobe Photoshop, and Irfanview. Also includes links to download free and trial versions of image related software.

For artist web sites images are a necessity. Although it is an infringement of copyright for someone to copy or use an image without the rightful owners permission, it happens. Dont waste time inserting "no right click" javascript - a couple of clicks or so and it is very easily overridden. Techniques such as flash can be overridden by simply taking a screen print. Watermarks too can be edited out with good graphics software, but at least it takes a little work and an experienced hand.

Good general and basic advice for protecting images is to:

• effectively watermark the image - not always possible for artist web sites where you want to show a picture off in its best light. Some kind of watermark, along with copyright statement (as watermark and/or page text) will inform people that you do not want the image copying.

• keep images as small a size as possible (thats both physical size and file size. Do not resize on the actual webpage - while acceptable for gif images, it is not good practice in any case and can make for slow-loading pages!)

• use as low a resolution as possible for the image (i.e. save it to the lowest possible resolution in your image editing software.)

Remember, if you absolutely dont want an image copying, the bottom line is: dont put it on the internet.


Faststone Image Viewer Faststone Image Viewer is a handy image editing program for presenting, organising, and cropping images for a variety of uses. This is an Open Source project, free to download for home users.



SUBMITTING YOUR WEB SITE TO SEARCH ENGINES

It is generally recommended that you do not pay for services to submit your site to lots of search engines - it can actually impair your web sites search engine ranking, you could get loads of spam and thats apart from unnecessary expense!

W3C Markup Validation Service Its a good idea to validate your code, a least for errors, before submitting your site to search engines. Validating your code so it complies with web standards will help ensure your pages are rendered correctly in different browsers. (i.e. That they are looking as they should, whether they are viewed in, for example, various versions of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, AOL etc.) It also helps search engines to crawl and index your pages properly. If you have a commercial web site in the UK, it should also be accessible to disabled users. Validation can help toward this. Check out Quick Tips to Make Accessible Web Sites for further information.

Search Engine Watch A very informative guide for webmasters and site owners to all things search engine related. The information on this site appears to be regularly updated, making this a most useful resource.

ODP - Open Directory Project This place is widely recommended as the place to start for submitting your web site to search engines. (Be warned though, it could be many weeks, or allegedly up to two years for some categories, before you get a result. Re-submitting will just send you to the back of the queue!) Once, and if, included in the directory, your site will then automatically be included in the most popular search engines including the likes of Google, AOL Search and many more.

Below are links to manually submit your website for free to the UK versions of the big three: Google, Yahoo and MSN. Be sure to check out their individual guidelines - for example, repeated submission could lead to your site being penalised!

Google Uk Add your URL

Yahoo UK & Ireland Search Submit Your Site

Submit your site to MSN Uk


Understanding the Google Webmaster Guidelines A very helpful website for how to get the most out of Google by following their guidelines.The site is independent of Google, and especially suitable for new web masters.


MONITORING WEB TRAFFIC AND YOUR WEB SITE'S PERFORMANCE

Keeping track of where, when and how your visitors found your website can help you work out how well your web site is performing. You can off course look at the raw data from your log files if you have access to them. It is, though, easier to look at the data in a presented format.

Sitemeter Most paid for hosting packages include visitor statistics in some kind of presentation format. Sitemeter is a free and easy way to keep count of your visitors and has well presented detailed visitor statistics. This is ideal for freebie websites and blogs, but can be useful alongside the presented visitor statistics provided with paid for hosting packages. Sitemeter is handy for visitor numbers and quickly checking the entrance/exit pages a visitor has viewed. The free version does not give data on the other pages a visitor may have viewed during that visit.

Google Analytics If you want more sophosticated reports on the performance of your site and/or your site incorporates direct sales you wish to monitor, then Google Analytics is an excellent free resource that will help you work out your web site's performance.


SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

Ways To Get Banned (or Penalized) by Search Engines It is entirely possible for a newbie web designer to inadvertently employ practices which could get their site banned. Whether you are a newbie or a more experienced web developer optimizing your site, make sure you know the techniques you should avoid if you dont want your site getting banned by the top search engines. This Search Engine Journal article gives a quick explanation of what to avoid.

Self SEO Lots of useful free online tools here to help you build a successful web site. One example, relevant to artist web sites - you can speed test your web site, to check if your pages are loading quickly enough!

Widexl Meta Tag Analyzer A great free tool for analysing your meta tags to check for errors, and the relevancy of your meta tags to your page content.


FREE ANTI VIRUS AND SECURITY SOFTWARE

Security Spyware Rootkits Virus Trojan and Worm Removal Links from NowYouDo An excellent resource bringing together some of the best free security software available on the net, including free anti-virus software. If you didnt know where to find it, now you do.


FIREFOX FREE WEB BROWSER

Firefox has tabbed browsing, live bookmarks and some very handy web developer tools. You can download it with the free google toobar here:




GENERATING INCOME FROM YOUR PUBLISHED SITE

Google adsense is free, the advertisements are targetted, so relevant to your site topic. There are ways of filtering out competitors and you can get revenue from the adds. You can find out more here:




Know of a good quality site you think should be added to this list? Naj with the details.

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