With the increasing ease in connecting to the internet, companies are able to reach many more potential customers via their websites. People can now submit comments and questions by way of a company’s website, as well as shop online. Due to this internet-happy trend, it is important that businesses have interesting, informative websites. Here are some tips to help you develop a helpful, popular website.

When looking at a business’s website, the needs of the customer are not so different from their needs when talking in person or on the phone. People want efficiency and clarity of information. For instance, when someone calls in to customer service, it is easy to create a disgruntled customer if they are continuously transferred to person after person, as each business representative passes the buck in solving the client’s problem.

With a website, people do not want to have to search through pages and pages of information to find what they are looking for. It can be a good idea to create clear, organized websites to help your clients stay interested, rather than getting frustrated with trying to search for the information that they need.

Utilize Headings. To help your customers quickly and easily find exactly what they are looking for, you should have tabbed links to different parts of your website. For example, if you are an electronics company, you might want to have one tab that takes the visitor to the computer section, another to the camera section, the next to televisions, etc. Thus, someone who is looking for a printer does not have to scroll through pages and pages of TVs to find what they want.

Allow Narrower Categories. If you are a large business, you probably have tons of web pages’ worth of products. Therefore, when someone clicks on a tab to get the area of their needs, allow them to narrow down their search categories by relevant things, such as size or prices for televisions. Again, organization and clarity are key to a satisfied customer.

Provide Searching. We are a search-driven culture. Google has become more than just a search engine; “to Google” is a verb that means to perform an internet search. Customers typically want instant results, and having a search box on your website can fulfill this desire.

Consider Live Chat. Even when you make your website clear and informative, it can still be difficult for some people to navigate the site. One way to combat this problem and provide instant feedback is to hire or develop a live chat service. Live chat allows the customer service representative to help potential clients while online, which can provide a wonderful customer experience.

Denver is an energetic city that offers urban adventure and abundant outdoor activities. With numerous distinctive neighborhoods, including a vibrant downtown and historic district. Denver offers an array of exciting and unique experiences. Located near at the foot of the Rocky Mountains the city provides breathtaking views and basks in 300 days of sunshine annually. If you are ever visiting Colorado, Denver is definitely a must see.

The elements of design are the building blocks of design. These elements are what make up every page you build. And understanding the basic elements you’ll be able to put together more powerful Web pages.

There are five basic elements of every design:

Lines and Linework

Lines include borders and rules. They can be horizontal or vertical and help delineate the spaces around elements on Web pages. Linework increases the readability of the design.

Shape

Shapes make up any enclosed contour in the design. Shapes on most Web pages are square or rectangular. But they don’t have to be. You can use images to generate other shapes within your designs.

Texture

Texture gives a design a feeling of surface. Texture on Web pages is all visual, but you can use natural textures or artificial to get the effect in your designs.

Color

Color is the one design element that most Web designers are acutely aware of. But remember that color is not a required element of any design. In fact, a good plan in design is to create the design without color first, then add as little color as you can to enhance the design.

Direction

Direction gives your Web designs motion. In most designs there is a sense of movement in a direction across the design. Good designs lead the eye through the design in a deliberate fashion so that the viewer sees what the designer wants.

One of the most talked about subjects is how to get people to the Web page. With millions of Web pages there is sure to be another on your topic and probably lots. So how do you boost hits?

Some Common Ideas

With every good idea comes a price. When you’re promoting your Web site, try to use the methods that work best for you, but remember the drawbacks.

1. Submit your site to search engines.
   Search engines all have different methods of adding sites, but if you submit your site to them, a listing will help improve your site statistics.

   But… it can take a long time to submit your site to a lot of search engines. Also, you can’t be sure that all search engines will accept your site.

2. Use meta tags.
   Meta tags allow search engines to categorize your site based on the keywords and descriptions you place in your pages. They go in the head of your HTML document. Meta tags most often use the keywords and description meta tags. There are even several sites that will help you build your meta tags to increase your standing.

   But… not all search engines use meta tags. For example, About.com pages list sites that are relevant to topics, but the sites listed are chosen by the Guides. Submitting your site to be listed at a relevant About.com Web site is a good idea, but the listing will be decided upon by a person, not a machine reading meta tags.

3. Talk to developers of sites that are relevant.
   Most sites have a “related sites” link and if your site is relevant, try to get it linked there. Remember that Web sites don’t build themselves, and if you are nice to the owner of a Web site they may want to work more with you to promote your site as well as their own. Also make sure to submit your site to ratings organizations that are relevant to your subject matter.

   But… you can’t force any Web developer to link to your site. They will do it if they want to. Reciprocal links will do a lot for getting people to link to you.

4. Use a submission service.
   A simple way to get your site listed in a lot of places is to pay to have it listed in search engines. There are many services like this available, some are online and some you use a program on your computer.

   But… While this is easily the best way to increase your hits to your site, it can be expensive. Some services charge hundreds of dollars to list your site in many different engines. This may be worth it to you, but for someone just starting a Web business, it would be better to use the free ones or do it yourself.

5. Word of mouth.
   This is a nice, community oriented way to get your site visited. There are services like Recommend-It that make it simple for your readers to tell their friends. Make sure that all your friends know about your site as well.

   But… there isn’t a lot you can do to promote your site this way. Make sure that you have good customer rapport and encourage people you talk to to tell their friends about your site.

6. Advertise other than just the Web.
   Keep your URL in your email messages and other correspondence. Direct mail (US Postal Service) can get you good exposure, as can billboards, newspaper and magazine advertisements, and posters. Your URL should be on your business card, and if you get promotional products such as pens, mugs, or t-shirts, make sure that your URL is on them too.

   But… this can be expensive. If you can, try to get your site featured in local news stories, possibly as a “local color” type interest story. This will get your URL in the paper, and get more people to your site.

7. Get a Good URL.
   Many Marketing people will tell you that their page is a success because it has a good URL that is easy for their customers to remember. A good URL is short, “intuitive”, and preferably has a domain name that reflects the content.

Dynamic HTML is not really a new specification of HTML, but rather a new way of looking at and controlling the standard HTML codes and commands.

When thinking of dynamic HTML, you need to remember the qualities of standard HTML, especially that once a page is loaded from the server, it will not change until another request comes to the server. Dynamic HTML give you more control over the HTML elements and allows them to change at any time, without returning to the Web server.

There are four parts to DHTML:

* Document Object Model (DOM) (definition)
* Scripts
* Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
* XHTML

DOM
The DOM is what allows you to access any part of your Web page to change it with DHTML. Every part of a Web page is specified by the DOM and using its consistent naming conventions you can access them and change their properties.

Scripts
Scripts written in either JavaScript or ActiveX are the two most common scripting languages used to activate DHTML. You use a scripting language to control the objects specified in the DOM.

Cascading Style Sheets
CSS is used in DHTML to control the look and feel of the Web page. Style sheets define the colors and fonts of text, the background colors and images, and the placement of objects on the page. Using scripting and the DOM, you can change the style of various elements.

XHTML
XHTML or HTML 4.x is used to create the page itself and build the elements for the CSS and the DOM to work on. There is nothing special about XHTML for DHTML - but having valid XHTML is even more important, as there are more things working from it than just the browser.
Features of DHTML

There are four primary features of DHTML:

1. Changing the tags and properties
2. Real-time positioning
3. Dynamic fonts (Netscape Communicator)
4. Data binding (Internet Explorer)

Changing the tags and properties
This is one of the most common uses of DHTML. It allows you to change the qualities of an HTML tag depending on an event outside of the browser (such as a mouse click, time, or date, and so on). You can use this to preload information onto a page, and not display it unless the reader clicks on a specific link.

Real-time postioning
When most people think of DHTML this is what they expect. Objects, images, and text moving around the Web page. This can allow you to play interactive games with your readers or animate portions of your screen.

Dynamic Fonts
This is a Netscape only feature. Netscape developed this to get around the problem designers had with not knowing what fonts would be on a reader’s system. With dynamic fonts, the fonts are encoded and downloaded with the page, so that the page always looks how the designer intended it to.

Data binding
This is an IE only feature. Microsoft developed this to allow easier access to databases from Web sites. It is very similar to using a CGI to access a database, but uses an ActiveX control to function. This feature is very advanced and difficult to use for the beginning DHTML writer.