My 2¢ Worth

s most of you know, I'm one to preach Web standards and valid code. Of course no one ever listens to me, however I do not preach this just because I'm a Web designer.

erhaps it is time I explain some of the benefits to you and your visitors.

ou will benefit from Web standards because you'll have less code and it is easier to maintain. Web Standards provides a competitive edge as more of the world moves to using Web Standards.

dhering to the standards could potentially lower your hosting costs because it is less code, not more. You will achieve better search engine ranking. Content can be restyled easily without changing code.

our visitors will benefit in the following ways. Valid Web standards code improves accessibility and provides print versions without replicating content. Files will download faster (less code, no overall tables, valid code). Content is accessible to wider range of users (normal users, blind users, vision impaired users, dyslexic users, motor skill impaired users, etc). Content is accessible to wider range of devices (screen readers, browsers, text based browsers, hand held, search robots, printers, etc).

hese are just a few of the benefits to you and your visitors. Whole volumes could be written on the overall benefits of adhering to Web standards which is beyond the scope of this publication and beyond the scope of what I'm willing to write. You can look it up on the Web anyway.

his is why hiring a Web Design firm to design your site is well worth the costs involved. Web standards will affect your bottom line positively. Is your bottom line worth it?

Feature Article

Where Should You Host Your Blog?

by: Lynette Chandler Start Blogging For Business

Should you host your blog yourself or pay someone to host it? It doesn't matter if you're a newbie or a veteran this question always comes up when creating a new blog. Usually someone new to blogging would gravitate to hosting a blog themselves or get a free blog and as time goes by with experience they begin to ponder maybe paid blog hosting isn't so bad after all. So what is better?

To answer this question, let's first look at how a blog is created. Just like creating web pages, first, you need a software or script that will take your entries, format it and publish it to the web. The second component of a blog, is the web space, where the software should publish to, a home for the blog pages.

Knowing this information, let's review the different ways to host a blog:

Full blog host.
This is where the blogging system or software is provided for you and your blog is also published to a web space provided by the host. Blogger, SquareSpace and Typepad fall into this category. It's very much like creating a website with a site builder.

Hosted blog software but published elsewhere
This is where the blog software is provided for you but the blog pages are published to another website or web host altogether. By doing this, the software acts as a publishing system like FrontPage except it creates nicely formatted blogs. Blogger is probably the most well known for this. Yes Blogger can do both. Publish to their host or to yours. As a comparison, this is like using FrontPage to publish your website.

Blog software and blog are hosted on your web server
This is where you would install the blog script (software) on your web server - it can be any web hosting account. And when you publish, the blog itself resides on your web server also. To draw a parallel, this technique is like buying web hosting and then installing a content management system on it to help you build web pages.

If you're new to building web pages or have built sites using site builders then you might want to go with a fully hosted blog. These hosts do all the nitty gritty for you and there's very little technical stuff you need to know. If you can point and click, you can build a blog with a full blog host.

Having said that, just because you're seasoned at building web pages doesn't mean full blog hosts won't work for you. In fact, if you have many blogs this becomes very appealing since you won't have to worry about upgrading the blog script, people exploiting the script, making plug-ins work or what happens when your web host decides to disable part of your blog functions because there is a security hole. All you do is concentrate on blogging. After a while, blogging becomes more important than maintaining your blog and that's the way it should be.

Next up, hosted software but blog is published to your website. This seems to be the best of both worlds. At time of writing, Blogger is one of the best ways to do this but because of its popularity often, you find the system too slow to publish or completely down just when you have a hot idea to share. The idea is good but you'll also be depending on someone else's availability to publish your blog. It's much like using a friend's computer to build your web pages and you know how that can go.

Finally, you have the option to use scripts. This is also a very popular method. The flexibility it allows is very liberating because you can mould the blog anyway you want. You can even get a programmer to create custom plug-ins or customize the whole blogging system the way you want it. In short, you can do pretty much anything you want.

The down side, you need at the very basic, some knowledge of HTML or publishing web pages. Also the burden of upgrading, troubleshooting and maintaining the script is on you. If you have one or two blogs it's not so bad but once you start having more, it can be quite tedious. You also have to consider all the other responsibilities of maintaining the script as mentioned earlier.

Armed with this information, you should be able to figure out which one is for you. If you're still undecided, think of how you would do it if you're creating a regular website. Chances are your choice method for publishing a website is also the best method for you to create a blog.

**************

Lynette Chandler helps entreprenuers start blogging and make the most of their blogs. Get a free video how to set up your blog at
www.BloggingStarterPack.com

Displaying HTML Code

At times you may want to display some HTML code on your page. Maybe you have a remote image or logo that you would like others to show on their sites. The best way to display code in HTML format is to use a <textarea> tag.

To display HTML code for copying and pasting, simply place the code inside your textarea tag. Like so:

<form method="post" action="null">
<textarea name="text" cols="50" rows="3" wrap="virtual">
Your HTML code here.
</textarea>
</form>

Note the "wrap" attribute, this causes the text inside the box to wrap and not flow along one line.

Customize the fields in red to make the textarea box whatever size you wish it to be.

* Get these syndicated tip feeds for yourweb site, free. *

Second Article

How to Add a 'What's New' Page to Your Web Design

by: Mark Nenadic FifteenDegrees-North

By visiting a number of sites, you’ll probably be quick to notice that many of their web designs include “What’s New” pages or sections within other pages of the website design such as the home page. These sections are becoming increasingly popular among web designers as they’re an easy way to keep the content of your website’s design fresh and informative. These sections are frequently complimented by “What’s New on This Site” sections or pages, which also allow for fresh content, and keep visitors interested in returning to the site to find out what’s happening.

It has been proven through the number of visitors and other traffic statistics that any pages that highlight their newest additions to the site will experience increased traffic – likely due to a great deal of returning traffic. Even if there are links to the different parts of the site where the changes will have occurred, having those changes stand out on the home page or with their own pages increases their visibility, creating greater interest through the larger number of people who notice that something new is available.

Remember that just because the amount of traffic increases on your site, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the number of unique visitors to your site has increased. It could mean that you are generating a large number of return visitors. This is great if you want to ensure that your buying customers don’t forget about you. It helps to make certain that when your clients think about the type of product or service that you sell, you’ll be the first business that comes to mind. This is among the best kind of marketing that you can achieve.

So how do you know if a “what’s new” section is for you? Consider the following “qualifications” that would make your site design a good candidate for a “what’s new” section or page.

• Your content is always being updated, changed, or altered in some way
• Your site contains a very large number of different pages

If your page consists only of a main page as well as reciprocal links or perhaps a guestbook or feedback form, and perhaps a few small sub-pages, then a “what’s new” page is likely more work than it’s worth, because it won’t offer much real benefit to your visitors.

However, with many pages, or pages that are constantly growing or changes, this section will be a wonderful way to flag what’s new so that the visitors can head directly to the fresh stuff that they’re looking for, without having to search through the site – or simply give up before finding what they’re looking for.

However, remember that even if your site doesn’t change too much, as long as it’s large enough, you can still use a “what’s new”-type section to highlight the sub-pages that are most popular on your site. If anything, this will provide a much easier navigation through your site. Simply change the name of “what’s new” to something more practical, such as “Popular Pages” or “Featured Pages”.

Remember that the main point of a “what’s new” section is just to make the lives of your visitors easier as they navigate your site. A web user simply won’t search a full website to see if anything just happens to be new. Nor will they look for very long to find what they want if they haven’t found it in the first couple of clicks. Therefore, use this as a tool to keep your visitors satisfied with the ease of navigation of your site.

Within the “what’s new” section, you can write whatever you want, but the important thing is to make sure that whatever you say displays the latest changes, additions, features, or information offered by your site. Remember that your visitors aren’t going to use the “what’s new” section to its full potential, but will simply use it for what attracts their attention the most. It’s just a quick way to “get there”.

A what’s new section is great for those people who have found your site, and those who intend to return. It makes the site much easier to use, and is very pleasant to see upon landing on the home page. Just make sure that your site is large enough to make it worth the effort.

**************

Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North www.15dn.com, where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

Comments?

If you'd like to comment on any aspect of this publication, send an E-mail to
comments@ paradigmwebdesign.net

---

If you enjoyed The Web Sm@rts Newsletter, forward it to your friends, family and associates. They'll thank you for it!

---

Do you know someone who might be interested in receiving
Web Sm@rts?
Recommend us!

---

NOTE: You have received this message because you or one of your friends added your name to our list of those who may wish to receive this newsletter.

If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, please point your browser to http://paradigmwebdesign.net/unsubscribe.html

FYI: Web Sm@rts will never share your E-mail address or personal information with any other party for any reason what-so-ever.

---

This newsletter is never sent unsolicited.
To unsubscribe, point your browser to http://paradigmwebdesign.net/unsubscribe.html

Tell them Web Sm@rts referred you!

Recommended Reading

I highly recommend the following E-zines.

ThePortalToSuccessE-Zine

Interactive Marketing Ezine

Looking for free newsletters? Just visit the EzineXchange, Select the ones of interest and subscribe. It's free!
ezinexchange.com

Find other great e-mail newsletters and Ezines at the Cumuli Ezine Finder: www.cumuli.com/ezines/

Web Site and E-zine Promotion for Idiots
Get your copy from PWD and get lots of traffic to your Web Site or E- zine instantly.

Use Link Crafter to drive more traffic to your site. Free download from PWD.
lc.exe

Text Tally from
Harmony Hollow software
is a handy text counting utility. Download it free from PWD
Download now

E-Zine Advertising WORKS!
Place your ad in 100s of e-zines like this one. The E-Zine AdSource Directory is the place to find discount e-zine ad space. Come see!
ezineadsource.com

Tutorials

Elated Webdesign Tips
Javagoodies JavaScript Repository
Website Abstraction Westciv: CSS Resources