Web Development Community: Need Web Design Help?

dreamincode.net is a web development community that has over 25,000 members and offers many benefits for web designers, web programmers and programming applications specialists. I am wondering why I haven't been to this site before, as it's sometimes very difficult to find like minded individuals with an interest in programming and web development when I have specific questions with my web design projects.

It's a very active community site, which is one of the most important things I look for when joining any type of community site that focuses on web programming and web design. But, not to say that if a site is new, and offers some great resources and well...looks pretty, I won't think about joining it!

A site with so many active web development professionals is a great asset for any web developer or web designer.

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Why Join Web Development Community:

• Ask SPECIFIC web programming questions in the forums or straight away to individual members
• Active web development and web programming forums
• Code snippets that not only can assist you in your web projects, but also give you new ideas for applications and ways to implement them
• Networking with other web developers is the ONLY way to make it in this ever changing industry. Without constantly growing and learning, you will surely be lost somewhere behind the pack when it comes to technology
• Score web developing and web design projects with other members. I know that I outsources sometimes depending upon the web design I have to do, and communities like this, with so many members is the perfect place to collaborate

I checked it out today and I'm absolutely baffled by the amount of active members on the site. I have not visited a web development community with so many members, and so many members actually online on a Monday mid-afternoon. I am definitely going to utilize this new resources, and start getting involved today. You can check it out at: www.dreamincode.net

Need Help With Your Web Design Project?

If you need help with your web design project, and you're a web designer...Where do you go?

Most of us will either buy a book, and learn it ourselves or search online until we find the answer. But, if your web design project requires something more complicated, some programming questions, URL questions, etc. you may need an expert to help you find more information and give you a specific answer to your specific question.

Another reason why spending time searching online or buying a book, waiting for it, reading it and attempting to learn it might not be a good idea is if you don't have the time to do that! If your client wants his website up and running...Now. And you know that you need an experienced programmer or web developer to give you an answer to a questions, I have found a great resource!

Kasamba has a whole database of experts who can offer support for a variety of subjects. Web developing, graphic design, web programming, web marketing and SEO services. What's great about this site, is that the experts set their own prices, can charge you straight through the site (so no messy paypal situation) and you can also pay per minute to speak with them live if your questions only takes a few minutes! They're very helpful, and enthusiastic to help.

Check out the Experts on Kasamba Here: Kasamba.com

The New World of SEO

As the world of search engine optimization is growing, and more people are trying to utilize web marketing strategies to promote their websites, so is Google's intricate algorithm changing. While many of the rules for SEO and Web Marketing have not changed, there are many new rules that are gaining a higher importance within Google's Formula for ranking sites.

One of the most important factors to consider when marketing your website are outside links. This means that there are relevant pages on the internet, that have links leading back to your website. This sounds like an easy enough endeavor, but the initiative to get these links is becoming an internet craze. Meaning, that there are those who try and find ways to cheat the forumla, but creating sites on the web that are known as "Link Farms." Google is smarter than that, and when they realize that the links are coming from these sites, your page rank will plummet. To get quality, important, Google friendly outside links, follow these guidelines:

1. FACT: Getting 100 sites with a Google Page Rank of 4 or higher is not as beneficial (according to Google's Pagerank formula) as getting 1000 links from websites that have little to no importance according to Google. In other words, get as many relevant links back to your site as possible, the page rank of the websites linking to your site are not important.

2. Your links should be surrounded by relevant content. If the link to your site is on the bottom of a page, or top, with no content surrounding it, it will hold little importance. But, getting your link inside content specific words and sentences (articles) will be the best way to gain Optimization according to Google's Page Rank Foruma.

3. H1 tags, P tags, basically all content HTML tags surrounding your link will lead to a higher page rank.

4. Offer free software or unique content that people can't get anywhere else to bring more individuals to your site, and to also encourage others to link to your site on theirs.

5. Gain outside links through Blogs. This is the most effective way of gaining many outside links into your site, set within relevant content, and positively recognized by Google's Page Rank formula. Blogitive is an innovative company that offers the service of connecting blog writers with those who want to gain outside links through the use of blogs. With over 2000 blogs in it's network, you can choose the appropriate blogs that correspond to the content within your website. You simply submit a web release with the information you want the blog writer to include in their post, the URL to link to and the Keyword phrase you would like to link back to your site. Gaining outside links that not only go back to your website, but link through a keywords phrase is the best tip to getting quality outside links through Google's Page Rank formula. If you want to increase link popularity, use Blogitive to gain outside links through quality blog writers.

I Remember When Web Design Was Big...

I remember when web design was the big thing, just plain web design, web hosting and domain names. When colleges had majors like: Digital Media and they focused on user experience on a website, how to design using CSS, maybe some digital video and flash. The industry of web design has changed and grown so much since then...

While portals and online communities used to be far out of reach for most beginning web designers, now it is possible for someone with absolutely no HTML, CSS or programming knowledge to create an entire online community using open source software like Joomla, Mamba, Drupal and even some web based solutions offered by other internet companies.

Web 2.0 has also eliminated some facets of web design as I used to know it. I remember when the web designer would focus on the aesthetic appeal of a website, when flash enhancements were a great addition to any website, when the more graphical, pretty, unique and color coordinated a website was the better!

Web 2.0 simplifies the web design industry, creating standards and websites that all look the same. We've come to a point where we know what works, and it isn't only highly regarded, it is standard. Web 2.0 takes user interaction to an entirely different level. Instead of taking the website and "wowing" the user, we now build a website that caters to the user.

There are still some web design companies that create websites that have images that are links, flash splash pages, graphical websites. Poor souls, their livelihood is extinguishing as I type.

No longer is "the" industry web design. The industry is open source software solutions, web marketing, social networking sites, more ideas, more interaction, less graphics, less complication.
If you want to start a web design business, or work as a freelance web designer, you better know more than HTML and CSS. And, don't think I'm talking about programming languages like PHP/MySQL and C++. While the programming industry has a long ways before the programmers are of less need, web designers need to know more than web design to make it in an ever expanding industry.

If you are an aspiring freelance web designer, looking to be more than a grunt worker or small time web designer for local gift shops, here's what you should know:

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• HTML, CSS, Flash (duh)
• Blogging and blog design
• PHP Templates, MySQL database (front end only, either from CPanel or just a basic understanding)
• Open Source Software (Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, etc.) At least one or more of these programs
• We 2.0

Web Marketing: There's a whole new list for this one...

• Social Bookmarking sites
• Meta Tags
• SEO friendly URLS
• Keyword Optimization
• Keyword Content Writing
• Press Release Writing
• E-Mail Marketing Campaigns
• PPC and Affiliate Advertising
• Blogging

And there's more, I just can't sit and ponder on the vastness of this growing industry

Good luck aspiring web designers! And, if there's one last thing I leave you with, remember this fact:

If you're a college student, thinking that your "digital media" degree will teach all you need to succeed, think again. You have to stay up to date on EVERYTHING. Colleges prefer to hire professors with a doctorate degree, if your professor has a doctorate degree he can teach you nothing, and I mean nothing, you need to know. In fact, he'll probably muddle up your mind so much with his incessant babbling and narcissistic need to hear him/herself talk that you'll leave class with less of an understanding than when you came.

Adobe Design Software Available Online

Adobe has been on the forefront of design software for quite some time, while aquiring Macromedia and web design software has only further enhanced the expanding industry. For graphic designers, web designers and photographers, Adobe is our best friend and really the only option for professional authoring tools. This fact, while not escaping Bruce Chizen (Adobe Systems CEO), it has also not stopped him from looking to the future of the industry and adjusting to the future of the online software availability and Adobe's competitors.
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Microsoft is always going to be the mogul of moguls, monopolizing industries left and right. Also, Google's online tools such as Picasa, have taken over certain markets regarding image authoring and design tools. In the past, Chizen has stated that the market they sell to are high end, industry and professionals, so in some ways this competition doesn't necessarily apply. But, this hasn't stopped him from looking over his shoulder and making sure his market competitors don't sneak up behind him.

Read this exclusive interview with Chizen here:

Adobe Sees Its Future on the Web

Small Business Web Design

If you're a freelance web designer, newbie or not, you have probably created websites for small businesses. Although web design and web development is a specific field and service, building a website for a small business and building a website for a large corporation are two very different animals.

What's good about small business web design?

Designing a website for a small business is a good idea for:

• New Web Designers
• Individual Freelance Web Designers
• Companies that have the means to create websites very quick using templates and systematic methods...Programming with a dynamic web programming language like PHP/MySQL.

Small businesses do not always have the resources aka funds to support an entire web campaign for their business. Especially because it's difficult to put a price and return on investment number on marketing services that involve the web. If you're a web designer who takes a lot of pride in your designs and strives to work on highly intricate, websites with web 2.0 usability and design and only want to create beautiful, perfect, detailed websites...Small business web design probably isn't for you.

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Why Not?

Because you are going to have to weigh in the amount of time you're spending on the website and the amount of money you're getting paid. It is sometimes difficult to lower the quality of your work just to get a web design finished and submit to a client.

So, What do I do?

You will have to find a happy medium between pleasing your client and pleasing yourself. While this lesson applies to web design within all industries and all business sizes, it is important to really concentrate on your client, your means and your goals when working with small businesses. If the small business can't afford to pay for anything more than a static website with basic information on their company, even if you know they would benefit from a more detailed web identity, you will have to push this intuition to the back burner and get proper payment for your skills and the work you put into their site.

Good luck dealing with small businesses, it aint easy!