Oh God - I just love content management systems...

why? Well when I had my first website, I was very proud of it. It was a neat little HTML site that I built in Dreamweaver. I thought it was super. I learned how to get my site noticed on Google and Yahoo! and other search engines and that's when I ran into trouble. I realised it wasn't enough to just have a site I needed to add new stuff all the time! With the HTML site it was a nightmare. Every time I needed to add a new page I would have to update all my links manually and gradually my folder structure on my server became crazy and unmanageble. The more time went on and the more changes I made the less I knew where the heck I was at with my site organization. After a year and a half I heard about CMS (Content Management Systems) and like most human beings I balked at having to change the way I was used to doing things. I held out a little longer and then one day (after I had spent a very late night editing my pages) I sucumbed to the suggestion. I began learning everything I could about CMS. It was a bit of a learning curve. Then I took the plunge and I began building my new site.
It was wonderful, and to this day, 4 years later, I can go to my original website and add new content in a matter of minutes. I never have to worry about where everything is because the CMS we use is so brilliant. I have peace of mind. That site http://www.whitewitch.ie gets great traffic and lots of sales.

So please, consider changing to a CMS if you don't have one, or if you are thinking of having a website built for the first time, don't be a fool and go the easy way the first time.

Good luck!

Online Colour Wheel-Useful Tools

Here is a very useful tool for web designers and graphic designers.

It's a colour wheel. Just hovering over the colour wheel will give you the codes in websafe and websmart. If you see a colour you like you can click on it and then you will see the colour in the box change. You will then be able to get varying shades of that colour. It also saves the last seven colours you clicked on so that you can build up a theme. Very easy to use and very handy.
Here is the URL: Colour Wheel

Using images on your website

Images add interest, colour and life to your website. the question is, where do you find suitable images to use? If you search images on Google you will find plenty, but you may run into problems if you use them on your website without permission. Flicker is a good place to start and some members actually want their images used, but you still have to ask and you always have to link back. You can scan books and use those images. This is slightly less risky but you should always mention the source. You can also use your own photos. This is an obvious choice, but make sure that the images are worthy of showing to the world. It will make your website look unprofessional to have poor quality images showing. If you sell products or you are constantly updating your site adding fresh content, like you are supposed to, then buying a good camera and learning how to use it is a worthwhile investment. Another great source of images is iStockphoto. You can create an account and buy credits using Paypal or your Credit Card. Images for the internet only cost 1 credit each. The photos on istock are always good quality and you can search for just about anything and get good results. You can even search for stuff like buttons and icons.
You will need an image editor to resize, crop or add copy to your images. Photoshop is the best around but you can use an open source (free) image editor such as the gimp.

Have Fun!

Loewen Media Webdesign Galway

More about choosing a domain name

In another Webdesign Galway Blog about choosing a domain name I mentioned that it is good to have the key words of your business in your domain name. This is for web crawlers who bring up websites with those key words when people search for them.

For example you might sell windows. You want to pick a domain name with windows as a key word, but windows.com and in fact windows anythingelse.com is taken so you might have to have something long winded and with slashes so that you have your key words. Something like best-windows-buy.com or something. It's easy to use something like this as a hyperlink on the computer because most of the time we cut and paste hyperlinks. Now imagine telling somebody that you have a website called www dot best slash windows slash buy dot com. It's long winded and not very memorable. The solution for this is to buy a second domain name and make that an alias. What this will mean is that on printed material and vocal advertising like word of mouth and the radio, you will have a shorter and more catchy name that doesn't even have to have key words in it. It could be www.seethroughme.com that's more memorable, easier to say and it looks better in print.
So the fun part is coming up with the two names (you can book as many relating domains as you want-the more the better, you can always sell them if you don't need them).
When going for the "webcrawler friendly domain name" you are choosing based on key words.
When going for the "people friendly domain name" you are choosing based on sound, memorability,appearance of the word(s).
When you have both domains hosted you can make the "people friendly domain name" the alias and the "webcrawler friendly domain name" the main site. Ask your webmaster to do this for you.

The bizarre and the feel good, websites with imagination!

Am I enjoying the bank holiday weekend in Galway...who me? Holiday? I am enjoying the prospect of the bank not opening tomorrow: ) I love not having to stick to a routine. That's why I work for myself designing websites. I find it difficult to stop working. Today was Sunday...I worked most of the day on website promotion. But that's how it goes. I enjoy my work, it's creative and at times challenging and I can diversify. That's what I love. Learning new things keeps me going. I could go on and on, but instead I'll share these gems with you...



You can drag the meal onto the kids plates. You can feed as many kids as you like. I couldn't stop!
This is Donate-a-meal.com.






This one is fun, a bit bizarre but fun none-the-less. Comeintothecloset.com

Here's an awesome website...

http://www.specialguest.tv/
This is one website that will keep you entertained.
Truly Inspiring.









http://www.bignothing.fr/

There's nothing and then there's the big nothing. Check this out....it's nothing really.

Loewen Media Webdesign Galway

Lowen Media

Is a static website good enough?

In today's world NO! It is believed that just having an online presence is enough. Having a static website means that you can direct your leads there so that they can check out what's on offer. It means that if someone types in your business name you will come up on a search engine. But these days that is not enough. While these are valid reasons to have a website they are not the ones that are going to make you new leads and bring you new business.
Lets take for example a person who is in the business of selling furniture. They have an online catalog/website that was launched two years ago and hasn't been updated since. The chances of their website coming up in a search engine when someone is searching for Furniture in their local area will be slim to none.
So that's why they need a website that is not static. A website that is dynamic and changes daily is the website that will come up on the first page of search engines provided that close attention has been paid to Meta descriptions and Keywords.
It is possible to change your website from a static to a dynamic site easily, if you like the look of your existing website but would like the power to be able to update yourself every day then Loewen Media Webdesign Galway offers this service for a very reasonable fee.